Cognitive scientist at Harvard.
Boston, MA
Joined January 2010
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Wikipedia may be the Web's greatest accomplishment, but it is not infallible, and in several hot-button issues, it has been captured by activists. One of the most egregious is its rewriting of "Zionism" after 10/7: quillette.substack.com/p/how…
Steven Pinker retweeted
I will be lecturing, debating, and conversing with the audience in San Francisco on January 30th.
More information and tickets at pang-burn.com/tickets
Steven Pinker retweeted
New interview for Thinkable, with Iona Italia: Steven Pinker on What Happens When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows ... thinkablereview.substack.com…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Its handling of human intelligence is also a travesty: quillette.com/2022/07/18/cog…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Wikipedia may be the Web's greatest accomplishment, but it is not infallible, and in several hot-button issues, it has been captured by activists. One of the most egregious is its rewriting of "Zionism" after 10/7: quillette.substack.com/p/how…
Steven Pinker retweeted
"Steven Pinker: Why we pretend everyone is equal | Rak höger"
Me:
I think there is hope, and I think we may have just, just passed peak woke, although there were rather extreme manifestations of that in 2020 and 2021 after the George Floyd killing. It’s still a serious problem, and it’s got to be, simply because professors in the United States have tenure, and so they’re in their positions until they die or retire.
Ivar Arpi (@Ivarpi):
Or capital punishment.
Me:
Or capital punishment, yes.
So it turns over very slowly, and I think that the problem is that, in most universities, especially in the social sciences and humanities, there is a political monoculture on the left and an absence of political diversity. This is not a problem just in being unrepresentative, because there’s nothing that says that a university has to match the demographics of the society. But the problem is that, when there are legitimate hypotheses within a field that tend to be correlated with political ideology—and there are plenty of them—certain hypotheses just don’t get voiced, don’t get thought, don’t get taught. Certain criticisms never get made simply because everyone thinks the same way.
Steven Pinker retweeted
"Steven Pinker: Why we pretend everyone is equal | Rak höger": youtube.com/watch?v=xZ2XWboA…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Worth watching: "It is not a genocide; it is a counterattack in a war."
This should be pushed far and wide. Watched in every college class in the U.S. Thank you @billmaher The moral confusion is gross. "It is not a genocide, it is a counterattack in a war...Gaza equals genocide is a lie, an easily provable lie (as I have argued from first hand observations in Gaza). The fact that so many democrats go along with it is to me the party's worse moment since they undid reconstruction after the civil war...words have meaning...genocide, kill or try to kill an entire people, you can't just change the definition of genocide to mean counterattack in a war where people including civilians die, that's every war..."
Steven Pinker retweeted
It's always The End of History. Brilliant essay by Harry Seavy: "Ours is the decisive moment, and it is we who are alive to see it, to shape it, to place history on the tracks of what we make out of it. In this decade, as the winds of crisis whip around us—democracy, liberalism, AI, climate change—as we stand uniquely at the precipice, the very point at which things will either tip over into the abyss or be miraculously rescued from it, we face a moment the world has never seen before. Just like everyone else before us." quillette.com/2026/11/06/aft…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Why Men Die Younger Than Women, and Women Suffer More Pain open.substack.com/pub/steves…
Steven Pinker retweeted
In South Caroline to appear at the Charleston Literary Festival, where I'll chat on stage with Geoffrey Harpham about When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. charlestonliteraryfestival.c…
In South Caroline to appear at the Charleston Literary Festival, where I'll chat on stage with Geoffrey Harpham about When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. charlestonliteraryfestival.c…
Why Men Die Younger Than Women, and Women Suffer More Pain open.substack.com/pub/steves…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Once again, Quillette publishes a gorgeous, erudite essay making a point that no one else in the current hubbub is making.
It's always The End of History. Brilliant essay by Harry Seavy: "Ours is the decisive moment, and it is we who are alive to see it, to shape it, to place history on the tracks of what we make out of it. In this decade, as the winds of crisis whip around us—democracy, liberalism, AI, climate change—as we stand uniquely at the precipice, the very point at which things will either tip over into the abyss or be miraculously rescued from it, we face a moment the world has never seen before. Just like everyone else before us." quillette.com/2026/11/06/aft…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Have Universities Passed Peak Woke, @sapinker?
Listen to the whole interview: youtube.com/watch?v=xZ2XWboA…
Steven Pinker retweeted
Thank God it's Friday. At @TheFIREorg's Soapbox conference, listening to @sapinker and @JohnHMcWhorter discussing speech taboos over breakfast. Incredible conference.
Steven Pinker retweeted
Another great day begins at @TheFIREorg Soapbox conference with the amazing duo of @sapinker
& @JohnHMcWhorter on stage providing a history of swearing and taboo language!
It's fricking awesome.
"Steven Pinker: Why we pretend everyone is equal | Rak höger"
Me:
I think there is hope, and I think we may have just, just passed peak woke, although there were rather extreme manifestations of that in 2020 and 2021 after the George Floyd killing. It’s still a serious problem, and it’s got to be, simply because professors in the United States have tenure, and so they’re in their positions until they die or retire.
Ivar Arpi (@Ivarpi):
Or capital punishment.
Me:
Or capital punishment, yes.
So it turns over very slowly, and I think that the problem is that, in most universities, especially in the social sciences and humanities, there is a political monoculture on the left and an absence of political diversity. This is not a problem just in being unrepresentative, because there’s nothing that says that a university has to match the demographics of the society. But the problem is that, when there are legitimate hypotheses within a field that tend to be correlated with political ideology—and there are plenty of them—certain hypotheses just don’t get voiced, don’t get thought, don’t get taught. Certain criticisms never get made simply because everyone thinks the same way.
"Steven Pinker: Why we pretend everyone is equal | Rak höger": youtube.com/watch?v=xZ2XWboA…