Many "progressive" social science types are committed to the belief that it's possible to "fix" inequality of outcome. Pinker's rejection of "blank slatism" threatens that belief. That's a big reason he's disliked.
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Does it say on my profile I'm a sociologist? I did study it though so have met a few. Well social forces are actually still very important and the big difference between sociologists and psychologists is that they attempt to address those problems
Well, of course social forces are important - but Pinker, and those of us who reject the blank slate idea, would never deny it. Lefty sociologists *do* routinely deny that individual differences are implicated in social inequality.
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maybe they do but the fact remains that what they want to see are changes in society for the reasons stated earlier wheraas psychology as a discipline appears to merely reinforce stereotypes and the status quo
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Okay, that might be true (though it probably has a lot to do with the fact that psychology's focus is more narrow), but it doesn't say a lot for the status of sociology as a science if its driven by a desire to change society.
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besides the genetics argument is far from proven
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and of course there are prominent figures on the left who don't believe in the blank slate - Noam Chomsky for example
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