Steven Pinker

Steven Arthur Pinker , a Canadian linguist, psychologist, and notable atheist, has written both academic and popular books on his areas of special interest. In 2003 he became Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.Curriculum Vitae: Steven Pinker Steven Pinker (archived from July 15, 2017). He has become known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and of the computational theory of mind.
His book The Language Instinct (1994) popularized Noam Chomsky's theory that language is an innate faculty of mind, and to that he added that this faculty evolved by natural selection, improving human abilities to communicate.For an opposite view, see Evans' book.
 The Blank Slate (2002) is a polemic against human exceptionalism, arguing against the "blank slate" hypothesis that the entire human personality is acquired through socialization and environmental conditioning, the "noble savage" belief that all human capacity for vice, violence, and crime is similarly learned from a morally corrupt environment, and that there is a "ghost in the machine", a mind or soul that is separate from the brain. The Better Angels Of Our Nature (2011) makes the case that violence has decreased as humans adopt more complex social organizations, improve communications, and build networks of trade, and that the perception that we live in an unusually violent time rather than a remarkably peaceful one exemplifies confirmation bias.
Pinker received the 2013 Richard Dawkins Award from the with Dawkins calling him a "personal hero".Atheist Alliance of America 2013 National Convention: Steven Pinker (September 04, 2013 03:51AM GMT) Richard Dawkins.
In 2018, Pinker was described by Bari Weiss as an enhancement to the Intellectual Dark Web:
==Political correctness gone mad==
Pinker gave a short speech regarding political correctness, for the Koch-funded Unsafe Space TourHow US billionaires are fuelling the hard-right cause in Britain George Monibot (December 7, 2018) The Guardian and how making inconvenient or uncomfortable facts unsayable can lead some people to be a bit more vulnerable to the alt-right.Political Correctness is Redpilling America (Jan 2, 2018) YouTube. The alt-right seized on a short clip of him saying "the often highly literate, highly intelligent people who gravitate to the alt-right". 
According to some, he got the condemnation of the left due to social media like Twitter being terrible for context. Progressive biologist P. Z. Myers did not agree with that assessment, and posted a condemnation of Pinker on his blog, entitled If you ever doubted that Steven Pinker’s sympathies lie with the alt-right.If you ever doubted that Steven Pinker’s sympathies lie with the alt-right P. Z. Myers (January 9, 2018) Pharyngula
Jesse Singal defended Pinker in the New York Times.Social Media Is Making Us Dumber. Here’s Exhibit A. by Jesse Singal (Jan 11, 2018) The New York Times. Myers also responded to Singal.Steven Pinker and the New York Times are making us dumber P. Z. Myers (January 12, 2018) Pharyngula
Pinker's book Enlightenment Now, where he claims the left has been captured by "identity politicians, political correctness police, and social justice warriors", was criticized for mischaracterizing left politics.The World's Most Annoying Man by Nathan J. Robinson (May 29, 2019) Current Affairs 
Ironically, in Enlightenment Now, he claims that there has been a decline in racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes since 2004 (which he attempts to prove by looking at Google search statistics), and uses this as an example of the growing civilization, rationality, and greatness of modern society — despite the fact that he now seems to want to relax some social restrictions on what is unacceptable. This suggests that Pinker recognises these jokes are the same thing as inconvenient or uncomfortable facts. Jeremy Lent says, "Pinker seems to view all ethical development from prehistory to the present day as 'progress,' but any pressure to shift society further along its moral arc as anathema."
==Criticism==
Pinker has been called "The World's Most Annoying Man," by journalist and social activist Nathan J. Robinson. Robinson's criticism is in part that Pinker is a Pollyanna who downplays problems like climate change, white supremacy, or unregulated capitalism, expecting that things will just sort themselves out. His status as a friend and associate of the rich and powerful, including frequently-expressed mutual admiration with Bill Gates, praise by Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Clinton, and attendance at rich boys' summer camp Bohemian Grove have led to criticism that he is a stooge of the super-rich; Pankaj Mishra called him a member of the "intellectual service class" who provide intellectual justification and boosterism to the elite. called Enlightenment Now "embarrassingly feeble … a parody of Enlightenment thinking at its crudest … a therapeutic manual for rattled rationalists".
