Steven Pinker on Rationality, Psychology, Language, & More | Steven Pinker on The Origins Podcast

On this episode of The Origins Podcast, experimental psychologist, Steven Pinker shares an excellent conversation with Lawrence Krauss. Steven and Lawrence cover a variety of topics, including rationality, evolutionary psychology, and language.
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” Steven Pinker was Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for the New York Times, the Guardian, and other publications. His twelfth book, to be published in September 2021, is called Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.
You can show your support and access exclusive bonus content at / originspodcast
The Origins Podcast, a production of The Origins Project Foundation, features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world about the issues that impact all of us in the 21st century. Host, theoretical physicist, lecturer, and author, Lawrence M. Krauss, will be joined by guests from a wide range of fields, including science, the arts, and journalism. The topics discussed on The Origins Podcast reflect the full range of the human experience - exploring science and culture in a way that seeks to entertain, educate, and inspire.
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[@Frikzter]

I wish Pinker did more longer conversations. 1 hour just isn't enough.

[@pseudonayme7717]

Haha, yes! He has so much valuable stuff to say, an hour barely scratches the surface.

[@fs5775]

I love how excited Lawrence always gets in the midst of learning & talking about ideas. It's a delight to watch!

[@lynnej.9357]

I do too. Sometimes leads to him talking too much - but it comes from so much enthusiasm.

[@thegroove2000]

I get excited as well with thoughts and ideas. I think to lose that child like ability, wonder, awe and amazement of things then its time to jump in the coffin.

[@davidorourke3630]

Me too!😊

[@mattyy101]

@A Iron so they say.. cancel culture is real with you.

[@mattyy101]

@A Iron you're mentality is negative and part of it

[@Souljahna]

Please have Pinker on again a.s.a.p. You make excellent conversationalists and it's so much fun (and inspiring) listening to the two of you.

[@jessytheyodellingirl]

The opening music to this podcast is so soothing...

[@nathanconstantino7441]

Loved the interview Lawrence! As a psychologist i really like your respect for any field of science. Greetins from Brazil

[@nathanconstantino7441]

@Jet String if you're talking about grammar, my native language is not english. If you're talking about something else, i didn't get it. Either way, i don't really care, but if you're trying to be edgy or funny, i'm sure attacking people on the internet doesn't help your sad life.

[@existentialnotions178]

This was such a nutritious conversation, would love to see a long form discussion with Pinker.

[@existentialnotions178]

@@pmcguinness3041 My experience with the term in the form of podcasts is at least three hours or more.

[@scottsherman5262]

@@existentialnotions178 I'm glad you expounded on your comment...I agree, I love truly long form podcasts, but I guarantee that all five of my children would consider this video at just over an hour to be long form. Good day sir.

[@alottaguala9766]

Should have been 3 hours long! Can't wait for a sequel, pleaseee

[@mohscorpion2]

two real idols of our age ,loved every second

[@user-eb6vq1lv6l]

Yesss, ty for bringing my favorite author to the podcast.

[@truvelocity]

This is such a wonderful treat to wake up to. Thank you for this.

[@directinprint]

Long form pinker!!! Love it and just finished “rationality” ❤️❤️❤️

[@TheAtheist22]

This podcast should have far many more subscribers. I admire Professor Krauss.

[@roblewis798]

As usual, a pleasure to listen. Thanks

[@duncanwallace7760]

I would be awesome being able to read interesting books then have an hour long conversation with the authors and ask all your questions!!! I would need more than an hour for Lawrence's books though!

[@themember3podcast347]

A pleasure as always.

[@blakereneehope]

Just brilliant. Bravo

[@rayhan3654]

This was a 10/10 ... It bugs me how underrated and underviewed the origins podcast is! Nonetheless, I disagreed quite a bit; would love it if Krauss brought on David Deutsch (pioneer of quantum computation and the author of the Fabric of Reality and the Beginning of Infinity). There seems to be an epistemological chasm between both ... Would be amazing to see y'all hash it out!

[@hessambayanifar2987]

I wish you recommended more books. I always try to see what great thinkers read

[@lynnej.9357]

I have started reading this book. Haven't gotten very far, but it's good.

[@williamjmccartan8879]

Thank you both Steven and Lawrence, Lawrence I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I was wondering if you could have a talk with Dr Gregg Henriques about his utok system, he is still is relatively unknown in these circles but he is coherent with years of professional experience and would be a great foil for your style of dialog. Peace

[@folee_edge]

Both of these scientists are amazing 🤩

[@igorflexus9493]

I loved this. All the love from Norway.

