The final section of the book is about various “Hot Button” topics: politics, violence, gender, children, and the arts. These chapters show how the doctrines of the blank slate, the noble savage, and the ghost in the machine have been imagined to ‘explain’ or justify such behaviors, why they are wrong, and how the understanding of evolutionarily derived human nature can better account for the reality of our behaviors.
I’ll summarize less than in previous post, and perhaps sprinkle some bolds in to highlight key points. And spread these last few chapters over several posts.
Earlier posts about this book: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5.
Part V: Hot Buttons
Here we have topics where people debate but rarely change their minds when their arguments are refuted. Typically these are the issues that divide liberals and conservatives. Many of these topics hinge on empirical questions in biology or psychology; but instead of changing minds, people are apt to suppress the facts and cling to what they hold sacred. Often there is common ground, and disagreements are matters of emphasis.
–Ch16, Politics
