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Harvard author Steven Pinker appears on podcast linked to scientific racism (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 13 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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Psychologist and writer’s appearance on Aporia condemned for helping to normalise ‘dangerous, discredited ideas’

The Harvard psychologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker appeared on the podcast of Aporia, an outlet whose owners advocate for a revival of race science and have spoken of seeking “legitimation by association” by platforming more mainstream figures.

The appearance underlines past incidents in which Pinker has encountered criticism for his association with advocates of so-called “human biodiversity”, which other academics have called a “rebranding” of racial genetic essentialism and scientific racism.

Pinker’s appearance marks another milestone in the efforts of many in Silicon Valley and rightwing media and at the fringes of science to rehabilitate previously discredited models of a biologically determined racial hierarchy.

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[–] athairmor@lemmy.world 21 points 12 hours ago (7 children)

This is who Pinker is as evidenced by his being a major proponent of evolutionary psychology.

Even in academia you will have bigots who will work really hard to legitimize their biases. Seems like they go harder on the bigotry research the older they get.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 11 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (6 children)

I’m not familiar with evolutionary psychology but I clicked the links en checked out the page. It seems… not an immediate and total brand of evil? It’s a very broad concept at the high level: that features of human psychology can be survival adaptations and say something about the conditions during our evolution. I read the reactions and criticisms section too and I can see how some sus claims about biological essentialism could be taken too far.

But I guess my point is that just invoking the term and posting the Wikipedia page do not seem to be the immediate character assassination you seem to want them to be. “Look at this guy! He believes our psychology is informed by survival adaptations during our evolution! What a bigot!”

I don’t get it. I think I would need you to say more about what specific cases he has made under this umbrella that you find objectionable. Because on the face of it, it doesn’t seem crazy to say that people have an instinct to be helpful to one another because that turns out to be a positive population evolutionary trait.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world -2 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Evolutionary psychology is pseudoscience to affirm conservative beliefs. It's unfalsifiable conjecture

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago

I mean it's very often used in that way, but evolutionary psychology isn't quite the same as phrenology. To be clear, there are definitely people who are using evolutionary psychology to justify their racism, but like... how would you discuss the evolution of depression unless you're speculating about something that could be considered to be evolutionary psychology?

I mean I guess you could argue that all psychology is sort of just a byproduct, but that hardly seems scientific at all.

So while I'm equally concerned about racists and bigots using pseudoscience to justify their backwards beliefs, I don't believe the whole approach of evolutionary psychology is complete bunk.

Please do enlighten me if you can.

You know what else is pretty unfalsifiable, but still pretty darn usable? Proto-Indo-European, but I'm pretty sure they've got some of it right.

[–] FlyingSpaceCow@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 hours ago

Yeah that's not what it is.

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