I have read most of Steven Pinker’s new book, Rationality, and I came away disappointed. Other books on the topic are better. One aspect that annoyed me was Pinker’s political positioning. He says, in not so many words: Conservatives are stupid and anti-science
"One aspect that annoyed me was Pinker’s political positioning. He says, in not so many words:
Conservatives are stupid and anti-science
The academy is too much of a left-wing monoculture
But if conservatives are stupid and anti-science, why shouldn’t the academy be a monoculture?"
You could frame it another way: conservatives are stupid and anti-science because academy is a monoculture. I'm not saying I agree with the premise, but the two statements could make sense if you position the causality this way.
But I wonder if it really is true that conservatives are more anti science than liberals? Obviously impossible to measure, but even crudely it seems both have their blind spots.
The two non-COVID19 issues that show a partisan divide in "trusting the science" I can think of are climate change where liberals trust the science more and group differences/blank slate vs genetic determinism stuff where conservatives trust the science more.
On COVID19, perhaps liberals trust the science more on vaccines (now that a liberal is in office) and conservatives trust the science more when it comes down to the ambiguous effects of many NPIs.
Am I missing something that would drastically shift the balance here?
Re the 'lecture' syle, he does declare upfront that the book grew out of the lectures he was giving and the realization there was a wider appetite for the subject. I agree it doesn't read as easily as his previous books, but is still very important addition to the topic in that it will reach a wider audience and it lays out key aspects that can be further explored by others in future (eg how to get more people understanding and applying Bayseian reasoning). The associated BBC podcast he has done is excellent (particularly the recent one with Galef talking about the Scout Mindset).
Pinker’s “Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature” (the full title should always be noted) is indeed his best work for the lay public on these topics. I have long recommended the first 100 pages as a concise history of the preceding 50 years of academic conflict over socio-biology. His summary of E.O.Wilson’s treatment is a good one. However the greater part of the book is broadly political. In these matters, that has been his style; it remains his style. Nevertheless, that book stands out because at that moment Pinker stood on the threshold of a new era in the biological sciences boiling up out the labs. And having heard from colleagues working in those labs, he issued a plea to his fellow political travelers in social sciences and humanities to pay attention to the wave about to crash on their shore. I doubt that he imagined the response that has unfolded.
>>But if conservatives are stupid and anti-science, why shouldn’t the academy be a monoculture?
Presumably the answer is that (1) centrist, libertarian and more eclectic points of view aren't stupid and anti-science, so more of those should be included and (2) a stupid, anti-science body of views can be *correlated* with reasonable views on other topics that don't have much to do with science, so it may be worth having some anti-science conservatives in the academy despite their flaws.
I am not so sure that groups of people are likely to be more rational than individuals. It seems to me that the wisdom of crowds is largely overrated in many respects, perhaps not least because connected crowds are largely steered by a few individuals who are followed because they are appealing, not because they are logically consistent. The very poor performance of institutions seems to bear that out, and really the only question is whether the institutions doing badly is a recent phenomenon or a more standard one which we just didn't notice so much before.
What explains the vast difference in tone between Pinker in recent interviews and in his latest book? Initially I thought it might be catering to Hanania’s audience, which leans right, but he offers many criticisms of the left in his NYT interview.
Perhaps the circle of confidants who discussed the book with him and the institution that published it pushed him in the direction he ultimately took. This would speak to your point about the necessary role of sociality in promoting rationality.
I think the word you're looking for to describe Pinker's style of writing is "patronising".
"One aspect that annoyed me was Pinker’s political positioning. He says, in not so many words:
Conservatives are stupid and anti-science
The academy is too much of a left-wing monoculture
But if conservatives are stupid and anti-science, why shouldn’t the academy be a monoculture?"
You could frame it another way: conservatives are stupid and anti-science because academy is a monoculture. I'm not saying I agree with the premise, but the two statements could make sense if you position the causality this way.
But I wonder if it really is true that conservatives are more anti science than liberals? Obviously impossible to measure, but even crudely it seems both have their blind spots.
The two non-COVID19 issues that show a partisan divide in "trusting the science" I can think of are climate change where liberals trust the science more and group differences/blank slate vs genetic determinism stuff where conservatives trust the science more.
On COVID19, perhaps liberals trust the science more on vaccines (now that a liberal is in office) and conservatives trust the science more when it comes down to the ambiguous effects of many NPIs.
Am I missing something that would drastically shift the balance here?
Re the 'lecture' syle, he does declare upfront that the book grew out of the lectures he was giving and the realization there was a wider appetite for the subject. I agree it doesn't read as easily as his previous books, but is still very important addition to the topic in that it will reach a wider audience and it lays out key aspects that can be further explored by others in future (eg how to get more people understanding and applying Bayseian reasoning). The associated BBC podcast he has done is excellent (particularly the recent one with Galef talking about the Scout Mindset).
Pinker’s “Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature” (the full title should always be noted) is indeed his best work for the lay public on these topics. I have long recommended the first 100 pages as a concise history of the preceding 50 years of academic conflict over socio-biology. His summary of E.O.Wilson’s treatment is a good one. However the greater part of the book is broadly political. In these matters, that has been his style; it remains his style. Nevertheless, that book stands out because at that moment Pinker stood on the threshold of a new era in the biological sciences boiling up out the labs. And having heard from colleagues working in those labs, he issued a plea to his fellow political travelers in social sciences and humanities to pay attention to the wave about to crash on their shore. I doubt that he imagined the response that has unfolded.
>>But if conservatives are stupid and anti-science, why shouldn’t the academy be a monoculture?
Presumably the answer is that (1) centrist, libertarian and more eclectic points of view aren't stupid and anti-science, so more of those should be included and (2) a stupid, anti-science body of views can be *correlated* with reasonable views on other topics that don't have much to do with science, so it may be worth having some anti-science conservatives in the academy despite their flaws.
I am not so sure that groups of people are likely to be more rational than individuals. It seems to me that the wisdom of crowds is largely overrated in many respects, perhaps not least because connected crowds are largely steered by a few individuals who are followed because they are appealing, not because they are logically consistent. The very poor performance of institutions seems to bear that out, and really the only question is whether the institutions doing badly is a recent phenomenon or a more standard one which we just didn't notice so much before.
What explains the vast difference in tone between Pinker in recent interviews and in his latest book? Initially I thought it might be catering to Hanania’s audience, which leans right, but he offers many criticisms of the left in his NYT interview.
Perhaps the circle of confidants who discussed the book with him and the institution that published it pushed him in the direction he ultimately took. This would speak to your point about the necessary role of sociality in promoting rationality.