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lol

He thought bringing extremists into Harvard would inoculate the university from the extremists

it's probably even more boring than that, too. I'm guessing he's also a quiet "maybe women should focus on raising kids after all" type

"I claim no courage." Thanks buddy. We know.

"Those in power greedily lapped up the vomitus lies I spewed, because it reinforced their view of themselves as naturally deserving the power and influence they held."

“I take comfort in the fact that I’ve been well rewarded for telling powerful people exactly what they wanted to hear.”

“I prepared a detailed debate topic from a position of academic authority, and invited half-asleep undergrads selected because they are teacher-pleasers to contradict me off the cuff. DEBATE!”

"And for some reason, being an extraordinary bigot only endeared me to university leadership."

Oh dear

i get the impression that he spends his time thinking up rationalizations intended to justify oligarchy, this isn’t scholarship, it’s what right wing “think tanks” do, they start with a concept they believe in, irrespective of its objective validity, and spend years developing a plausible sophistry

Did the guy put a capital letter after a colon?

Pinker in a bespoke version of the hot dog guy suit with a Harvard tie around it

It would be nice if he included the observation that "True statements can be still used to create misunderstanding and to organize unjust attacks against others". Many of Pinker's assertions there are so vague that they could be trivially true or outright lies. If true, they imply strawman arguments

“Educational attainment is partly in the genes” lacks class consciousness so utterly that I don’t think this man should be teaching anyone in any kind of school.

It’s fascinating that he thinks the statement “cracking down on drugs has benefits” is edgy. Like yeah, I’m sure even “the purge” has its benefits.

bsky.app/profile/adam...

Long time Stephen Pinker hater here. Any org publishing this Epstein defender is deeply fucked up. #NYT

In 2009, returning to college as an adult in the field of psychology, I knew then what took the SCIENCE until 2021 to PUBLICLY admit the arguments I had with SOME professors… some studies and data were racist 🐂💩! Racists believe what they CHOOSE!!! www.psychiatry.org/news-room/ap...

I think nearly all of these things are wrong lol.

" trigger warnings do more harm than good" It's so funny for anyone who live through the ratings on television and music debate in the '90s. " Trigger warnings"... Are you opposed to ratings on movies, You dip s***?

Since Steve is such an iconoclast and truthteller, why hasn't he weighed in on one of his favorite things: having sex with children.

What the goddamn racist AI BS is this, NYT?

Pinker brainrot is at Humberman levels.

Question for all wannabe racists. Define a race. Your definition must be sufficiently broad to encompass all members of that race and exclude all persons not of that race.

Am I awake? What is HAPPENING?

Racism is in decline? Was this written by Stephen Miller?

This entire paragraph has no basis in reality. Imagine being a racist fuck idiot and thinking you're smart.

Pinker has been cozy with Sailer for quite a while

Citation needed

They are on a roll pxlnv.com/blog/america...

More proof that when racists conservatives say they believe in "freedom of speech" what they mean is to lie with impunity, and especially if that lie is designed to incite hatred. It's the age old "only we really know the truth".

Exactly what I expected from the NYT, tbh

From the people who hired Bari Weiss

Well, their job is to run cover for oligarchs in blue jerseys so it's not terribly surprising

it's kind of bizarre how racial classification still follows a "one drop rule" that predates the idea of genetics but people like this think of it as a *biological* phenomenon

NYT, the paper for fascists

No, it is not.

Wow! The @nytimes.com has gone full racist.

This reads like the most smooth-brained version of a Harper’s index thing

did you read the article it links to? it's explicitly anti-racist 👍

Holy fuck

Yeah, Pinker isn’t doing Harvard any favors with this idiocy.

Hi. Cancer researcher here. Race is a thing and it plays a huge role in how we screen, diagnose, and treat cancer patients on a daily basis. Always has, always will. Because, you know, race has a biological component. This concludes my Ted talk.

Race has no biological reality. It is only the phenotypic expression of ancestral origin. Race is a social construct! WTF NYT?!

What is this rightwing diatribe doing on NYT without it being a paid ad?

WTHF???

Steven Pinker, amiright.

