3 ms·

I guess it's a subjective point but I think implying he's simply dumb or lazy is being uncharitable. I've also gone to a talk by Pinker and came away from it fr

I guess it's a subjective point but I think implying he's simply dumb or lazy is being uncharitable. I've also gone to a talk by Pinker and came away from it frustrated, but also deeply impressed. "The Language Instinct" is a brilliant example of science popularization and he speaks quite eloquently, I thought. That said, I do think that the further he strays from neuroscience and psychology, the more overconfident and shaky his claims seem to get. You could call it the Jared Diamond fallacy, a kind of high-brow cousin of the Dunning Kruger effect: scientists trained to be interdisciplinary who think that this training makes them competent historians as well. It doesn't. I've been thinking about writing a rebuttal to Pinker's main claims in this book and Better Angels but I think the job has already been done by a combo of this review from the humanities realm (David Bell is a superb historian of the French Enlightenment) and the issues raised by people well-versed in statistics, like Taleb, who I personally find deeply unappealing as a thinker but who nevertheless is clearly skilled at this sort of critique.

pron 9y ago
The Language Instinct is a book he wrote 25 years ago, back when he bothered writing about stuff he actually had a clue about. Jared Diamond, with all his faults, is head and shoulders above Pinker. He, too, provides an overarching, overconfident narrative, but at least he more-or-less knows what he's talking about and, most importantly, has something interesting to say. It is not surprising that historians at least consider his thesis something to think about, while Pinker is considered a sad joke, and is more talked-about as a phenomenon (of the uneducated popular intellectual) than for the inanities he spews.
- igravious 9y ago
  With respect, I think you're dead wrong. Pinker may be out of his depth when it comes to the bigger concepts but within the narrow constraints of materialism the data is incontrovertible. Pointing to a review written by Gray of Pinker's work when Gray is _explicitly_ in the camp which opposes the Polyannas of progress is bad sportsmanship. What you should be asking yourself is how we can synthesise a worldview that incorporates both optimists and pessimists. I wholeheartedly agree that more nuance is needed but I also think that Pinker has done an excellent job at framing one side of the debate. The fact that he thinks there is only one side of the debate only means that he has as hard a time as the rest of us taking in the enormous sweep of human history and science. I very much doubt you could write a decent rebuttal of either of his last two works.
  - pron 9y ago
    It's not about pessimists vs. optimists, but about the fact that 1. Pinker has obviously not read many of the works he criticises, and 2. he displays no ability at self-skepticism or any other quality that makes for interesting intellectual writing. His texts are thinly veiled propaganda (in his talks the veil is completely gone; they are long rants against intellectuals he clearly has not read) of the most boooooring kind. It's OK to have an opinion; it's not OK not to seriously study what it is that you're writing about (say, the Enlightenment), and it's not OK to write boring propaganda yet present yourself as a profound intellectual. He is shallow, unoriginal, boring and almost criminally unknowledgable.
    - igravious 9y ago
      > almost criminally unknowledgable Do yourself a favour and develop a sense of proportion.

pron 9y ago

The Language Instinct is a book he wrote 25 years ago, back when he bothered writing about stuff he actually had a clue about. Jared Diamond, with all his faults, is head and shoulders above Pinker. He, too, provides an overarching, overconfident narrative, but at least he more-or-less knows what he's talking about and, most importantly, has something interesting to say. It is not surprising that historians at least consider his thesis something to think about, while Pinker is considered a sad joke, and is more talked-about as a phenomenon (of the uneducated popular intellectual) than for the inanities he spews.

igravious 9y ago
With respect, I think you're dead wrong. Pinker may be out of his depth when it comes to the bigger concepts but within the narrow constraints of materialism the data is incontrovertible. Pointing to a review written by Gray of Pinker's work when Gray is _explicitly_ in the camp which opposes the Polyannas of progress is bad sportsmanship. What you should be asking yourself is how we can synthesise a worldview that incorporates both optimists and pessimists. I wholeheartedly agree that more nuance is needed but I also think that Pinker has done an excellent job at framing one side of the debate. The fact that he thinks there is only one side of the debate only means that he has as hard a time as the rest of us taking in the enormous sweep of human history and science. I very much doubt you could write a decent rebuttal of either of his last two works.
- pron 9y ago
  It's not about pessimists vs. optimists, but about the fact that 1. Pinker has obviously not read many of the works he criticises, and 2. he displays no ability at self-skepticism or any other quality that makes for interesting intellectual writing. His texts are thinly veiled propaganda (in his talks the veil is completely gone; they are long rants against intellectuals he clearly has not read) of the most boooooring kind. It's OK to have an opinion; it's not OK not to seriously study what it is that you're writing about (say, the Enlightenment), and it's not OK to write boring propaganda yet present yourself as a profound intellectual. He is shallow, unoriginal, boring and almost criminally unknowledgable.
  - igravious 9y ago
    > almost criminally unknowledgable Do yourself a favour and develop a sense of proportion.