what does a tabula rasa mean in the context of modern science?

we are not literally born with empty brains, but what role genetics plays on our cognitive development is still a pretty open question, and there really isn't any evidence to actually support the premise that it plays a great role. i think it's important to kind of take a step back and ask the question what is a gene, actually and the answer is that it's an instruction set to code for the production of hormones. it's not some magical thing; it's something very concrete. it follows that what genetics can do is really limited to the production of hormones, and that the role that genetics may play in more complicated development questions is really limited to the role that the hormones may play. while hormones do inform questions of sexual identity, as well as perhaps of sexual orientation in some contexts, it's harder to understand how hormones might potentially alter cognitive development, except in terms of perhaps providing for a greater opportunity to build capacity (that is physically store learning opportunities) under the presence of certain nutritional pre-requisites. that is, maybe some people may be born genetically configured with more brain-building hormones. but, you still need to allow for experience to actually allow for those learning opportunities - it is still a tabula rasa, in the sense of knowledge that exists, even if there are genetic factors underlying how efficiently what exists can be stored.

the idea that you're born more intelligent than other people is consequently probably absolute nonsense, even if the idea that some people are born with a larger cognitive potential is not. that is properly understanding the role of genetics in the tabula rasa question, which is restricting the role of genetics to a set of questions that don't directly address it, but rather set up the necessity of actual learning for the implied system to function, anyways.

what about these ideas that language and whatnot are in-born? well, again, that doesn't actually address the question of tabula rasa. humans may have a region in their brain that deals specifically with language, but it needs to be input a language in order to function. so, pointing to the brain as possessing language processing capabilities does nothing to address the tabula rasa hypothesis.

rather, consider an infant raised alone, without the use of language. that would be cruel, and i doubt it's been done, but would that infant spontaneously learn the language of it's parents, with no contact to it? no. like all advanced mammals, the human needs to be taught the language. we don't need to do that experiment to know it's true, but we know that adopted children will learn the language they are taught, rather than spontaneously start speaking the language of their parents.

there is still no hard-wired language, then, even if there are hard-wired language abilities. but, it is the former question that informs the question of a tabula rasa, not the latter.

then, what is this language processing ability in that region in your brain? well, it's just an organ in your body like any other. your stomach seems to know what it's doing, but it's just operating on chemical instructions. ultimately, it's processing information from outside of the body in the way it was programmed to do. it's just the same thing for that part of your brain.

so, i want to separate between the realization that there are certain mechanical functions in your brain and the question of whether the mind is a blank slate, or not. one does not disprove the other, it merely puts bounds around how such a blank slate would operate.