[@sorsdeus]

You have the best podcast, thank you :)

[@brockwhite8699]

Always enjoyed the lectures and talks by Lawrence. Just stumbled across this video today while scrolling, and am now a subscriber to the podcast. Thank you!

[@TheOriginsPodcast]

thanks!

[@travisfitzwater8093]

I watched the local news broadcasts from the Washington DC area and read the Washington Post every day. Therefore, I was exposed to an arguably higher level of language than what likely would have been the case if I had grown up elsewhere. Undoubtedly, this contributed to the formation of my linguistic schema.

[@robn8036]

so good, thank you.

[@HeliumXenonKrypton]

Such an excellent discussion, you guys seem to have a lot in common. I also like Pinker's thoughts on complexity and cognition, that was inspiring. It strikes me that these kinds of models based on complexity are valid, but not optimal. Great work nonetheless. A truly excellent discussion. Pure genius at the 39 minute mark ... obviously I would say that the sensible thing to do is declare an Axiom that discrete set {T,F} and continuous open interval (0,1) are Equivalent, to yield a variant of Fuzzy Logic which is fundamentally Dualistic and you can immediately start saying all kinds of things about the mind, QM, Relativity, and on and on and on. But I do certainly (with likelihood = 0.999 ...), (i.e. absolutely do) agree with the point being made at the 39 minute mark and I think if you go down that rabbit hole you solve lots of things quite easily so what are we waiting for.

[@Gemans68]

Very interesting. We want more please

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Hi Lawrence!!! Thanks for having Steven on! What a great mind! Both of you together is great mental stimulation.

[@Robbie_jojo]

Love you DR. Lawrence kruss.. you are a jewel to us humans... Thanks for videos

[@lokeshparihar7672]

It would be helpful if you could add time stamps to these long videos.

[@kraxmalism]

always a pleasure to see Steven Pinker to speak, even though each time I read his books I get mesmerized the way he articulates his ideas and conveys his thoughts to the reader. Rationality is a great book, enjoyed every bit of it. cheers from Azerbaijan!

[@kimberlyH1984]

great interview

[@Fiction_Beast]

A really great discussion. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche were right that rationality alone is not the answer.

[@leilaannebreene3013]

Thanks!

[@nblm805]

Good program

[@maximilyen]

Great talk...

[@Life_42]

I love Steven Pinker!

[@SteveGalliford]

Thanks for a wonderful discussion. You both paraphrased the actual Hume quote but close enough. Steven Pinker's version: "Reason must always be a slave to the passions." Apologies to Hume but would not that quote pack a heavier -- and more positive/realistic -- punch with a simple switch of two words? Change it into the question: Must reason always be a slave to the passions?

[@alanchriston6806]

Wonderful 😊

[@eduardoreyes1272]

Espectacular!!

[@monkerud2108]

I just had this thought that behaviorism should really be called variableism. Because as you described it it is really only a doctrine of only caring about simple behaviors you can turn into simple variables, but that isn’t limiting at all if you think about it, its just a question about where you draw the line for what a behavior is and what you ignore, there really isn’t any clear line between behavior in an external sense and fine graining until you have to consider cognition as simple behavior, and then you are just stuck with a name for a field that no longer has no such red tape so to speak. Liked the episode :)

[@mosaadghoneim2117]

Thanks

[@Dr10Jeeps]

Two wonderful Canadian scientists having a fascinating conversation. How good is that!

[@MartinHaumann1]

It is disheartening that Steven and Lawrence criticize Chomsky without engaging in his arguments. For example that the sudden burst in human Intelligence and creativity arose from a sudden rewiring of the brain and not gradual evolution + his account of structure dependence and what that means for communicative efficiency. Given that Lawrence has said that Chomsky has told Lawrence numerous times that he should substantiate his claims one would have hoped that these peers and friends of the over 90 year old Chomsky would be more fair in their usage of the huge platform they have when discussing his scientific theories. But other than that it was a nice chat with some great subjects.

[@KymHammond]

36:41 "that someone could be logical but not rational" isn't this every Kafka story or even the idea of the absurdist? Why is this such a revelation now? This was an interesting talk, from both of you. Really quite stimulating.

