Talk:Steven Pinker/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Details on LSA letter

McNulTEA, follow WP:ONUS and make your case here for your proposed edits. Also pinging Sxologist from the previous disucussion per WP:APPNOTE, if he could weigh in. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:16, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Just to add, any content must be based on reliable independent sources. A file on googledocs is self-published and should not be used as a reference. Schazjmd (talk) 20:22, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

There is a clear effort on the part of some editors to omit sources that are critical of Pinker, while keeping in sources that defend him. First, there is the issue of keeping in the names of Pinker's supporters but removing the names of his critics listed in the LSA letter. If it is true that this is an issue of using a self-published source, then why is Barbara Partee's name listed under Pinker's supporters? Her support was self-published in Medium. Yes, her self-published support is cited in another article, but how does that magically make it worth citing any more than the names in the original letter? Second, there is the issue of obscuring the number of signatories (the original listing on the page was 635 but was changed to "hundreds"). There is no clear reason for this edit other than to conceal the magnitude of the letter. Third, there is the issue of including the LSA's original statement, which could be seen as favoring Pinker, while omitting the LSA's subsequent letter, which could be seen as favoring the signatories. These efforts, which have mainly been the thrust of Crossroads and IP 103.85.9.202 are blatantly biased and do not do justice to documenting the entire affair surrounding the letter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by McNulTEA (talk • contribs) 20:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

McNulTEA, Barbara Partee is sourced to a Mother Jones article, not to Medium. If reliable sources base some of their information on self-published sources, that's their call. We don't directly cite self-published sources (minus the few exceptions). I've no opinion at this time on the rest of the content you want to add, but we can't cite the google docs file. Schazjmd (talk) 20:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

This is why the talk page is pointless. You have no opinion, so my complaints die. Is that how this works? I will also point out the issue of omitting the author on the Mother Jones article, which makes it appear as though the opinion of that one author is representative of the entire entity that is Mother Jones. This gives off the appearance that Mother Jones, as an entity, supports Pinker. -McNulTEA — Preceding unsigned comment added by McNulTEA (talk • contribs)

(edit conflict) Editors who make accusations of bias will want to be sure to look in the mirror. As I said in edit summaries, what you want to add constitutes WP:FALSEBALANCE and contradicts WP:Secondary. We do not engage in WP:POV WP:OR by selecting our favorite bits of primary sources. Partee's support being mentioned in a secondary source is precisely why it can be included. If secondary sources don't quantify the number of signatories of the letter or name any signers, than neither do we. And the reception of secondary sources of the letter was decidedly negative overall. With Mother Jones, why would we try to act like Mother Jones doesn't support what their writer said? They published it, it's theirs. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:45, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Patience; there's barely been time for other editors to weigh in. As for mentioning the writer's name, in my experience that's a stylistic choice; I've seen some editors write "X in New York Times wrote..." or "a New York Times article said..." or "according to the New York Times". I don't think there's any policy, guideline, or recommendation on when to include the journalist's name. Schazjmd (talk) 20:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Adding, since it wasn't clear in my earlier statement, my lack of opinion is because I'm open to hearing reasonable discussion on what should be included. If you'd like to (calmly) make a case for it, please do so. A lot of accusatory questions and hyperbole aren't convincing. Schazjmd (talk) 20:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Never mind. Your edit war indicates that you're not willing to discuss in good faith. Schazjmd (talk) 20:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

You are being disingenuous. I state my issue with the additional LSA letter being omitted, and all you can say is "I've no opinion at this time". Then when I re-insert that information into the page, which very clearly deserves to be there, you claim that I am not willing to discuss in good faith. Come on, let's discuss this. Don't just tell me you don't have an opinion. Is this Bob Mueller I'm talking to? -McNulTEA — Preceding unsigned comment added by McNulTEA (talk • contribs) 21:05, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Trying again. What is the content that you think should be added to the article? What are the (non-google docs) sources for that content? Why do you think the content you want to add is important for WP:NPOV? Schazjmd (talk) 21:35, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I am arguing that the exact number of signatures be stated, not vaguely summarized as “hundreds”. Here, I am not as much concerned with neutrality, although “hundreds” covers a range below the actual number of signatories and thus creates the possibility of underestimating the true number (and thus minimizing the magnitude of the letter). I am more concerned with clarity.

I am also arguing that the initial letter from the LSA be quoted in full, or at least summarized in a fair manner. Currently, the summary of the initial letter form the LSA consists of a quote that emphasizes intellectual freedom—a quote taken from the first 1/3 of the letter. What is missing is the LSA’s statement on rejection of racism and misogyny, as well as their statement on the creation of a task force for “ensuring transparent, equitable, and inclusive nominations, awards, appointments, and elections”. See here: https://us10.campaign-archive.com/?u=001f7eb7302f6add98bff7e46&id=b43bc7004b&e=97c8620143 If the first 1/3 of the statement is the only portion of the letter that is mentioned, that seems to me a clear violation of neutrality because it just so happens to be the part of the letter that favors Pinker. In fact, it caused Pinker to claim that the LSA “repudiated” the google doc letter, which is, according to their subsequent letter (see below), not true. See here: https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1280950807819628546

