Clay Farris Naff
Sep 3, 2018 · 1 min read

Good article — gets my applause. Just want to add this gloss: Instincts are a good touchstone, but they aren’t entirely reliable. By the same token, people have all too often wrapped themselves in the mantle of science and spouted dangerous nonsense, but doesn’t mean that science is generally unreliable.

On the contrary, science is a way of gaining reliable knowledge, including knowledge about our instincts. We now know that many of our instincts evolved over hundreds of thousands of years (the era of evolutionary adaptation, or EEA). Maternal love stretches back many millions of years longer. But so does the instinct to hit our children — we can see it in our primate cousins. Given our verbal and reasoning skills, corporal punishment is virtually unnecessary and often harmful. (Violence begets violence.) To offer a contrasting example, no parent likes to see their child getting a shot, but to let that instinctive distress overcome the knowledge that injections can be lifesaving is a terrible mistake.

In sum, by all means apply skepticism to parenting-advice manuals and bring your feelings into play, but above all become a well-informed parent by seeking out a wide range of non-ideological, evidenced-based information.

    Clay Farris Naff

    Written by

    Science & Religion Correspondent, The Humanist magazine. Opinions expressed do not represent the views of any organization.