[@TT-un2of]

The referenced item conflates instrumental-rationality with 'saneness of ends". (The discussion was quite sloppy on Krauss's end.) Spewing out endless trivial logical truths presumably violates the latter (saneness) to most humans' lights. Logic may be necessary, but not sufficient for instrumental rationality wrt a particular end.

[@mbigras]

I’m a new listener and the following are two criticisms: 1. Too many interruptions. That’s distracting, and gives the already short podcast a choppy quality. 2. Continuously whinging about the limited time and quantity of topics is tiresome. Both of you have done a lot, your audience knows there are many topics. The difficulty of picking topics is implied, you don’t need to continuously say so. Just pick the topics you want and go on. But I’m still glad to hear both your voices and thoughts so thank you for that!

[@Gi-Home]

Two of my favorite authors, great way to pass the time this Wednesday morning. Given these two authors mastery of their subject matter I found it a bit amusing that the example given for CO2 and global warming referred to China given that the USA has contributed a little more than 75% of the post-industrial CO2 to this planet, that the Chinese contribute roughly 50% as much CO2 per capita and that the Chinese electrification of transport is multiples of the USA's efforts, the list goes on and it is clear that China is leading the world from the abyss of climate change due to humans.

[@pseudonayme7717]

So true. China accept that it is a problem and more importantly, are trying to do something about it. Half of the US doesn't even really accept that it is a problem, whilst the US military alone contributes more CO2 than many large countries. I think I heard it is on a par with India in terms of CO2 output.🙄

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Not saying that the US isn't really bad, but China has lied about a crap load, and is not nearly as environmentally friendly as their grossly misrepresented data says! Also: Electricity doesn't just come out of thin air, and china burns a shit load of coal and fossil fuel to get electricity, and is far behind other countries with wind and solar energy! IOW: Electricity in and of itself is meaningless, it's how you get it that counts: You are making a false equivocation fallacy!

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

@@pseudonayme7717 Cite your sources! Your "research" is worthless when it comes from sources just as clueless as you are! India is probably the largest polluter of them all, and half the time you can't even see a few miles in any rural area of India the smog is so thick! You should go there and see for yourself!

[@Gi-Home]

@@Bob-of-Zoid apparently your sources derive their information from the NED, the equivalent of Nazi Germanys propaganda machine.

[@wasdwasdedsf]

" China is leading the world from the abyss of climate change due to humans." lol, youre living in a cult... even one of your propagandised clown thinktanks, maybe the ipcc, admitted in a report how the planet would according to them heat up by about a degree in 100 years, and reduce gdp increase by 8% compared to what the supposed damage would be if there would be no climate change at that point... that is instead of a 2000% or whatever growth, there would be a 1800% growth. all these people are paid off propagandists

[@ivannegri7724]

Fascinating, but I'm curious about Dr. Pinker's conception of visualized 2.5 d space, what about Tesla, Einstein, and Leonardo; they described their visualization in a very different way. Did Teams have a real 3d visual space? Surely Leonardo was doing something quite unusual when he would imagine vast topological regions veridically from a being on the ground walking the landscape perspective.

[@danielm5161]

excellent

[@kenlieck7756]

Excellent 'casting! Please interview more people in the "all-around good guy" field...

[@ClownXmachina]

YES

[@seanmellows1348]

Good chat, could have easily gone much longer.

[@kittykatzcenteno7160]

Biiig thank you. ...

[@danielm5161]

19:12 People who work in game development and graphic design think in terms of 2.5 dimensions all the time. After Effects and Toon Boom are generally 2.5d programs while Maya, 3dsmax, Unreal Engine etc. are 3d programs. 2.5 dimensional programs are pixel graphics with a depth value. 3d graphics are voxels.

[@AzimuthAviation]

Two of my favorite science communicators and thinking rational people...

[@timestimesx7535]

23:18 Chomsky said something like "A sudden change happened relatively recently which allowed us to produce complex thought." Like a change that unlocks creativity and lets us share our knowledge and understanding with each other. This makes perfect sense to me. Shouldn't the emergence of complex thoughts (representable by sounds / signs) which are worth communicating precede the invention of a complex tool for communication? Pinker's gradual evolution idea seems to be a default answer that makes less sense. Something must be produced before it gets exchanged. Plus, I'm pretty sure Pinker knows Chomsky sees language as modality + meaning rather than sound + meaning. I don't get why he says something like this: 24:13

[@Podolskills]