I am also arguing that the second letter from the LSA be mentioned and its contents summarized: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/news/2020/07/20/update-lsa%E2%80%99s-recent-statement-intellectual-freedom Omitting this information is a clear violation of neutrality when considering that a summary of the initial LSA letter is currently included. The initial letter favors Pinker in that the LSA implies that freedom of speech and intellectual freedom should take precedence over the signatories’ complaints, while the second letter emphasizes that the initial letter was misinterpreted, the LSA did not reject the google doc letter, and the LSA decided to disband the Media Experts page. By including only a summary of the first letter from the LSA but no the second, that counts toward an impartial accounting of the whole story. -McNulTEA — Preceding unsigned comment added by McNulTEA (talk • contribs) 00:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for summarizing. Are there any secondary sources that support any of that? (Please keep in mind that the purpose of the encyclopedia article is not to fairly present the case of the dispute, but to summarize what independent sources have said about it in relation to Pinker, the topic of the article.) (Also, please sign your posts properly by ending your comment with four tildes (~~~~) so that the software automatically adds the date/timestamp to your signature.) Schazjmd (talk) 00:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Before I go digging for secondary sources, please provide reasons for why the LSA statements are not sufficient. Why are those not legitimate sources? It seems odd that, according to you, self-published material filtered through a news article is acceptable while statements directly from the academic organization at the center of all this is not. In addition, I would appreciate a clearer explanation of why, in your opinion, Wikipedia has no interest in fairly representing this story. If I understand you correctly, the function of Wikipedia is not to document history, but to document whatever is sampled by media outlets. Am I understanding you correctly? McNulTEA (talk) 01:28, 11 August 2020 (UTC)McNulTEA

As Schazjmd said, secondary sources are crucial. WP:NPOV is not based on our own opinion of what is neutral, but on the WP:Due weight of the sources. Those WP:Secondary sources decide what is noteworthy. As for the rest of the LSA's initial letter, of course they say they are against bigotry and for inclusion. So does Pinker. It's very likely that no secondary sources consider this completely banal statement noteworthy, but having it here could be considered as implying something about Pinker. As for that second letter, we could remove Pinker's tweet about "repudiation" since it also lacks a secondary source, but covering the second letter without a secondary source is a problem. Interpretation, either stated directly or implied via selective quoting or juxtaposition, needs to be left to secondary sources. I mean, what I see is an LSA trying to be diplomatic and satisfactory towards both the letter signers and Pinker's supporters, but still, I'm not seeing any good reason to add it without significance being shown. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

To add to what Crossroads said, this is a WP:BLP and the letters are primary sources. If there were secondary sources making the connection between the letter to Pinker and the second letter, the article could also make that connection, but without them, the second letter makes no mention of Pinker and, as a primary source, cannot be mentioned as it relies on the editor to draw the conclusion that it is related.

There is a secondary source here that says the open letter has "536 named signatories", so we can support that in place of "hundreds", and I would be in favor of being more specific.

I would also support a second sentence on the initial LSA sentence about their opposition to racism and misogyny. I wouldn't support going into details about their plans (task force) as it isn't relevant to this biography.

As I said in my first paragraph, the second letter makes no mention of Pinker. This is where a secondary source would be needed.

(Also, thanks for fixing your signature!) Schazjmd (talk) 14:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Forgot to mention it: I agree with Crossroads about removing Pinker's tweet. Schazjmd (talk) 14:19, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

A few weeks ago, I did my best to combine text from previous versions that fairly and succinctly reflects both sides of the controversy concerning the Pinker/LSA letter. With protection for this page now removed, it is clear that Crossroads will not take "compromise" for an answer, and is intent on removing all content that strikes a balance, leaving only Pinker's negative comments intact. I wish I could rejoin this quarrel, but I do not have Crossroads's stamina evidently. I hope other editors will join the discussion to create an appropriate consensus behind a balanced section. Deeply discouraged. Beevrrr (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Beevrrr, do you have any input on the current discussion in this section? Otherwise, it looks like you're just making this an opportunity to cast aspersions on another editor. Schazjmd (talk) 16:46, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Beevrrr, as you are a user with only 26 edits, all but one of which are in relation to Steven Pinker, try to be sure to give WP:NPOV a thorough read. Our own feelings are not the arbiters of neutrality. Also, I was never locked out from this page. Only non-autoconfirmed users were. I edited the section because I just happened to get around to fixing it. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Crossroads, all of your edits on the page have served to delete content supportive of the LSA letter, leaving only content critical of it. That speaks for itself. My edits, by contrast, have tried to include succinct information from both sides. That too should speak for itself. But as I remarked above, you win. Someone else will have to work on this. Beevrrr (talk) 16:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Here, I wrote a whole paragraph on his recent actions following the letter and the professional backlash over his response and relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I have several reputable news sources in there but they deleted it, refused to answer my question about why, and then shut down the whole page to editing so I don't know, someone who knows how to do this go ahead and snag my paragraph. I just want the page to reflect the most up-to-date, verifiable information.