'Race has some biological reality.' Is surely a statement of fact, consider our skin colours, features, hair type. They are biological differences we inherit but we are still all human & equal. It is not biological differences that divide some of us, it is fear of difference which creates prejudice.

Of course race has biological reality. It is a loaded statement. The question to ask is what biological reality is he talking about? Sickle cell anemia?

A dang old glass of water can do more harm than good, if you don't know how to use it.

He needs to go home. Sit down. Be quiet. Like that.

This is just a list that proves not everything is binary! I mean, duh! What are we doing? (Except the race thing, fuck that)

The upside is that they actually admit racism exists.

steven stinker

Everything about this is dumb, but even if you just focus on stuff like "educational attainment is partly in the genes"- yes, and? All you're really saying is that nature and nurture both matter. It's equivalent to saying "some days are hot". It's mindless drivel.

He’s thinking in circles — racism exists so effects of race are real so race is real and we should be racist.

Does Harvard also publish studies on how conservatives cherry pick bits from studies to warp their conclusions?

How many Europeans get sickle cell anemia

Pinker is a teh wah ah teh. Twat. Yaay phonics!

"race has some biological reality." 5 seconds later: "racism has been in decline."

NYT throw an unapologetically Marxist op-ed in once in awhile amongst your plethora of bigoted ones [challenge level: never]

The racist basis for the phony eugenics upon which fascist scapegoating relies. bsky.app/profile/core...

Cracking down on drugs has benefits in the same way that doughnuts are beneficial to dieting.

The more I see the products of a Harvard education, the more I’m inclined to think it’s just a diploma mill for the wealthy.

The story, carried in our blood, really is true. You, and I, in fact everyone, all over the world, we're all literally African, under the skin. Old fashioned concepts of race are not only socially divisive, but scientifically wrong. DR. SPENCER WELLS youtu.be/P6nEGfcwMNA?...

Yeah. *Population genetics* is based in biological reality. Africans and Europeans have different ancestry. But *race* is a social construct.

Racism is on the decline. Now here's why we should be more racist. Kay... 🫠 Wtf is wrong with people?

They have become a far right rag that is used to sanewash the most vile things ever & I’ve been saying this for 2+ years since they began going hard on lies on trans ppl (always canaries in the coal mine). They will only get worse & worse. The new Daily Mail. By design, by MAGA mgmt and owners.

I get what the author is trying to do, but the point of science is that each of these "truths" are contingent, nuanced, maybe time and context dependent.

There’s a huge asterisk on that “day to day life” claim because SOME people at Harvard are unsure if they we’ll be sent to a prison camp, denied access to resources and education

Found another one even though I keep thinking I’ll run out some day soon as I’ve had to say it so often since the end of Jan 2025…. WTAF?!?!!! NYT- really?!?!!! Do better. This is unbelievably racist.

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Studies have shown that if you’re bold enough to say something racist to a black person, be prepared for their strength to increase by at least 621%

"Marriage reduces crime" in the sense that cops let abusers run wild so long as they're married.

this whole paragraph is wild.

Well they are wrong about phonics, too. Phonics destroy comprehension.

Plus the @nytimes.com sucks ass. They failed America and they’re a rag

Wtf does that even mean?? These people pull this stuff from their asses

I marvel at the lack of self awareness of TENURED professor at Harvard w/r/t academic freedom and freedom of expression. There is no more chilling speech force within the University community than the untouchable tenured elite.

Satire is dead - ‘Race has biological reality’ and ‘racism is in decline’ in the same paragraph.

It’s a weird statement and obviously has the risk of racist interpretation without further qualification. So, to the person who wrote this: What does this sentence mean? To me, “biological reality” just means differences in skin pigmentation, hair character & colour - full stop.

Pinker is writing like he’s still on Quillette

A textbook example of reification has biological reality?

Also somewhat concerning that they don't understand the difference between correlation and causation, which seems to be what most of these claims. Having a piece of paper saying you're married is unlikely to be the reason marriage rates are allegedly associated with crime rates

If they have evidence of race having a biological basis they should bloody well tell us what this claimed evidence is... this is just a series of confirmation bias claims.

How can we tell if people are white?