He has been criticized by Jeremy Lent for his charts, arguing that he cherry picks time-frames and charts that will make everything look like things have always been improving while ignoring bad things."Steven Pinker’s Ideas About Progress Are Fatally Flawed. These Eight Graphs Show Why." by Jeremy Lent (May 17, 2018) Patterns of Meaning. Pinker has also been criticized for mischaracterizing history and spreading misinformation and perpetuating colonialist and Eurocentric narratives about progress and history.Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature” Debunked by Spencer McDaniel (July 24, 2020) Tales of Time Forgotten.
The historian of science Evelyn Fox Keller notes that Pinker conflates technical heritability (the contribution of genetic difference to trait difference within a specific environment) with the more colloquial meaning of 'heritability', which is that something is genetically determined.The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nurture by Evelyn Fox Keller (2010) Duke University Press. ISBN 082239281X. His confusion over the science may be one of the reasons he has found himself lumped with proponents of race science, such as Charles Murray.The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’ by Gavin Evans (Mar 2, 2018) The Guardian.
He has also been accused of racism for his comments on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment which he called, "a one-time failure to prevent harm to a few dozen people", suggesting that institutional medicine had never been racist apart from that one time. The historical record tells a different and darker story of how "racist policy and practice have also been integral to the historical formation of the medical academy in the USA".Reckoning with histories of medical racism and violence in the USA by Ayah Nuriddin, Graham Mooney, Alexandre I R White (October 03, 2020) The Lancet 396(10256):949-951. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32032-8
Pinker has been criticised for his closeness to white supremacist eugenicist Steve Sailer. He was criticised for using data from Sailer's blog, and acknowledged and criticised Sailer's racism, claiming that while Sailer was racist, his data was not. But in addition he published an essay by Sailer in a 2004 book, and has a quote from Sailer praising his work on his website.
===Recurring themes===
====Both ways====
Critics claim Pinker likes to have things "both ways" especially when it comes to evolutionary psychology:
* Stephen Jay Gould: "Which claim does Pinker want to make: that pluralism reigns in evolutionary psychology (and I characterized the field unfairly), or that adaptationism reigns as a synonym for “evolutionary reasoning” (and my warnings are sterile)? He can’t have them both."[Evolutionary Psychology: An Exchange] Stephen Jay Gould (October 9, 1997) New York Review of Books
* Jesse Prinz: "In his earlier books, Pinker tries to have it both ways. "Words and Rules" also charts a middle ground, this time between patterns and precepts, and may prove equally controversial as a result. It won't explain why we fall in love, but it will explain why "fall" becomes "falled" in children's past tense. Perhaps this mundane mystery reveals as much about who we are."STEVEN PINKER CONTINUES TO INVESTIGATE THE MYSTERIES OF LANGUAGE Jesse Prinz (November 21, 1999) Chicago Tribune
* Kenan Malik: "The primatologist Frans de Waal suggests in his book The Ape and the Sushi Master that thinkers like Pinker "want to have it both ways: human behaviour is an evolutionary product except when it is hard to explain."Human conditions Kenan Malik (October 19, 2002) Prospect
* Louis Menand: "Having it both ways is an irritating feature of "The Blank Slate." Pinker can write, in refutation of the scarecrow theory of violent behavior, "The sad fact is that despite the repeated assurances that 'we know the conditions that breed violence,' we barely have a clue," and then, a few pages later, "It is not surprising, then, that when African American teenagers are taken out of underclass neighborhoods they are no more violent or delinquent than white teenagers." Well, that should give us one clue. What Comes Naturally Louis Menand (November 17, 2002) The New Yorker
* H. Allen Orr: "Too often, data are skimpy, alternative hypotheses are neglected, and the entire enterprise threatens to slip into undisciplined storytelling. (One of the worst examples comes from Pinker himself. His popular piece on two cases of middle-class neonaticide is a nearly data-free account that comes perilously close to parody.) Concerns about rigor are surely the leading worry about evolutionary psychology among working biologists. Ask a molecular geneticist who’s skeptical of Darwinian psychology to explain why. You won’t hear that the slate is blank; you’ll hear about “soft science.” In the end, evolutionary psychology wants to have it both ways. It longs after the prestige of hard science but hopes to be held to a lower standard of rigor than, say, molecular biology. The important distinction we’re left with is the weak vs. strong one that Pinker blurs. One can admit that the slate isn’t blank without buying Darwinian psychology."Darwinian Storytelling H. Allen Orr - review of The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker (February 27, 2003) New York Review of Books
