Pinker on Harvard's Troubles

New podcast:

Today's guest is Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Pinker and Reason's Nick Gillespie discuss recent shifts at Harvard toward greater institutional neutrality and free speech, while warning that threats to academic freedom now come from both internal ideologies and external political forces—including pressure from the federal government under President Donald Trump.

Pinker defends the role of federal science funding but cautions against political micromanagement of academia, emphasizing the need for independent scholarly governance. The conversation also touches on Pinker's admiration for Richard Dawkins, the impact of declining religiosity on moral progress, and the concept of "common knowledge" as explored in Pinker's forthcoming book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. 

It explains that Pinker published a 2023 essay on what Harvard must do to save itself. It is roughly the same as what Pres. Trump is now ordering it to do. So is he a Trump supporter?

Of course not. He is a Jewish atheist liberal professor Trump-hater. He said he became a USA citizen and voted against Trump. He speaks a lot about free speech, but he does not dare praise Trump.

I am curious about his new book:

But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge — to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room.

He is very articulate, and his books have arguments that are well-supported and good to read, even when I disagree with them. And so I often criticize him.

I can think of a few things that everybody knows, but most do not like to acknowledge. That race is real. IQ correlates with success. Sex is binary. Trump is a great President, especially compared to Biden or Harris. Immigration is ruining Europe and the USA.

There is a famous common knowledge paradox, The blue-eyed islanders puzzle. Pinker will probably mention it.

He gives the story of the emperor with no clothes as an example. Everybody can see that he has no clothes, but they do not know that the others know until a boy blurts it out.

Another example is Pres. Biden dropping out of the race in 2024. Everyone knew that he was senile and the debate did not change many minds, except to convince everyone that everyone else knew that he was senile.

Maybe he would mention former FBI Director James Comey posting "86 47" as if it were a directive from God. Now everyone knows how much some people hate Trump.

For info on Harvard violating discrimination, see Christopher F. Rufo. Harvard already lost a case at the US Supreme Court.

I occasionally see someone describe his worldview as pro-Enlightenment or Enlightenment liberal, or something like that. Pinker wrote a popular book about it, so that is surely what they mean. They act as if it is the source of all modern goodness and something that everyone should agree with. I intend to post some more criticisms of it.

Pinker's book credits the views of a handful of philosophers in the late 18th century. I am dubious that any of them had any significant impact. He probably is going to say that everyone knew that there is no God, and once some 18C Enlightenment philosophers said it, and then the whole society got the industrial revolution, modern science, democracy, egalitarianism, and all other wonders of modern life.

I believe his view is seriously mistaken. Europe and American did pass up the rest of the world in wealth and accomplishments, and that needs explanations. I have posted many times on various explanations.

I would say that it was Christendom than leapfrogged ahead, not the Enlightment, because the big advance was many centuries earlier and entirely in Christian nations.