Despite these opinions on hearing objectionable points of view, Pinker has been accused of blocking thousands of Twitter accounts, many of whom work in the same fields. He claimed in an email to Motherboard that "my Twitter feed became infested with trolls and bots who kept posting photos with me and Jeffrey Epstein." In response to accusations of hypocrisy, Pinker continued, "I’ve been told that people are now bitching and moaning about this, but no one has a First Amendment right to post something on Steven Pinker’s Twitter feed." Despite Pinker's repeated claims that he only met Epstein three times and took one photograph with him from an event in 2004, there are actually several others, including one ten years earlier in 2004, two years earlier on Epstein's private jet, nicknamed The Lolita Express, in 2002 .Additionally, Harvard released a statement revealing that Epstein had an office on the same campus as Pinker's and visited often. As of August 28, 2020, Pinker has blocked thousands of Twitter followers, including his colleagues, starting with those who mention his and Epstein's names together but quickly broadening in scope to nearly every tweet with his name in it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by DrJCarignan (talk • contribs)

References

So apparently they need more proof that this is noteworthy because apparently the many comments here and the many attempted edits of the page (I assume at least some of them had as many citations as I did) isn't enough. Thousands of people talking about it on Twitter isn't enough. The fact that he is quoted in these articles discussing it himself is not enough. I don't know wikipedia so I'm sorry if I"m doing something wrong, but I am a cognitive linguist who has worked with Pinker before and I damn well know my citations are valid if nothing else so I don't know how else to tell people about his easily verifiable statements and actions on his own personal accounts and in statements to news sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrJCarignan (talk • contribs) 00:55, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is interesting. I'm actually more interested in the censorship than the events themselves. I rest my case: Wikipedia is lying about Steven Pinker. I'm sorry if that sounds rude, but it is the truth. Weidorje (talk) 11:17, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I suggest deleting the article on the grounds that it has been hijacked. Weidorje (talk) 11:45, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Update on the letter

Hi guys, I'm not particularly interested in political correctness, BLM, MeToo or anything like that, but I've become curious about the way Pinker's WP articles are edited. I would describe "The letter" section as persuasive, it sounds really as if Mr Pinker had written it himself. WP is telling the reader that the issue is sorted. In reality, though, I see disagreement continues and there have been/will be further responses. If I mentioned some of them in the section, would my edits be removed? Weidorje (talk) 10:44, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Article talk pages are for actionable proposals to improve the article based on reliable sources. Speculation and unsourced commentary about a WP:BLP subject would be very unwise. Johnuniq (talk) 10:50, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so I'll be straightforward. Can I do an update on The Letter section? Weidorje (talk) 11:32, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you have independent sources that cover further developments? Schazjmd (talk) 14:42, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Of course, all sourced. I'd start with this, from the University of Edinburgh website: https://bialik.ppls.ed.ac.uk/pubs/who-speaks-public.pdf. There's also a later version stating it has been accepted and pending publication. As regards Pinker, I think it would be good to mention he calls it Cancel Culture (sources are already there). There are also further sources in Kastner et al., some notable names (potentially with existing WP articles). Also, if someone was looking for a validation of the list of signatories, here's one and a link to second one. Weidorje (talk) 17:19, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Just as some clarification of my own point, I wouldn't personally expel Pinker from LSA, but I think it is a notable event. Notice that Pinker's main opponent Sampson was involved in a similar scandal long before him (implying non-white students are less intelligent) although it attracted less media attention. Weidorje (talk) 17:24, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything additional to add. This is not an article about the event; this is a biography of Pinker. The preprint itself says As we will show, attempts to correct Pinker’s demonstrable mischaracterizations and falsehoods about TOL, its signatories, or the field of linguistics in general have been consistently rebuffed and sometimes met with open apathy (or even antipathy) on the part of journalists and editors. So it isn't that there is new or continuing coverage of the letter incident, but rather that the opponents (for lack of a better term) had to write their own paper because they weren't able to get additional publicity elsewhere. Perhaps there will be coverage once the paper is published or the LSA will take some additional action in response, and then that can be considered for inclusion. I think the article currently does a decent job at summarizing the high points of the incident with an appropriate level of detail. Schazjmd (talk) 17:32, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I could see the case for removing the Mother Jones bit; it's really just a blog post by their copy editor that breezily summarizes various people disputing the letter without giving an actual example of what they say is wrong with it. (It's also largely based on blogs and tweets, giving it somewhat of a linkdump feel, and it gives no indication of how the people it cites have been involved in cancel-culture-war kerfuffles before, indicating that as coverage goes, it's not really significant.) The quote from the LSA executive committee is rather lengthy and could do with paraphrasing, particularly since it's the kind of "we are committed to the values of intellectual discourse" emptiness in which all executive committees speak. How often is prose written by committee so deathless as to be worth quoting verbatim, really? Particularly when it's followed up by "clarifications" in the same style: "Finally, the recent message from the Executive Committee to the membership, despite alternative interpretations placed on it by some, was not intended to be a rejection of the open letter, but rather an affirmation of our collective values and principles." XOR'easter (talk) 18:49, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