* Richard McKay Rorty: "When it became empirical and experimental, (science) lost both its metaphysical pretensions and the ability to set new ends for human beings to strive for. It gained the ability to provide new means. Most scientists are content with this trade-off. But every so often a scientist like Pinker tries to have it both ways, and to suggest that science can provide empirical evidence to show that some ends are preferable to others."Philosophy-envy Richard McKay Rorty (Fall 2004) Daedalus
* Jason Walsh: "So, Pinker seems to want to have it both ways, being particularist one minute and universal the next. As a result, his attempts to show that we live in the best times ever, he does so in quite unconvincing terms."There’s more to progress than biology Jason Walsh (January 27, 2012) Spiked
====Blithe====
Critics have used the term "blithe" in reference to Pinker:
* Andrew Fiala: "Indeed, Pinker claims that there is a correlation between Presidential IQ and deaths in war. According to Pinker, smarter presidents wage fewer wars and produce fewer wartime casualties. Such a blithe conclusion should be taken with a grain of salt, since it assumes that presidents wage war in a vacuum without the input of the military or the cooperation of foreign allies."Democracy, education diminish our cruelty Andrew Fiala (January 28, 2012) Andrew Fiala blog
* Andrew Sprung: "Note that blithe parenthetical crediting of recent American and European use of force as instances of moral reasoning at its highest. Sometimes they are. I am not one to dispute that the western-developed values and practices of democracy, rule of law and human rights are the worst possible forms of social organization, except for all the alternatives. Yet there is something off-putting about Pinker's chauvinism."Love vs. reason, or Martin Luther King vs. Steven Pinker Andrew Sprung (January 20, 2014) XPostFactoid
* David A. Bell: "Pinker dismisses concerns about rising economic inequality with the blithe assertion that inequality matters less than actual levels of income and comfort."The PowerPoint Philosophe David A. Bell (April 2, 2018) The Nation
* David Runciman: "What drives people mad about Pinker’s argument is his blithe assurance that liberalism is the default mode of modernity. He is so smug, so condescending, so sure he is on the right side of history." Fatalism, Freedom, and the Fight for America’s Future David Runciman (March 16, 2018) Boston Review
* Tim O'Neill: "Technology and commerce will find solutions, so don't worry", is effectively Pinker's blithe assurance there. "Tim O'Neill's Reviews > The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence Tim O'Neill (August 11, 2022) Good Reads
* David Herman: "He started writing polemical pieces on contemporary thinkers like Fukuyama, John Rawls and Steven Pinker. At a time when these American thinkers were flying high, Gray was a dissenting voice. He disagreed with the blithe optimism of Pinker and Fukuyama..." Prophet of the end of liberalism David Herman (April17, 2023) The Critic
==Things can only get better==
One of his most controversial claims, made in The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) and Enlightenment Now (2018), is that we live in an age of unparalleled peace, and that violence is on a steady decline which will continue as humans become more civilized and peaceable. There is certainly some evidence to support this, such as the rise in life expectancy across the world over the past 200 years (though this is mostly attributable to modern medicine), although even then it is unclear if Pinker correctly explains why this happened.
When asked what he means by violence, he refuses to describe it exactly, saying:
How do you define “violence”? I don’t. I use the term in its standard sense, more or less the one you’d find in a dictionary (such as The American Heritage Dictionary Fifth Edition: "Behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury.") In particular, I focus on violence against sentient beings: homicide, assault, rape, robbery, and kidnapping, whether committed by individuals, groups, or institutions. Violence by institutions naturally includes war, genocide, corporal and capital punishment, and deliberate famines.Frequently Asked Questions about The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker, StevenPinker.com.
He really loves making lists, with Four Better Angels cited as the parts of human nature that are forces for good: empathy, self-control, moral sense, and reason. He explains the change as due to 5 historical processes:
* The modern nation-state, which claims the monopoly on force and supersedes personal revenge
* Commerce, creating increased dependency on others
* Feminization, increased respect for women's rights
* Cosmopolitanism, leading to increased understanding of others
* Rationalism, increased belief in rational methods of problem-solving rather than violence as a tool
Some of these are mainstays of modern liberal thought, such as the idea that commerce promotes peace (similar to Thomas Friedman's Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention); the rise of rationalism is the mainstay of modern science and classical liberalism (although links between rationalism and a peaceful, happy society are contestedDialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments by Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno (1947/2002) Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804736324.).