I personally think that the dilemma of being rational or not lies in the local vs. global dynamic as depicted by both scientists, but also within the self vs. multi-self concept since we're all made of an almost infinite amount of different parts that could be described mainly here by our desires and emotions (which ultimately is the result of everything that we've experienced in our lives). As well the temporal specter of our cognition : A good example of that is when you feel hungry late in the night and you have this urge to go grab a snack in the fridge, your present self is well aware that this action will probably harm your future self in the morning with a stomach ache due to overeating, but the animal drive of hunger from it is still willing to sacrifice the future pain for immediate pleasure and relief. So the animal here would be one part of you and the future awaking another. This could be applied in almost any direction possible (sexual vs. educated parts, masculine vs. feminine parts, daredevil vs. wise parts... etc.) Another example : We should definitely stop playing and work on how to plan our retirement someday, logically, but we're not better off to plan our retirement everyday relentlessly without playing and enjoying our time, because then our future self will clearly look back and deem its life waste. So in my opinion, rationality should be synonymous of equilibrium, balance and moderation. Humans find peace of mind in what feels balanced, well proportioned, moderated.

[@TT-un2of]

Various ideas are being conflated here, and key words being used very loosely and inconsistently. 1. Rationality of means vs rationality of ends. The former is called "instrumental rationality" and is what they were imprecisely and sloppily talking about. As to "rationality of ends", good luck with that. Whose ends, when, etc. Who wants what, when, for whom; who decides what, etc etc unto lovely human history. You may want pain. I may want to die. He likes to emotionally suffer. etc etc. There is no objective sense in which these are "irrational" ends. This is the main point of the Hume (approximate) quotes. The "local vs global" Krauss phrase was a loose and rather sloppy analogy, blurring and mixing a bunch of distinct things. it's spatial and size emphasis is misguided. "Individual vs Group" or "unit vs collective" are better. Prisoners Dilemma and Tragedy-of-the-Commons issues pertain to the fact that making decisions that rationally optimize individual outcome for me alone, when likewise pursued by everybody else, result in everyone doing worse than they might have if they had cooperated together instead, rather than trying to maximize their individual outcomes as if in isolation. The specific terms are cooperate vs defect. More broadly, this stuff has to do with the necessity and risks of trust, and the individual and group benefits and risks/costs of violating each-others trust. This kind of stuff illustrates that there are inevitable major logical-structural challenges to people and groups getting along and cooperating when the payoffs for defecting are favorable. And it highlights how essential trust and being deserving of trust is to humans not collectively making a mess and hell of things when could have done so much better. But trusting is a risk (as is not trusting wrt lost opportunity), and how best to encourage and incentivize trusting and how punish it's violation? There are no easy answers or definitive resolutions of these issues. One thing is clear though; that a highly competitive, extremely individualistic capitalistic culture much aggravates and amplifies these issues and much militates against the trust and cooperation requisite for maximally-collective optimization. The question of Us vs Them, who is us, what group am-I/are-we optimizing for, etc, is a major Rub, among others. Also, apropos your "the dilemma of rationality"; wrt means vs ends, humans obviously often have contradictory or incompatible ends in mind; pleasure-now pay -later, or part of me wants this now but another part doesn't etc etc. Ends in tension or conflict usually results in a morass of inconsistent or conflicting means being employed by instrumental rationality. Apropos your "So in my opinion, rationality should be synonymous of equilibrium, balance and moderation. Humans find peace of mind in what feels balanced, well proportioned, moderated": (aside from just arbitrarily redefining the word), this either ignores the distinction between 'means rationality' and some ostensible 'ends rationality', or else just arrogates and prescribes everyone particular ends that you happen to like/want etc. Not everyone wants "peace of mind" or moderation, etc. Teenagers often want excitement and intensity, not moderation, etc. Maybe you feel everybody 'should' want such. Good luck establishing that moral claim, or even defining "peace of mind" in a non question-begging way. Cheerio, Tom :-)

[@MrBILLSTANLEY]

Apparently 11 months is about the right time to go away. Thanks Steven Pinker to help ending the isolation.

[@Theomatikalli]

Everytime I come to Lawrence's channel he's always letting his guests know that he is older than them, I wonder what that's about 🤣

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

He doesn't like to be treated like a kid! (

[@AtlanticPicture]

Please consider inviting John Mearsheimer.

[@windigo000]

love it :)

[@travisfitzwater8093]

Pinker's got depth in his perception.

[@vast634]

The audio is not quite synchronized

[@helenmalinowski4482]

As a Seventies student, I moved away from "pop star" Chomsky to you. First nudge was his arrogance. When I found you, I had solid ground to trust and continue.