This discussion is strange, indeed. I suppose the answer would be precisely that if I did an update, it would be removed. The current presentation is quite clearly biased because WP now claims the case is closed although it isn't. User:XOR'easter argues the whole issue is not notable. Over 600 signatures and quite a lot of media coverage, it's definitely never happened before in linguistics. So, what you'd actually like to do is remove, reduce or change tone to more positive? Weidorje (talk) 19:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I did not argue that "the whole issue is not notable". I suggested some revisions. With respect, I think that you may be bringing a confrontational style to this discussion which could impede other editors appreciating when you have legitimate points. (After all, every article here has room for improvement, and I think we can all agree that disputes on the Internet can generate a lot of heat which might spill over here and lead to suboptimal prose.) It may be helpful to write in your sandbox a draft of what you think the section should look like, so we could discuss specifics. XOR'easter (talk) 19:49, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, to end speculation, I'll have to take that as an offer. I have to say nonetheless I don't feel comfortable, the atmosphere is distressing here. Can somebody give an honest explanation why it might be so? What's wrong? Weidorje (talk) 20:06, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but as someone who has encountered an unpleasant atmosphere now and then (and even taken breaks from the project on account of it), I can offer a few thoughts. Long-time Wikipedia editors can get very sensitive about the possibility of someone trying to advance an agenda. Sometimes this is fair (I mean, plenty of fly-by-night companies have tried to use Wikipedia as an advertising platform), and sometimes it's an unfortunate overreaction. It is also the case that Wikipedia is bound by policies: we don't publish original thoughts or analysis, only collect and summarize what's already been said elsewhere. Moreover, we have standards for what can qualify as a usable source, standards that are particularly stringent when it comes to biographies of living people. I'm sure you can imagine what would go wrong if we didn't! As a result of all this, right-wingers are upset that we've blacklisted Breitbart and the Daily Mail, while leftists are upset that we rely on national news rather than citizen journalists on the ground. (And there are probably people in the political "center" who are extreme emotionally and get angry at us for their own reasons.) It is possible that a sober, professional evaluation of the LSA letter business would find that much of the media coverage was off-base. However, it's not our job to write that evaluation, and indeed, the nature of our project means that we're not set up to do so. I suspect there are many Wikipedians who find Pinker an overrated writer, or who think he is completely mistaken about issue X, Y, or Z; our hobby is building an encyclopedia, so it's a good bet that we have opinions about books! :-) We're all bound by policy and have to work carefully, though, keeping in mind that we're all rubbing elbows. It's easy to develop an us-versus-them mentality when disputes behind the scenes here get heated, but generally, we're all just trying to work with what's available and write the most useful articles that we can. XOR'easter (talk) 20:46, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing the need for much in the way of changes. Perhaps it doesn't need its own heading though. The source pointed to above by Weidorje is the same unpublished preprint we have discussed before. WP:NPOV does not mean 'equal weight to both sides'; it is based on the weight of the reliable, published, independent sources. An unpublished preprint by the same people who complained initially, complaining that many or most people didn't agree with them, does not factor in to that. Mother Jones is a WP:RS and should be included. We quote the LSA response because attempts to summarize it in our words were controversial; easier to just quote them directly via the secondary source used there. Lastly, while there absolutely are legitimate scholarly criticisms of Pinker's ideas, there are also people who engage in ad hominem style attacks on him. This article has had issues with POV pushing via people trying to add attack page-style content. One such editor had to be blocked indefinitely. All this can be seen in the previous discussions here. I don't think any editors in this discussion are bad faith like that; my point is that no new sources have appeared since those past discussions and thus nothing has changed. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd concur that a top-level section heading seems overkill. Maybe it can be brought under "Public debate", which is looking a bit crufty and in need of organization. XOR'easter (talk) 23:42, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

It's a good reply but I'm not buying all of it. The current form is persuasive, and there are further sources. Weidorje (talk) 06:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

You know we can see your other comments on this talk page right? In a dead discussion above, in reply to an SPA, you wrote that "Wikipedia is lying about Steven Pinker", which is baseless WP:ASPERSIONS and a slap in the face to every editor who has worked on this article, and that "I suggest deleting the article on the grounds that it has been hijacked", which is so over-the-top I can't possibly take any of this seriously. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:25, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Of course you can see it, because I just added it there (apparently the discussion was not dead). Mr Pinker may argue that the section is hurting his feelings, but what about the other side? You're labelling them as frauds. If supporter names are mentioned, then also opposers etc. etc. The discussion on this talk page is not factual. I might go with XOR's suggestion to remove the section altogether. But what should we do with the rest of the article, then? Weidorje (talk) 06:50, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I was under the false impression that they wanted to expel Pinker from SLA. Actually, what they meant was to remove him from their recommended experts list for the media, which it as a matter of fact did: "From 2013 - 2020, the LSA maintained a list of Media Experts on a broad range of topics relating to linguistics and the scientific study of language. Upon careful consideration of the ways in which “media experts” are listed, it has become clear to the LSA Executive Committee (EC) that the process for selecting linguists who are able to serve as media sources should be reevaluated. The EC has determined that it would be a prudent step to take down the list (as of July 17, 2020) until an official Task Force can be empaneled by the LSA Committee on Committees and Delegate Appointments to address the whole concept of a “Media Experts” page — its purpose, its name, its structure, and such — and to rethink it from the ground up." https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/media-experts Now, it is obvious that both parties are trying to pressurise the panel as we speak. One of them has got Wikipedia. Weidorje (talk) 09:33, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Correction on the LSA letter

Removing the headline "LSA letter" is not sufficient. It is either that the whole content is removed, and we look into removing or contracting the article as a whole until further notice. Before proposing such drastic measures, I offer my correction proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Weidorje/sandbox&oldid=1039202818 If you want to remove the last bit (reply from signatories), The Atlantic and Mother Jones should also be removed. Weidorje (talk) 09:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Nope, it's WP:UNDUE via adding self-published and primary sources and inappropriate for a WP:BLP. See what you were told above. Wikipedia is not for righting great wrongs (as you perceive them), and it is not for adding special emphasis on guilt-by-association tactics vis-a-vis Epstein. I also am deeply suspicious of this attempt based on what you said above. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:34, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Crossroads, I knew I could negotiate with the Pinker camp. I've now carefully read WP:UNDUE, WP:BLP and WP:RGW, and will proceed making the due changes. Weidorje (talk) 07:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Crossroads, as a reminder, you know well how the Camp brought me here. I'm interested in science, not politics. Weidorje (talk) 08:11, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

What Camp are you talking about? Crossroads ^-talk- 04:11, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