There are various issues with his central thesis that violence is decreasing (and that it will continue to do so). As mentioned, he isn't clear about what he means by violence, which seems to exclude various forms of coercion and destructive behavior. His views seem to reflect a particular historical and cultural perspective: violence depends very much on whether you're living in a middle-class suburb in a low-crime western democracy, or a Middle Eastern refugee camp. Germany has seen far fewer wars in the last 70 years than at any other time in its history, but the same may not be true of Yemen.
A number of specific criticisms have been raised:
* Is war really declining? Pinker has shown a graph that seems to demonstrate a decline in the number of wars in the past 70 years. However Nassim Nicholas Taleb attacked this suggestion, claiming that major wars are rarer in history, maybe every 100 years, and therefore we simply do not have enough data: Pinker is basing his optimism on a statistical blip.This fascinating academic debate has huge implications for the future of world peace by Zack Beauchamp (May 21, 2015, 12:20pm EDT) Vox.
* Questionable historical sources, which make it hard to assess how violent the distant past was. Spencer McDaniel questioned his knowledge of the ancient and medieval world, with historians still debating how violent hunter-gatherer societies were. McDaniel particularly criticised "Pinker’s extensive and largely uncritical reliance on a small number of unreliable sources and works of outright fiction" as historical sources; Homer's Iliad is probably not an accurate manual on Greek culture or warfare.
* Lack of concern about impending eco-catastrophe: Pinker dismisses worries that increasing global warming will result in more death and conflict, suggesting that we'll all be fine thanks to technology. Violence against the environment (e.g., global deforestation and overfishing, the ongoing anthropogenic extinction level event) does not meet his definition of violence.
* Obvious violence replaced by more subtle forms of coercion. Pinker notes that improvements have been made in civil rights in the US over the past 200 years, noting a decline in racist violence through the 20th century and beyond. However this ignores other continuing forms of repression such as the prison industrial complex.
* Who is responsible? He seems to believe that the cause of this improvement in peace and civility is down to centrist capitalist influences from sensible liberals and center-right leaders, not left-wing radicals, despite the fact that many figures such as Thomas Paine or the Suffragettes were treated with less than respect by the moderates of their era, even if they didn't die violently. John Gray has noted that Pinker ignores all the bad things about capitalism and associated ideas such as social Darwinism, and seeks to blame every bad thing in history on anti-Enlightenment and "irrationalist" thinking.Unenlightened thinking: Steven Pinker’s embarrassing new book is a feeble sermon for rattled liberals, John Gray, New Statesman, Feb 22, 2018
* Innate human qualities. One of the central themes of Pinker's thought across linguistics, sociology, and history is his belief in a common, innate, immutable human nature, that includes his "four better angels" (empathy, self-control, moral sense, and reason). However, while there is evidence that some moral sense is innate, there is also a evidence that there are limits to innate morality (with other instincts such as tribalism also innate), and moral sense at minimum requires development rather than blossoming without nurture.Is Humanity's "Moral Sense" Inherited or Nurtured? by Darcia F. Narvaez (January 22, 2017) Psychology TodayAs Babies, We Knew Morality by Emily Esfahani Smith (Nov 18 2013, 11:00 AM ET) The Atlantic.
* What is the end-point of Pinker's rationalism? Is it necessarily human-rights-based democracy, with all its flaws and conflicts, or some kind of 'rationalist' dictatorship like that of China?
