"[5] Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom endorsed the book in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, writing that it will have "an impact that extends well beyond the scientific academy".

[6][7] English philosopher A. C. Grayling wrote in Literary Review that "Pinker's case is convincing and cogent, and he does a service in presenting the arguments, and the associated scientific evidence, in such an accessible fashion.

[8] In 2017, Malhar Mali wrote a review of the book in Areo Magazine, expressing concern for what he sees as a revival of the blank slate view of human development.

Mali writes "it strikes me as troubling that there are still those of us who are willing to believe that it is mostly culture and society which shape the individual—and that by focusing only on fixing our systems can we alleviate human suffering", and that it is "concerning is that this book came out 15 years ago and yet we are still bogged down in the conversations that Pinker spent a considerable time in rebutting".

He wrote: "perhaps the most damaging weakness in books of the generic Blank Slate kind is their intellectual dishonesty (evident in the misrepresentation of the views of others), combined with a faith in simple solutions to complex problems.

"[15] Similarly, biologist Patrick Bateson criticized Pinker for focusing on refuting the belief that all human characteristics are determined by a person's environment.

Woolf actually wrote "On or about December 1910 human character changed," and she was writing about fiction, critiquing literary realism compared to the modernist movement.

[17] Overall, one survey found that those social scientists who described themselves as left-leaning were much less open to integrating evolutionary biology into their work in the ways that Pinker desired.