See here. Pinker has too many supporters in WP. I admit my edits aren't always perfect, but there's really no way to keep the discussion real. Part of the problem is that the skeptic movement promotes Pinker. If his theory was supported by evidence, I would agree. Now the movement is also being dragged into undesirable political scandals, and looks for support in WP. These are risky developments. Weidorje (talk) 06:04, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Painful, very painful to read

Boys, I know it hurts when your loved one is criticized, but the wording on the LSA letter is an embarrassement. Is there any chance you could tone it down? It is blatantly POV. Weidorje (talk) 13:45, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The "anon IP" editor from Brighton, Massachusetts, has removed the words "was signed by hundreds of academics". Are you saying that's not correct? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Please do not create a new thread to discuss the same issue that was discussed in the previous thread; this is the third such thread you opened. Moreover, if you have any concerns with the current wording, please mention them explicitly. Asserting "it is blatantly POV", without supplying any evidence or examples, is not conducive to a fruitful discussion. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 14:46, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, "evidence" would indeed be fruitful. What kind of evidence would please you? Weidorje (talk) 06:45, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, if you can't manage evidence, how about some examples? You understand what the word "examples" means? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Of course, here's one example of POV:

In 2020, an open letter to the Linguistic Society of America was written requesting the removal of Pinker from its list of LSA Fellows and its list of media experts.[96][97]. Academics, including geneticist Charleen Adams[98], evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne[99], linguist Barbara Partee[100], computer scientist Scott Aaronson[101], and others criticized the letter and expressed strong support for Pinker.[102][96] Conor Friedersdorf, writing in The Atlantic, criticized the letter for engaging in guilt by association and for creating a "chilling effect" on the speech of non-tenured academics,[96] and Mother Jones called it "factually flawed" and "dishonest".[102] On July 9, 2020, the executive committee of the Linguistic Society of America issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to intellectual freedom and professional responsibility.[103][104]. The executive committee of the Linguistic Society of America issued a letter stating that the group "is committed to intellectual freedom and professional responsibility. It is not the mission of the Society to control the opinions of its members, nor their expression. Inclusion and civility are crucial to productive scholarly work. And inclusion means hearing (not necessarily accepting) all points of view, even those that may be objectionable to some."[103]

and here's the other:

In 2020, an open letter to the Linguistic Society of America requesting the removal of Pinker from its list of LSA Fellows and its list of media experts was signed by hundreds of academics.[96][97] The letter accused Pinker of a "pattern of drowning out the voices of people suffering from racist and sexist violence, in particular in the immediate aftermath of violent acts and/or protests against the systems that created them", citing as examples six tweets and a phrase used in his 2011 book.[98] Pinker said that through this letter he was being threatened by "a regime of intimidation that constricts the theatre of ideas".[99][100][101] Several academics criticized the letter and expressed strong support for Pinker.[96][102] Conor Friedersdorf, writing in The Atlantic, criticized the letter for engaging in guilt by association and for creating a "chilling effect" on the speech of non-tenured academics,[96] and Mother Jones called it "factually flawed" and "dishonest".[102] The executive committee of the Linguistic Society of America issued a letter stating that the group "is committed to intellectual freedom and professional responsibility. It is not the mission of the Society to control the opinions of its members, nor their expression. Inclusion and civility are crucial to productive scholarly work. And inclusion means hearing (not necessarily accepting) all points of view, even those that may be objectionable to some."[103]

Good? Weidorje (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Would you care to highlight the part(s) you consider to be "POV"? It all looks like a series of facts with good sources. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:01, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Of course. When you're truly, deeply, madly in love, you will believe anything. Weidorje (talk) 14:30, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

No-one's in love. We're not "boys", either. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:03, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Public intellectual?

WTF is that? Tsugekumene (talk) 13:51, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Public intellectual. Johnuniq (talk) 23:23, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Letter to the LSA again

I've trimmed the paragraph on the 2020 open letter, trying to bring a measure of WP:DUE balance: . To me it seems odd that a brief quotation from a letter signed by *hundreds* of academics would then be counterbalanced by a WP:MANDY-type denial by Pinker, and a sentence stating that "several academics criticized the letter and expressed strong support for Pinker", and a separate sentence for one of his defenders, and a long, bland quote from the LSA denying responsibility. I hope we can agree that my edits are a step in the right direction, but if not I'm happy to discuss. Generalrelative (talk) 00:15, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Guardian article

I've searched the article and talk page archive for discussion of the Guardian "long read" article "Pinker’s progress: the celebrity scientist at the centre of the culture wars" by Alex Blasdel and found nothing. The picture it paints of Pinker as "one of the world’s most contentious thinkers" appears to be somewhat at odds with the overall tone of this BLP, and even its "Public debate" section, which appears to downplay the controversy surrounding this figure. Thoughts on using this source to discuss some of Pinker's controversies in greater depth? Is there good reason to believe that Basdel's view is outside the mainstream? Generalrelative (talk) 01:27, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

In general the source is certainly usable, of course in accord with WP:Due weight and so forth. The much stronger claim that Pinker is "one of the world’s most contentious thinkers" appears in what seems to be part of the headline, so I would be very leery of a broader reframing around that specifically, or even of including that at all without much better support from other sources. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:33, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

For sure. What I'm most interested in is the discussion of the various controversies given in the final 1/3 of the article, following the sentence "Everything, of course, is not amazing." I agree that we would need more than just this article to, for instance, state that Pinker is a "contentious thinker" in the lead, but it is true that the body of Basdel's article substantiates the message of its sub-headline. Generalrelative (talk) 03:09, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

For a bit more perspective on the notability of Pinker's controversies, see this piece from the Harvard Crimson, especially the statement:

As students at the university where he teaches, we certainly knew about his scientific work, but we were also aware of the controversy he has engendered. Pinker, it seems, eventually did not know what to make of us, either. In our final interview, it became necessary to ask Pinker to respond to his harshest critics — what he made of being called a scientific racist, a sexist, and a defender of others who are racist and sexist — which prompted him to send us an email reiterating, on the latter point, “this is untrue.” On the whole, Pinker is remarkably accessible to students — he responds to all of our messages within a matter of minutes. “Any professor who said no at a request to meet with students would be derelict in their duties,” he tells us. Most of the interactions that students have with him will be in the context of the coursework he teaches. And yet, his persona in the culture wars looms.