*Pinker seems to take capitalism for granted, without analyzing or acknowledging the oppressive structures that enable capital in the first place, including neocolonial influences in the global south that no matter how much "progress" is made will continue to ensure an unequal relationship between colonizing powers in the global north and their colonial clientele in the global south. Pinker may be right about "commerce" encouraging dependency however, as neocolonialism has more or less made the global south reliant on the global north.The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on neocolonialismAn explanation of dependency theory A good example of this is clothing, in Africa clothing donations from the global north have pretty much destroyed any chance of a native African textile industry from growing and prospering. Why set up a textile business when the market is being constantly inundated with free clothing?Smilak NR, Putnam RF. A Critique of Colonialism and Modern Aid in Africa: What Would Skinner Say? Behav. Soc. Iss. 2022;31(1):252–71. doi: 10.1007/s42822-022-00093-3. Epub 2022 May 4. PMCID: PMC9067341. Another example would be how the Global North exploits the fisheries of the Global South, often illegally. This deprives the fishermen of the Global South of their livelihoods and contributes to the migrant crisis.https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/world/africa/14fishing.html
==Association with Epstein==
Pinker has been criticized for his association with recently infamous pimper of children and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, accepting transportation to TED Talks on Epstein's plane and appearing in a photograph with Epstein and Lawrence Krauss.Pinker, Epstein, Soldier, Spy by Colleen Flaherty (July 17, 2019) Inside Higher Ed.Lawrence Krauss, Steven Pinker and Jeffrey Epstein have an odd relationship that provides insight into the relationship between the institutions of science, the movement of capital, the profit motive and science funding. Long thread incoming. by Nathan Oseroff-Spicer (07:56 - 10. Apr. 2019) Twitter (archived from July 9, 2019). When Epstein was indicted for sex crimes in 2006, Pinker testified as a linguist for the defense. Pinker was asked by his friend Alan Dershowitz to opine "on the precise meaning of a federal law about using the internet to entice minors into prostitution or other illegal sex acts."Jeffrey Epstein's First Criminal Case Was Helped By A Famous Harvard Language Expert by Peter Aldhous (July 12, 2019, at 7:41 p.m. ET) Buzzfeed News.How a Famous Harvard Professor Became a Target Over His Tweets: The outcry over free speech and race takes aim at Steven Pinker, the best-selling author and well-known scholar. by Michael Powell (July 15, 2020) The New York Times.
In August 2020, Pinker's Twitter account subsequently began blocking other accounts referencing Pinker's relationship with Epstein.Harvard’s Steven Pinker is apparently blocking people who mention his connection to Epstein by Eilish O'Sullivan (August 27, 2020) Daily Dot.Free Speech Crusader Steven Pinker Blocking Anyone Mentioning His Epstein Ties by Edward Ongweso Jr (August 28, 2020, 11:24am) Vice. At first it was thought that he was using automated scripts, but in an email response to Vice Motherboard, he stated that a colleague had notified him of his feed as being The colleague then, according to Pinker, 
==Colin McGinn==
He defended philosopher after McGinn was accused of sexual harassment by a student. After McGinn resigned his tenured position and set up a consultancy firm on "business ethics", Pinker signed on as an adviser to the firm, saying McGinn had already been punished too severely and defending his involvement, "It was basically a favour to him, a gesture of friendship with no consequences."Pinker’s progress: the celebrity scientist at the centre of the culture wars by Alex Bladsel (September 28, 2021) The Guardian.A Star Philosopher Falls, and a Debate Over Sexism Is Set Off by Jennifer Schuessler (August 2, 2013) New York Times.
==Hereditarianism==
Although Pinker has said "racism is not just wrong but stupid,"https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/28/steven-pinker-celebrity-scientist-at-the-centre-of-the-culture-wars for many years now he has been defending, praising and promoting advocates of hereditarianism such as Linda Gottfredson,https://ghostarchive.org/archive/MpNTb Emily Willoughby,https://ghostarchive.org/archive/t5kFv and Razib Khanhttps://web.archive.org/web/20060822210224/https://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/07/10-questions-for-steven-pinker.php and even outright racists such as Steve Sailerhttps://www.businessinsider.com/gladwell-steven-pinker-got-his-data-from-a-racist-2009-11 and Richard Hanania.https://theracket.news/p/hananias-defense
Pinker has published in hereditarian Quillette,https://quillette.com/2022/07/01/science-and-civil-liberties-the-lost-lecture-of-carl-sagan/https://quillette.com/author/steven-pinker/ calling it "a gust of fresh air".https://ghostarchive.org/archive/n8z1Q
Pinker has attended four conferences of the International Society for Intelligence Research.https://isironline.org/past-conferences/albuquerque-2015/https://isironline.org/past-conferences/montreal-2017/https://isironline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISIR2022_program_web.pdfhttps://isironline.org/2023/01/isir-2023-berkeley-california-july-26-29/
===The Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence ===
Pinker has promoted the Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligencehttps://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/papers/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf hypothesis.https://newrepublic.com/article/77727/groups-and-geneshttps://web.archive.org/web/20060112054854/https://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html In 2018 he admitted is was "still unproven",https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PhaDoIcNpVgJ:https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/987001846832271367%3Flang%3Den&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari but has claimed it was "thorough and well argued"https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/researchers-say-intelligence-and-diseases-may-be-linked-in.html and in a speech he gave entitled "Jews, Genes and Intelligence" Pinker reveals his confidence in the hypothesis, in Gregory Cochran as an authority, in the claim that race is biological, and that any disagreement with hereditarianism is the result of pure emotion and in defiance of reality:
The science behind the hypothesis has been criticized by anthropologist R. Brian Fergusonhttps://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1eed/b19bcf7c059a4b10a9ed8c58027d9ed22bae.pdf and geneticist Adam Rutherford.
