Chapter 13: Mind Design Summary and Analysis

Chapter 13: Mind Design

Pinker states that he has done his best to convince the reader that there is, indeed, a language instinct. Pinker has done his best to present theories and arguments. Pinker refers to Jerry Fodor, a philosopher and experimental psycholinguist who discusses whether sentence parsing is a mental module or if it blends with general intelligence. Fodor takes a strong stance on relativism. (He hates it more than almost anything.)

The doctrine that underlies relativism is the Standard Social Science Model (SSSM). The idea was conceived in the 1920s, fusing together aspects of anthropology and psychology.

Pinker describes the SSSM and its alternative, often referred to as "biological determination." Pinker also refers to the work on SSSM by anthropologist Margaret Mead and psychologist John Watson. SSSM has achieved victory in the eyes of the educated...