[@musicbymark]

Just subscribed Lawrence. Why is Noam so negative toward Steven? I've only heard Steven speak respectfully if not admirably about Noam. I never understood his negativity toward Sam Harris either.

[@jeromedangelo7028]

Because he's an ideologue. He's not interested in ideas contrary to his own. It's sad so many so-called intellectuals fail in this regard.

[@arcticwolf6402]

@@jeromedangelo7028 Your comment is extremely dishonest and an utter misrepresentation of Chomsky.

[@douglasdickerson5184]

👏🏻

[@ladlane]

I was a bit disappointed that the topics had to be rushed though under a time constraint, even though Pinker is on sabbatical.

[@leonardniamh]

This is the first time I loved Stephen Pinker

[@Patrick77487]

Path towards a potential balanced intelligent humanity be long, dark, winding maze. Pinker's intellectual optimistic outlook survives amid an ocean of suffering.

[@nigeljohn65]

I'm more convinced by the arguments put forward by Tomasello in his book Constructing a Language. Representational inateness doesn't make sense. What's inate is the human aptitude for cultural learning, rather than any prior knowledge of grammar. If we can read intentions, we can map language onto functions. General learning processes can do the rest.

[@2toneguy]

This is interesting, you could draw a parallel in music, you don't need prior knowledge of anything in music to express intention, but as you continually expose yourself to playing, a structure starts to emerge as you remember patterns of sound or shapes at the instrument and knowing what they mean.

[@size4672]

❤

[@leonardniamh]

He doesn't make it easy to like him but I can't ignore the insight of this interview

[@yanquiufo7113]

How does he make it hard to like him, he seems as inoffensive as it gets to me

[@billscannell93]

I so don't get the stuff about if 2+2=7, then pigs can fly, and Romeo and Juliet being separated by a wall. I usually can make some sort of sense out of what both of these guys say (or at least imagine I can) so I will have to watch this one again.

[@size4672]

❤👍

[@TrippySuccubus]

I’m always happy when I see Lawrence Krauss-Steven Pinker, too. …But I’m practically a groupie for Lawrence, 😂.

[@monkerud2108]

Maybe its a more general form of a fallacy of only accepting realities or possibilities that are easy to check. because that line will always be a practical one and not in any sense some truth about science, just maybe how hard it is to build models. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@ally11488]

"As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people." I'm sure Lawrence still stands by his words, even now Prince Andrew is paying money out to someone he's never met.

[@AFROJOE2323]

Amazing when two great minds come together. The seperation between rationality and logic was well put by Steven. Being rational but being enslaved by a global rationale/passion in my opinion isn't always logical If a global rationale is accepted as rational by the common man, if each tribal rationale is based on the version of truth widely accepted then it seems the only logic known to this "common society" is the rationale amplified by the strongest "coalition". I feel like this plays out a-lot today in politics, marketing campaigns, religion etc... I love this podcast. Thanks for making it happen Lawrence.

[@alecmisra4964]

What is it to be completely rational? Is our view of rationality not artificially constricted, since the time of Aristotle?

[@dkrz123]

When I compose, I think in music…

[@andymaxwell2359]

Lawrence, when was this filmed? And why were you in my house?

[@idio-syncrasy]

No visual imagination, I have aphantasia. Hope he covered it.

[@user-ty4jw5xe6d]

You guys spend 30% patting each other on the back & discussing your credentials. Get to the point of the interview. We know you are both wonderful and amazing.

[@erikwong9456]

A great video.

[@monkerud2108]

Does economists run mit or something?

[@fritsgerms3565]

First, thank you very much. I'm going to make myself unpopular by saying I wish that Lawrence should learn to reign in his ego. This continuous desire to compare himself with others is unnecessary and distracting. I'm very appreciative of this channel and I have consumed several of his books and will continue to do so. The criticism is only directed at the way the interview is done. Its just this need to compare oneself with someone else (when talking about their work) that I find annoying (and slightly disrespectful of the other). My guess is that Lawrence already knows he has a tendency to do so.