(Emphasis added of course.) Generalrelative (talk) 03:21, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

This piece in Chronicle of Higher Education is also informative on his connections to the "Intellectual Dark Web" and discusses criticism from John Gray, Nassim Taleb and Samuel Moyn. Generalrelative (talk) 03:32, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't want to get too much into the weeds of behavioural matters that are not best discussed in this place, but I do think it might be helpful to explain to anyone new to the article that there has been an extensive history of disruption with regard to this and some other Pinker-related articles that goes a long way to explaining the afore-mentioned issues with tone in certain sections. Specifically, there is almost no question that the LTA HeadlyDown was, for a protracted period a couple of years back, heavily attacking Pinker-related articles through POV pushing with socks. I was going to raise the matter at ANI and SPI about two years back, but I first took the matter of my suspicions up with a former Arb who had dealt with HD extensively--and from that moment forwards, the sock farm went quiet--apparently realizing the jig was up, as they say--and so I never pursued the matter further. Incidentally, Generalrelative, HeadlyDown's LTA page was blanked (and I think reference to them in the LTA indexes were eliminated) last December by another LTA that you blocked a few months later, so it's possible those two sock clusters are linked, though it does seem they have very distinct areas of interest. (Nevermind, it looks like that other LTA blanked about a hundred such LTA report pages that same day, possibly to mask the one they were actually intent on hiding. Those edits should all probably be reverted.)

Again, all of that is only indirectly relevant to the content issues themselves, but what I want to emphasize is that I believe there was and still is significant consensus among the legitimate participants in previous discussions that the criticisms section had essentially been leveraged to turn the article in a virtual attack page. The worst of the changes were pared back soon after the edits were originally made, but I don't think the section ever got a proper, well-thought-out, consensus process re-rewrite after the socks went quiet. By the way, just in case anyone is curious, I did consider, just because of how aggressively they were pushing for coverage of certain facts and their very small number of edits, whether Nancygerette is the latest Headly sock. Because of behavioural factors that I won't disclose here per WP:BEANS, I tend to believe that Nancy is not a sock (or at least not a Headly sock), but to be fair, their contributions are quite few in number, so grain of salt and all.

By the way, if anyone feels this is the wrong place to be discussing all of this, I'll take no offense to it being removed or moved to another forum, I simply wanted to make the goodfaith contributors here to realize all of this, because while a number of editors above were in the know on what was going on, the lack of a formal SPI and additional LTA logging means it did not gt recorded properly in the right spaces. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 12:40, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Now, that editorial context out of the way, with regard to the content issues being discussed immediately above, I am somewhat divided. On the one hand, it's pretty clear that the "scientific racism" charges come from non-expert sources by way of culture war controversies. There's no indication in RS that I have seen that indicate that any major figures in the spheres of cognitive science, psychometrics, or genetics regard any of Pinker's positions or statements in the area of race and intelligence (which comments are mostly pretty reserved and noncommital) are "controversial". He doesn't really contribute research to that area himself, but he has (in interviews and forums) sometimes referenced well-known (but predictably controversial) research that suggests Ashkenazi Jews might have a slightly higher average IQ than any other identified racial group of its size. His support for it isn't full-throated, but more a kind of vague "well I think as scientists we have to be open to considering the possibility that there might be genetic populations with small advantages in intellect, but none of the research is conclusive" hand-wavy non-renuniciation. He hardly goes to the mat on the matter, but because of his belonging to the group in question, it's not the best look in the world. Then again, he does have a reputation as a major advocate for freedom of inquiry and a rejection of dogma: he's often unwilling to say that certain matters (such as those pertain to sexual dimorphism in behaviour) are completely settled issues, as a scientific matter, because of the complexity of the neuropsychological and genetic factors at play. And that, I think, is the biggest single reason why he has gotten enshrouded by the culture wars: it's less what he has to say and more what he refuses to say, because of a certain absolutist take and what you can and cannot endorse as an empiricist.