Corey, The New York Times DID publish Steven Pinker’s silly claim, but it clearly labeled it “OPINION - GUEST ESSAY”. Far-right critics claim the Times doesn’t have enough diversity of viewpoint. You claim it has too much. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Everyone of these assertions requires a "What exactly the hell do you mean by that?"

There is a causal link between the genes for white skin, curly hair, a last name starting with the letter P and a tendency to be dense when getting paid to be dense.

He forgot to add- “you are the company you keep”

Yes, I learned in 1960s anthropology that "race" has no biological base. There are gene pools, but remembered when "Irish" was a race in America? Etc, etc, etc.

Wtf does any of this have to do with linguistics?

"Educational attainment is partially in the genes"? Sure pal Lumping that together with phonics and "marriage reduces crime" as all being "politically incorrect" topics is a straight up attempt to normalize eugenics and racism

Kind of shocking he didn’t drop a “perfidious Mahometan” in there

So glad that I stopped giving money to this rag.

We did not evolve different skin tones to be dicks to eachother.

My daily affirmation that canceling my subscription was an absolutely correct decision.

“…day to day life at Harvard,” you know, just day to day life, something we’ve all experienced, btw have you had brioche lately? lol what an out of touch racist.

I don’t understand why people are still reading or watching mainstream media.

Claims for the biological reality of race fail to (or refuse to) understand population genetics. Per Pinker’s “biological race” linked article, ancestry DNA testing can link some African-Americans to very distinct locations in West Africa. But not to East Africa. Same “race,” different genetics.

🌲 help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/art...

Race has some biological correlates. Ultimately race is a social category though. If you're thinking of it in biological terms, you're off.

"Africans were active in the slave trade" nobody's arguing they weren't you weird racist dildo, nobody was making others buy slaves, Africans generations ago certainly aren't to blame for choices you're making to be racist today, and the "really makes you think, huh" delivery is childish at best

“Cracking down on drugs has some benefits and legalising has some downsides” Harvard professor of 22 years discovers that different decisions have different outcomes, some you might like and some you might not.

The idea that phonics is controversial right now shows how completely out of touch with pedagogy as actually practiced.

Pinker's posturing (I will no longer call it a 'position') is most frustrating because he genuinely thinks his ideas are purely data-driven, not ideological. He doesn't acknowledge how his own assumptions frame the data, shaping what he presents as objective truth. His framing itself is ideological.

see also 'Marriage reduces crime'. Here the research states "We find that the desistance process tend to start up to several years before marriage" - so doing less crime makes you a more attractive marriage partner. Not the same at all. academic.oup.com/bjc/article-...

There’s … there’s just so much that is so deeply wrong … where would I even begin unpacking?!

I love how this turd neatly demonstrates how the dumbest guys alive don’t know what data is

With the right technology and social policy you could create or destroy almost any correlation been a gene and educational attainment. What are these people on?

Hugely excited for Pinker's villain arc. 👀

Any mention of cranial capacity yet?

For a moment I confused this with the other racism the NYT has been doing recently bsky.app/profile/jool...

the most important application i learned in my intro sociology class in state college was correlation is not causation, yet every one of these high minded tenured eugenics professors with their NYT best selling books seem to be granted the option, in print and action, to ignore this simple axiom.

It’s *almost* as if some of these libertarian idols were full of shit all along, and were hiding behind a veneer of respectability and intellectual rigour before Trump/Musk et al put a bunch of their sacred cows to the test and their masks fell off.

Chomsky must be so embarrassed by his links with Pinker, who seems to get further right wing with each passing year To anyone confused: Race does not have any biological reality Human variation has biological reality. That variation is continuous throughout the species.

📌

I don’t think that is the definition of racism. In fact, I’m confident it is not.

“Life is short. And there are much more pressing–and actually interesting–questions than ‘Are you less human than me?’” — Ta-Nehisi Coates

And they still won’t care that you’re calling them out 🙄

That person has led the most sheltered life I've ever witnessed in print - and I've read all the classic English novels.

That entire paragraph is a right wing boogeylist of what they think libs think about. For example, libs wouldn’t deny that Africans were involved in trans-Atlantic slave-trade, we just don’t think it gives the Confederacy a “pass” over the damn civil war (that they lost!)