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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.

And then after that all we need to do is add a trigger warning to the trigger warning of the trigger warning. That way people who are upset by trigger warnings about trigger warnings can have a trigger warning to be ready for the trigger warning about the trigger warning about the trigger warning.

Not at all, because to them ratings on movies were for restricting what their kids could learn from sources they disapproved of (good) whereas trigger warnings are a tool for reducing trauma for snowflakes (bad).

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.

"Has?"

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?!

The Times has been sucking up to Trump since he won the election. This isn't the only such garbage they've printed since November.

WTHF???

Steven Pinker, amiright.

Sad that years of study and discussion have still left Pinker ignorant of this.

The issue is that "race" involves a backwards theory of the difference. People see differences, attribute them to ancestry, and that's called race. The differences, including behavior and inequality, can be real or perceived, but there's no good evidence that most of them are causes by ancestry.

I think the counterpoint is that being the tail wagging the dog, race is defined around occurrences like that but not usefully predictive compared to just looking at those components and knowing which are heritable.

Saying "race has biological reality" is something racists say to excuse racism.

Andy, I have the feeling you are honestly inquiring, so I'll give a shot at an answer. I think the issue is with what the term "Race" refers to. In its inception (in imperialist / colonialist Europe), "race" referred to a comprehension of the people of the world falling into distinct categories...

*Crickets*

What are those differences that you speak of sir? Please list them?

Before we could do DNA sequencing, observable traits were the only metrics we had to understand ancestry. But they are bad metrics. No one is denying that humans are diverse in many observable ways, but using race in the genomics era is like saying vapors are real because bad air makes you sick.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whi...

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic mutation based on environment, not race, it affects all cultures who have been exposed to malaria for centuries including people from India, Greece and the Middle East, not just Africa. The mutation makes carries of the trait resistant to Malaria.

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

"Legalizing [drugs] has harms"? And it also has benefits. But you're leaving that part out to suggest that only one thing is true.

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

Hey, I think I just found why they're defunding the NIH: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

And that means... what, exactly?

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.

📌

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%

It's even stupider than that. It's from a study that showed that doing less crime makes you more appealing to romantic partners, so married people tend to do less crime and unmarried people tend to do more crime. Dude just straight up reversed the cause and effect while teaching at Harvard.

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

There are no post tenure reviews at Harvard and it’s nearly impossible to remove tenure for misconduct (you’re in more trouble for mistreating your mice than your postdocs). And of course white men continue to make up the majority of the tenured, as well as the council Pinker founded. SMH.

That jumped out at me also LOL

In the U.S., racial definitions have always worked to the benefit of white supremacy, whether they increase the number of people eligible for slavery, or decrease the number of those who might help constitute politically powerful indigenous groups.

There are obviously genetic differences in hair and skin. The problem is when you start assuming other biological characteristics are intrinsically linked to those visible characteristics.

Could you have a word with the UK Supreme Court?

I think it’s about how White guys are worried their penises are small 😇

I saw 3 posts and only after the last one, realized it was Steven Pinker who wrote this. And I know about his bigotry, sadly

He's relying on you, the good-faith reader, to react exactly how you did - eg: "Well, of course it's true that white people have a higher rate of blond hair than Hispanic people. How can anyone argue otherwise?" Now he has a better chance of getting you to agree with the lies that come next.

When you combine "race has some biological reality" with "educational achievement is partially in the genes" and "the heritability of intelligence", a fuller picture begins to emerge.

Yes, people are bigoted.

Yeah, I didn’t know that the semantics work this way, sorry

Those are the qualities from which race is derived, they do not derive from race

Which I only read later. The disadvantage of reading posts in the reverse order in which they were published

He's still on Quillette as of February. quillette.com/2025/02/04/s...

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?

Your point is an undefended middle ground fallacy, a call for moderation and an appeal to centrism when that mentality is precisely how we got here.