[@TT-un2of]

I agree that he here frequently inserts his Harvard credentials and such. He also often interrupts at inopportune moments, this separate from his efforts to guide the conversation according to his agenda. His spirit of friendly exploratory openness and questioning and curiosity is welcome and appealing, but his often labored, slow, iterative and mushy efforts at formulating his question or thought or response aloud becomes tedious, often results in something verbally and conceptually imprecise and hand-wavy, and actually wastes a lot of scarce conversation time. I recommend he write down ahead of time a lot of likely-relevant key-terms and phrases and distinctions for reference during conversation. Broad real-time compressed-articulateness on multiple subjects is not easy. He does get excellent people on to talk with. I liked his "...from nothing" book. He writes much better than he real-time speaks. A nice and interesting video person/persona in any event, which helps bring the many good guests.

[@vanessaburdine4865]

ID proponents do not deny that mutations occur.

[@SylviabombsmithUjhy75bd34]

40:26 for Pinker hair fluff...

[@stevestrickland8019]

"We" don't think in compete sentences? Oh, crap, no wonder I'm screwed up. FWIW, local maxima/minima are issues in all optimization problems, especially machine learning. Yet another example where physics and information theory seem to be highly related.

[@TedApelt]

The best way to deal with "the tragedy of the carbon" is with a carbon tax with all of the proceeds going equally to all adult residents. If you use more carbon from average, you will pay more in higher prices (which must happen in order for it to work) than you get from the distribution payment. If you use less carbon from average, you will pay less in higher prices than you get from the distribution payment. The same thing could be done with all "tragedy of the commons" problems. Have policies that reward people for doing the things that benefit all of us and penalize people for doing the things that harm all of us. I really don't see why this is a hard thing to understand.

[@VladyslavKL]

🕊

[@Tintunabulation]

When Steven coughed, my brain flashed/ said ‘COVID’ automatically and involuntarily. Obviously I am well programmed.

[@hsingpeikao]

The government should be run by scientists and engineers.

[@marcusaurelius9123]

Like China 😮

[@Ronanjust8338]

You wore me up with 30 minutes of your family stories. By then I moved somewhere else.

[@akkalange6359]

LOL at think about it... :D

[@kelseystrate2035]

Are all Canadians as nice as these two? Their demeanor only seems to change when they are on skates, carrying a stick, chasing a puck.

[@TheAtheistRealist]

Pinker>Krauss. Big time.

[@The_Bear_Adventures]

Visual and audio is out of sync

[@pseudonayme7717]

I'm 50 mins in and everything is still in sync. Perhaps your computer or internet is acting up in some small way?🤔

[@The_Bear_Adventures]

@@pseudonayme7717 I think it was just the intro in retrospect, not the whole thing. Thanks for your input :)

[@davidbarron8565]

Good talk, but here’s my concern: if the strength of science is that it is necessarily common and democratic (which is correct-analogous to “checks and balances, as discussed) why should we think science, in both processes and results is invulnerable to the tragedy of the commons: certainly leading to improvements for me and mine…but for the species as a whole? For other species? The planet? Pinker has famously called upon empirical data to bolster his claims of things improving for our species….and I’ve always been inclined to agree with him. But every improvement or solution has concomitant loss. Screens and books are fine things that bring me joy…but what are their flaws?

[@TT-un2of]

The above conflates Science as a socially organized pursuit of knowledge, with it's application to technology and engineering, which uses some of the scientific knowledge gained (which is not a finite resource being used up (the commons item doesn't apply at all)) to do and make things some humans sometimes want or need. This latter obviously involves politics, power, money, values, unintended consequences, etc etc; all the usual mixed morass of practical human purposes and activities. A key strength of socially organized knowledge-seeking scientific activity is that it is eventually self-correcting, highly self-critical, not based on authority, open to questioning and doubts, and is ultimately empirically constrained and models-falsifiable.

[@grahammcrae4277]

Pinker’s one of the great thinkers. It always saddens me when Jordan Peterson, the ‘people’s intellect’ does an interview he gets a million views, and then his intellectual superior gets 25 thousand…

[@EmperorsNewWardrobe]

Jordan goes for subjectively appealing hypotheses, whereas Steven goes for objectively compelling hypotheses. Unfortunately the masses get sucked in to the former

[@grahammcrae4277]

Sunshine lollipops and his subjectivity happens to be in sync with a wayward audience.

[@TT-un2of]

PInker is not a great thinker; he is a great explainer, articulator and writer of science popularizations.

[@marcusaurelius9123]

​@@TT-un2ofhe's a thinker & communicator. That's obvious from listening to his views on language

[@credman]

Peterson has an average mind but sounds like a genius so average people feel like geniuses listening to him. Pinker sounds like a genius and is a genius so average people feel dumb listening to him. That explains it all.