There's no evidence that Pinker has ever acknowledged scientific objections, and when Bret Stephens referenced the "still unproven" speculation about Ashkenazi Intelligence in a New York Times opinion piece in 2020, and then the reference was removed after an outcry, Pinker as well as Jonathan Haidt, Pamela Paresky and Nadine Strossen screamed "Orwellian" censorship.https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/05/14/bret-stephens-new-york-times-outrage-backlash-256494?cid=apn
===Steve Sailer===
Pinker's connection to Sailer is of special interest. Pinker gave an interview to Sailer in 2002https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2002/10/30/QA-Steven-Pinker-of-Blank-Slate/26021035991232/ and in 2004, Pinker included an article by Sailer, "The Cousin Marriage Conundrum", in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing".https://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Science-Nature-Writing/dp/B000A17700 In the article, Sailer contended that Iraqis were too inbred to achieve democracy. In his introduction to the book, Pinker wrote:
In an exchange of letters, Malcolm Gladwell pointed out that Pinker had used Sailer for data. Sailer, Gladwell noted, "...is perhaps best known for his belief that black people are intellectually inferior to white people.""https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/books/review/Letters-t-LETSGOTOTHET_LETTERS.html and said:
In his response, Pinker displayed his hereditarian sympathies by citing the Linda Gottfredson-initiated defense of The Bell Curve:
But Mainstream Science on Intelligence has issues, per Southern Poverty Law Center:
Sailer has testified to his influence over Pinker.https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7osQAS6WL7c/XLkmJeSXtqI/AAAAAAAALHA/xf5Pl6bvGY871XNlXHkGM84aZyaRcoS-wCLcBGAs/s320/steve_pinker.pnghttps://unz.com/isteve/im-now-art/#comment-1701342
====Pinker's changing views====
Sailer has testified to Pinker's movement from evolutionary psychology to race-oriented sociobiology. In 2002 Sailer wrote:
Note: Sailer is not mentioned by name in The Blank Slate.
In the comments section of Crooked Timber in 2009, Sailer wrote:
Sailer took explicit credit for Pinker's changing views in 2002 on his Unz Review blog, writing: "...the evolutionary psychology party line, handed down by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, which Steven Pinker enthusiastically summed up as "differences between individuals are so boring!" (I’ve since managed to persuade Steve that differences between individuals are a tiny bit interesting.)"the Human Biodiversity Reading Club: I Thought I... Steve Sailer (April 1, 2002) iSteve - Unz Review
David Lubinski acknowledges Pinker's changing views when he interviewed Pinker for the "ISIR Distinguished Contributor Interview" at the 2017 conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research:
===Support for Richard Hanania===
Pinker appears to have a friendly, supportive relationship with Richard Hanania. Pinker gave an interview to Hanania in 2021Richard Hanania's Newsletter Substack retrieved September 23, 2024 and promoted Hanania on Twitter the same year.Scott Alexander & Richard Hanania, 2 of the most original commentators writing today Steven Pinker Twitter/X retrieved September 23, 2024 Even after the extent of Hanania's extreme racist activities was publicized, Pinker continued to subscribe to Hanania on X.Subscriptions Steven Pinker Twitter/X retrieved September 23, 2024
==Publications==
Here are some of his books.
* The Language Instinct (1994) ISBN 978-0-06-097651-4
* How the Mind Works (1997) ISBN 978-0-393-31848-7
* The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002) ISBN 978-0-670-03151-1
* The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (2004) ISBN 978-0670063277
* The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011) ISBN 978-0-670-02295-3
* The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century (2014) ISBN 978-0670025855
* Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018) ISBN 978-0525427575
* Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (2021) ISBN 978-0525561996
==Further reading==
* ISBN 9781633882935
*
*
==External links==
* Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers — TED Talk
* Steven Pinker's ideas are fatally flawed - Jeremy Lent
*Pinkerite: Steven Pinker, the Intellectual Dark Web and Race Science — N. G. McClernan's anti-Pinker, anti-IDW blog
*In ‘Rationality,’ Steven Pinker Sticks Up (Again) for Reason’s Role in Human Progress - The New York Times
==Notes==
==References==
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