Anyway, bringing this back to the policy point I was aiming to address, my main concern is the quality of the sources: there's an element of MEDRS involved in these topics, and I have reservations about relying too heavily upon op-eds and mainstream coverage of his positions on scientific issues, and whether or not they are best described as controversial or extreme, or even for validating that these are positions that pinker has actually expressly supported. There's a lot of innuendo and vague implications in some of the sources in this space, and dearth of insight from field experts. On the other hand, looking at the newest crop of sources in particular, I do think there is WP:weight here such that we would be acting improperly as an editorial matter if we did not discuss the reputation he has with some in the mainstream. We really need to attribute this heavily and refine the wording to thread that needle, but much as I find the claims that he support scientific racism in any form to be inaccurate and unsupported by the record of his actual statements, there's just a few too many sources that do make that claim, or something like it. We just can't ignore that altogether, even if the question of exactly how how much of the criticism is WP:DUE remains an open question. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 12:40, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

You can also see above on this page several SPA accounts, of which McNulTEA was blocked. I also filed an SPA for another account but it wasn't enough evidence for them to take action: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/McNulTEA/Archive (this also links to the AE report that led to the original block). I wonder if there's a connection there to the LTA. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:53, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Probable: there is overlap on the POV pushing subject matter, a relatively small gap in the timing, and some other indicators (that again, I'd rather not reveal per WP:BEANS). But suffice it to say, yeah, I think these two you caught are likely related to Headly. The LTA report should probably be updated at some point, although I'll have to be careful how to present it with respect to the accounts that were not CU'd. If I find time to do it this week, I'll come back here and delete those portions of my comments above and leave a link instead, so this page isn't too cluttered with sock identification talk. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 01:32, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

"self-published promo"

Re this recent removal, yes it's from his own website. But there is no reason to doubt it, it's entirely factual and it's not contentious. The examples given are notable entities. How is this "promo"? Presumably this could all be restored with some alternative source(s)? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:14, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

It could be readily restored with alternative sources, yes. The version removed, without support from reliable, secondary sources, simply had no weight for our purposes. This isn't a judgement on its veracity; only on it's relevance here, per WP:TRUTH. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:25, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

For verification of the facts, a citation to his own self-published material is sufficient, per WP:ABOUTSELF. Being on the boards of notable journals and notable institutions seems self-evidently notable for a biography of the person in question. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:47, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Surely they are not just claims about himself though, but claims about third parties, i.e. the institutions that he is claiming affiliation with? Iskandar323 (talk) 04:13, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Exactly what "claims" is he making about any of these bodies, apart from the fact he has been associated with them? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:18, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Pinker's long time support for race pseudoscience

This wiki ignores Pinker's long-time support for promoters of race pseudoscience in spite of the fact that in 2021, one mass-media outlet, the Guardian, finally asked him about his connection to Steve Sailer.https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/28/steven-pinker-celebrity-scientist-at-the-centre-of-the-culture-wars

This wiki even cites Sailer interviewing Pinker in 2002. Shortly after, Pinker would promote Sailer, a career-long proponent of the most extreme race pseudoscience and a professional racist, by including Sailer's badly-written article "The Cousin Marriage Conundrum" in a collection of "The Best American Science and Nature Writing" of 2004.

https://www.pinkerite.com/2021/11/steven-pinker-steve-sailer-and-cousin.html

I've been following Pinker's shameful career for years. Part of the shamefulness is the media's impulse to whitewash his activities on behalf of race pseudoscience.

https://www.pinkerite.com Nancygerette (talk) 01:38, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Go ahead and fix it. Just make sure that you stick to information explicitly stated in reliable sources. The Guardian is good, but I don't think that you should cite pinkerite.com because it looks like a self-published source.      — Freoh 01:57, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

A few sources mentioning Steven Pinker's relationship to Steve Sailer and the "human biodiversity" movement:

• Angela Saini's book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, mentions Steven Pinker in Steve Sailer's group starting as early as 1999.
• Pinker’s progress: the celebrity scientist at the centre of the culture wars (The Guardian)
• Nov. 19, 2009: Let’s Go to the Tape (The New York Times)
• How White nationalists mobilize genetics: From genetic ancestry and human biodiversity to counterscience and metapolitics (American Journal of Physical Anthropology)

The "Pinkerite" website would not qualify as a reliable source, being a self-published website. Hist9600 (talk) 04:38, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Nancygerette, this also looks like a good source:

• Evans, Gavin (2019). Skin Deep: Journeys in the Divisive Science of Race. London. ISBN 978-1-78607-622-9. OCLC 1059232398.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

This raises an obvious but tricky question: is someone a racist if they hold the idea that different population groups have different innate, average intelligence? A few of those advancing such views are indeed happy to own up to racism. One of those is Richard Lynn, the University of Ulster evolutionary psychologist, who has no hesitation about calling himself a 'racialist', a 'racist' and a 'scientific racist'. But most of those who advocate race science, including several who enthusiastically quote Lynn, deny they’re racists, preferring to view themselves as intrepid truth-tellers who follow science wherever it may lead. To say they are racists would put the likes of Steven Pinker, Andrew Sullivan, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and Nicholas Wade, along with older hands such as Charles Murray, in a particularly odious circle of hell. I would prefer not to go that far, because I do not know what goes on in their every secret place. It is perfectly possible that all or some of these men treat black, white, Asian and Hispanic people the same, perhaps even that they have close friends who are not white, and that their belief that some population groups are, on average, less intelligent than others has no influence on the way they treat individual people from any of these groups. What I will say, however, is that some of the beliefs they advance are indeed racist, and that the adjective 'scientific' does nothing to mitigate this verdict.

Despite overwhelming evidence that tests of Jewish IQ in early-twentieth-century America and late-twentieth-century Israel showed lower than average IQ, the myth of perpetually high Jewish IQ persists. Steven Pinker said the Jewish IQ advantage was 'long standing and has been around for as long as there have been IQ scores of Jewish populations'.

Pinker has subsequently dug in on his view that different populations might have different innate intellectual abilities, reiterating his Ashkenazi idea and tweeting in favour of other race science promoters such as Murray and Linda Gottfredson who had faced 'no platform' pressure. Gottfredson has a thirty-year history of race science, including being the author of the founding document of the modern version of this calling. Pinker described her as an 'expert on ... intelligence', referencing a story on the right-wing website Quillette to back her.

