
Steven Pinker's fake enlightenment: Misleading claims and false assertions - Jerry2
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/26/steven-pinkers-fake-enlightenment-his-book-is-full-of-misleading-claims-and-false-assertions/
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evrydayhustling
I read this hoping to see examples where Pinker's data about progress - which
I find surprising and interesting - was misrepesented. Instead it's mostly
about the semantics of the argument.

It's definitely not cool if Pinker used quotes in ways that gave the
impression people agreed with him who don't. But these are also viewpoint
quotes that are just as meaningful in the new context Pinker gives them - so
reattributing them doesn't exactly refute his argument.

And a bunch of the stuff later on is just giving a platform to people who
disagree with Pinker, and don't think he included enough of their view. Which
is like, a reasonable opinion but not an error.

Does anyone have a good piece that takes on the substance of Pinker's
arguments?

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tim333
Most of Pinker's arguments are basically ok giving statistical data on how
things like life expectancy have improved.

I agreed with this article that Pinker's take on AI is off though.

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hprotagonist
In "Authority and American Usage", DFW once described Pinker as having a
"1950s SCIENCE: POINTING THE WAY TO A BETTER TOMORROW high-school filmstrip"
vibe -- and once it was pointed out, it's impossible to ignore.

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prepend
“Some have pointed out that modern racism more or less originated in the
Enlightenment — contra Pinker”

This is an odd statement because didn’t the Enlightenment start many modern
thoughts? Is this odd or unusual? All who is “some?” Are their ideas important
for some reason? It’s odd to make a vague reference like it’s somehow
meaningful. Is the author quoting her neighbor.

~~~
mc32
Racism wasn't racism simply because people failed to notice it, it was so
common. So, yes, in a way, it's true that it didn't exist. It didn't exist in
people's conscience. Yet, it doesn't mean it didn't exist in practice. Same as
child labor. It too wasn't a problem because, it was ever-present and part of
everyone's life.

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_emacsomancer_
Pinker's stuff often follows the old 18th-century Whig history pattern.

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pas
This sounds interesting but I know nothing about 18th century, Whigs (other
than they are/were the Torys counterpart[y]), or history patterns. Could you
explain this, maybe give examples of what Pinker said/wrote and why that
follows this? Thank you in advance!

~~~
_emacsomancer_
The Wikipedia entry for "Whig history" is fairly informative:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history).
Essentially, a view of history that everything represents a progression
towards something better. It's also tied up with the rise of mercantilism
(i.e. merchantocracy) of the 17th and 18th centuries. (It's also associated
with Liberalism, in the classical sense of the term.)

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kgarten
why is this article not on the front page? Was it flagged by too many people?
If so I wonder why ... Yes, it's a personal attack on Pinker, yet I agree with
most of the arguments (and had the same feeling when I was reading his book
... he takes too many things out of context and thinks just because he's an
expert in language and cognition he's an expert in other topics ... I have
some knowledge in machine learning and found insulted when I read the AI parts
of Enlightenment Now).

It's a bit sad because Pinker's older books are great. I recommend "The Blank
Slate" and "The Language Instinct". In "The Better Angels of our Nature" he
already started to stray away from his expertise.

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amanzi
I read this book and had the same thoughts. But I think what he was intending
to get across, is that you can take any statistics and spin it in a positive
or negative way. In other words - you can choose to be optimistic or
pessimistic. He does address this at several points where he says something
along the lines of having a healthy level of skepticism is a good thing, but
to do it in a positive way.

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ykevinator
I've never been able to get past chapter 1 of any of pinkers books I've tried
3. I just don't get why he is lauded. I am missing something.

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mc32
Why is salon bothered by Pinker? Lots of professors follow ideology rather
than logic, specially in the softer majors. Listen to philosophers, and they
loosely tie things together from time to time.

Maybe this book of Pinker's is full of it, but why take exception to Pinker
when there are many more out there?

It seems pathetically personal, for no good reason [by that I mean it attacks
some flourishes and liberties, but not the substance]

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moab9
Hungry writers sometimes attack their betters in order to earn some publicity
from the controversy. For it to work, the victim has to be famous and with a
significant following, such as in Pinker's case.

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yesenadam
I stopped reading on the first line: "Quillette, the “Intellectual Dark Web’s”
online safe space"... That's junk writing and I'd already had more than
enough. A paragraph of that would get flagged on here and reprimanded by dang
for being tiresome flame-war language. All it wants to do is fight.

Someone let me know if I've been unfair and it's actually worth reading,
thanks.

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nkurz
> Someone let me know if I've been unfair and it's actually worth reading,
> thanks.

Sorry, are you referring to the Salon article linked here
([https://www.salon.com/2019/01/26/steven-pinkers-fake-
enlight...](https://www.salon.com/2019/01/26/steven-pinkers-fake-
enlightenment-his-book-is-full-of-misleading-claims-and-false-assertions/)),
or the Quillette article interviewing Pinker
([https://quillette.com/2019/01/14/enlightenment-wars-some-
ref...](https://quillette.com/2019/01/14/enlightenment-wars-some-reflections-
on-enlightenment-now-one-year-later/))?

I thought both were well worth reading!

The Salon article gets better after the first couple paragraphs, and gives a
number of specific examples of how Pinker appears to use poorly-sourced quotes
out-of-context in manner that the original authors disagree with. It tracks
down a couple of these quotes, with those authors explaining what they really
meant. So while it's extremely anti-Pinker, I thought it made a good case for
why one should be skeptical of Pinker's argument.

I liked the Quillette article because I'm normally very pessimistic about
human progress, and I thought Pinker made a good case that, in fact, lots of
things are going much better than they did in the past. I particularly liked
his quote of Obama's question "When would you choose to live if you didn’t
know who you would be?" I now wonder if the quote is accurate, but I think
it's still a good one to ponder. I also liked Pinker's attempt to explicate
Scott Alexander's theory of "Conflict vs Mistake", where he says that he feels
that the "mistake" side is the essence of the Enlightenment.

~~~
yesenadam
Hi, thanks. Not sure why you would think I meant the Pinker interview. Yes, I
read that a few weeks ago I think. I don't think I've seen an article on
Quillette that wasn't worth reading.

I like reading savage criticisms of people/positions I like! That wasn't the
problem. Ok thanks, will give it (salon) a go.

