Incognito Argumentative Essay

One of the questions that have dominated the social sciences for more than three centuries is whether babies are born as a "blank slate.” According to this view, the mind of babies is like a white paper that lacks any idea or character. David Eagleman attempts to answer this question in his book, Incognito. Eagleman argues that babies are not blank slates, but are born with problem solving capabilities and have a sense of morality. Eagleman posits that the society and parents can help in development of a belief system, but they do not create one. Although babies my look helpless, they are born with specialized innate programs for reasoning about beliefs an motivations of others, social interactions,physical causality, and objects.

Immediately after birth, it is clear that babies are born with a brain that expects to see faces. Even babies who are less than ten minutes old will turn
Deaf babies babble in the same manner that hearing babies babble. Additionally, children from different countries babble the way even if they have been exposed to very different languages. This shows that the initial babbling, which is universal in both deaf and hearing children is preprogrammed from birth. If they were blank slates, the influence of language would lead to babies from different cultures to babble differently.

The mid-reading system, which refers to the group of mechanism that use the movement and direction of other individual's eyes to deduce what they know, want or belief is another example that refutes the blank slate theory. For instance, if another person abruptly gazes over another person's right shoulder, one immediately supposes that there is something interesting behind him or her. This mechanism is fully developed during early childhood. A condition like autism shows that these mechanisms are not learned because in babies suffering from the condition the system is