     — Freoh 18:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your support Freoh. My apologies for not responding sooner, I had neglected to monitor this Talk.

I certainly didn't expect that Pinkerite.com itself would be cited in Wikipedia, but I have collected plenty of evidence there, from sources that even a Wikipedia editor would consider valid, concerning Pinker's two decades-long support for race pseudoscience and those who promote it.

Furthermore, Pinkerite.com does not exist purely to "attack" Pinker, as the logo featured prominently on the site makes clear - the site is "Steven Pinker, the Intellectual Dark Web and Race Pseudoscience." I explain clearly why Pinker was named: he was identified by Bari Weiss as the most mainstream individual connected to the IDW.

https://www.pinkerite.com/p/who-is-behind-pinkerite.html

As such, he deserves more scrutiny than the more extreme individuals associated with the IDW - and again, identified by Weiss herself - like Stefan Molyneux and Alex Jones.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html

Pinker was asked in an interview in the Guardian about his support for Steve Sailer, an extreme racist, and while Pinker tried to hand-wave that away with his usual "guilt by association" the article goes on to point out that Pinker did not merely "associate" with Sailer, he advanced his career.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/28/steven-pinker-celebrity-scientist-at-the-centre-of-the-culture-wars

And I should add that the article Pinker chose to include in "The Best Science and Nature Writing" of 2004 was not very good at all, which I explain here:

https://www.pinkerite.com/2021/11/steven-pinker-steve-sailer-and-cousin.html

Which makes me suspect Pinker did it as a personal favor, rather than the quality of the piece.

The fact that there is such outrage that I dared to mention Pinker's support for race pseudoscience makes me wonder how partisan some editors at Wikipedia are, on behalf of Pinker. We already know that Pinker's PR people monitor his Wiki entry.

https://www.pinkerite.com/2019/11/steven-pinkers-pr-machine.html Nancygerette (talk) 15:35, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Furthermore, Pinker is making his third appearance, this July, at the annual conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research which has been criticized for its association with eugenics, and should be criticized for its long-time and ongoing support for race pseudoscience, or if you prefer, "hereditarianism."

https://www.pinkerite.com/2023/06/steven-pinker-at-2023-racist-rodeo.html

Last year there was a controversy because Emil O. W. Kirkegaard was disinvited from the 2022 conference due to the complaint of another invited speaker, over Kirkegaard's promotion of race pseudoscience.

https://a-abdellaoui.medium.com/how-to-keep-flies-away-from-our-picknick-7867151f6e69

Outside of ISIR, Kirkegaard was known as an unaccredited, racist crank - |noted by geneticist Adam Rutherford in this tweet. - but apparently he was good enough for the ISIR for a long time. http://programme.exordo.com/isir2018/

Which should make clear the disreputable nature of ISIR. Nancygerette (talk) 16:15, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

A clue is that someone has made a website (pinkerite.com) dedicated to attacking Pinker. (Personal attack removed) Basing material in this WP:BLP article based on a website like that is not going to happen. Johnuniq (talk) 02:25, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I never suggested Pinkerite be cited directly, but rather, Pinkerite.com provides plenty of evidence for Pinker's promotion of race pseudoscience, from Wikipedia-acceptable sources. The fact that you made a personal attack against me is absolutely typical of Pinker fans - they never actually address the issues I raise, but rather express their outrage that anybody would be "crazy" enough to dare criticize Pinker at all. This is how race pseudoscience manages to flourish - too much respect for "celebrity intellectuals" like Pinker to even dare broach the subject. Nancygerette (talk) 16:23, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

None of this looks WP:DUE or appropriate for a WP:BLP; it's a lot of guilt-by-association using almost entirely non-academic sources and in general is not what Wikipedia is for. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:34, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What do you mean? Gavin Evans is an academic, and he addresses beliefs that Pinker is directly promoting.      — Freoh 23:53, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

The source is not from an academic peer-reviewed publisher, and his field is journalism rather than anthropology or something of relevance. We don't cite journalists for things like physics if we can help it, same goes for other fields. It's not due weight; we don't add every complaint about someone to their BLP. Crossroads ^-talk- 00:27, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

How does it not deserve due weight? There are a bunch of reliable sources above that talk about it, and I haven't seen any sources that contradict this information.      — Freoh 00:56, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

If the matter has been covered in multiple reliable sources, then there can be little doubt that it is relevant. Associating with white nationalists and scientific racists, citing them, promoting their work, and having those connections written about in a variety of reliable sources, including The Guardian, The New York Times, academic articles, and books on scientific racism, is certainly relevant (not merely a "complaint").

WP:DUE requires that all reliable sources be represented. Not that they all be excluded because the authors are not all anthropologists, or some other arbitrary made-up criteria. That would be as silly as claiming that all sources for the life of Albert Einstein must be authored by physicists. Hist9600 (talk) 00:41, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

This section doesn't belong on Wikipedia.

First, these are trivial guilt-by-association accusations, irrelevant to Pinker's career of hundreds of interviews and essays. The Sailer essay was included in a collection that had nothing to do with race. Pinker briefly eavesdropping on the HBD listserv 20+ years ago is an obvious partisan attempt to discredit him, not a noteworthy fact about his career.

Second, Pinkerite isn't a credible source. Attempts to include a blogger who is known for nothing other than smearing people on Wikipedia should be frowned upon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki edit sp (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 June 2025 (UTC)