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Steven Pinker

@sapinker861k followers

Cognitive scientist at Harvard.

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Posts 98 posts
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1Aug 31, '25Evidence that woke isn't dead, peer review is problematic, and science needs to address deep problems in its culture: A grad student at Harvard conducted the first systematic, data60.9×7.9M13k2.3k1.5k
2Sep 9, '25The French Revolution was a disaster: killed 2 million people, led to the rise of Napoleon--perhaps the world's first totalitarian fascist dictator, who began wars of conquest that23.9×3.1M12k2.8k5k
3Aug 20, '25“I have nothing against diversity, equity, and inclusion. But as Voltaire said about the Holy Roman Empire: it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”23.1×3M44k7.4k13k
4Nov 24, '23I was a fan of Effective Altruism (almost taught a course on it at Harvard) together w other rational efforts (evidence-based medicine, data-driven policing, randomista econ). But 22.2×2.9M3k246634
5Jun 18, '24Reports today of Noam Chomsky's death (in Jacobin and New Statesman, since taken down) were greatly exaggerated. I have confirmation from Valeria, his wife, that he is alive and we14.7×1.9M6.4k1.8k323
6Aug 13, '25Analysis of US college syllabi by the Open Syllabus project shows that bell hooks is assigned more than Aristotle, Judith Butler more than Plato, Edward Said more than than Kant, a13.9×1.8M3.7k7531.3k
7Dec 7, '23The wrong way for the elite universities to dig themselves out their reputational hole: restrict speech even more. Instead: 1. Clear & coherent free speech policy. 2. Institutional12.6×1.6M7.7k1.7k905
8Oct 10, '23An Open letter to the Harvard community from me and more than a hundred colleagues (so far):12.1×1.6M6k1.1k505
9Jan 18, '18I collect ambiguous headlines. This one, on our President's health, is among the best.11.7×021k7.2k22
10Oct 9, '23Agree with @nickKristof, and am ashamed to be at the same university as the endorsers of this fatuous and morally monstrous statement. Deliberately murdering civilians, and abducti10.4×1.3M6.7k844257
11Oct 12, '23More than 350 of my fellow faculty @Harvard have delivered this open letter to the Harvard community this morning unequivocally denouncing the mass murder and kidnapping of noncomb8.0×1M4.3k670199
12Feb 26, '25I resigned from the American Psychological Association last year after 43 years of membership. Sally Satel ⁦@slsatel⁩ explains the reason - takeover (and ruination) of scholarly &a7.5×971k5.7k905897
13Nov 10, '25From my appearance on 60 Minutes: Me: Research works. If you want to freeze society where it is, then cripple the research enterprise. Bill Whitaker of 60 Minutes: Is that whole id7.3×945k7k1.3k791
14Dec 7, '23Analysis by @TheFIREorg is right on: Claudine Gay was technically correct that students can't be punished for political chants, but when Harvard et al. have no prior credible commi6.7×861k2.7k350212
15Jan 14, '24Opposing D.E.I. Does Not Mean Opposing Diversity. "Universities can welcome students from all walks of life without unlawfully censoring speech. They can respond to campus sexual v5.9×764k2.9k437258
16Sep 6, '23We're Number 0! Harvard is named worst school for free speech — scoring zero out of possible 100 via @nypost5.7×736k2.5k582173
17Sep 13Worth watching: "It is not a genocide; it is a counterattack in a war."5.0×653k7k9321.2k
18May 6, '24Unscientific American | Another noble American institution run into the ground when clueless trustees handed over the keys to a woke fanatic.4.2×540k2.5k651414
19Oct 18, '25After hearing the umpteenth perfectly functioning Harvard student tell me she's "autistic," and also teenagers who shriek uncontrollably, self-mutilate, and never look at another p4.1×527k3.9k453656
20Mar 4, '25Having plotted many graphs on "war" and "genocide" in my two books on violence, I closely tracked the definitions, and it's utterly clear that the war in Gaza is a war (e.g., the U3.9×504k3.8k8901.1k
21Sep 12, '25Speech is not violence. Violence is not speech.3.8×492k8.4k1.2k466
22Oct 11, '25If scientists wants science to be taken seriously, they've got to stop doing stupid stuff like publishing the zillionth study claiming that groupwise disparities are proof of bigot3.6×469k5k596554
23May 5, '24Hooray for MIT, my former home: It was the 1st elite university to reinstate standardized testing for applicants (best way to find poor smart students), and now becomes 1st to disc3.5×457k5.4k700335
24Sep 21, '23Among the biggest climate blunders of the century: Germany's shutdown of nuclear, predictably replaced by coal).3.3×433k2.8k41347
25Jul 4, '19To prevent possibly catastrophic climate change we can't just bring C02 emissions to zero - we have to go negative, sucking the CO2 that's already there. The best tech is a billion3.1×05.3k1.8k103
26Oct 13, '25I explain why the accusation that Israel is committing "genocide" is blood libel. Me: The application of the word genocide to refer to tens of thousands of war deaths is, I mean, I3.0×393k4.6k8951.3k
27Apr 21, '21Letter to the @AmericanHumanist Association from myself (AHA Humanist of the Year 2006) and Rebecca Goldstein (AHA Humanist of the Year 2011) @platobooktour protesting its withdraw2.9×06k1.3k114
28Dec 22, '16Most people think the world is getting worse. They're wrong. The history of progress in 5 charts. Our World In Data2.9×02.8k2.7k9
29Jul 1, '19It's Insane We're Having A 'Debate' Over Whether It's Acceptable To Assault A Journalist2.9×05.9k1.3k32
30Oct 23, '25After a 2-day conference at Stanford's Hoover Institution honoring my friend, the economist Thomas Sowell, I was fortunate to have lunch with Tom, going strong at 95! 🧵2.8×363k9.1k768419
31Oct 29, '23Is one man's terrorist really another man's freedom fighter? (Do "freedom fighters" rape women & murder babies?) BBC, Reuters, other newsrooms tell reporters: Don't say "terrorism.2.8×357k2.3k356150
32Jul 21, '17The Left continues its slow suicide by intolerance, emboldening the right: Richard Dawkins deplatformed in Berkeley.2.8×03.6k2.1k0
33Jul 6, '20A final comment: I feel sorry for the signatories. Moralistic dudgeon is a shallow and corrosive indulgence, & policing the norms of your peer group a stunting of the intellect2.7×06.1k819151
34May 24, '18Elon Musk is absolutely right about this. Journalistic innumeracy is damaging in many ways, and editors should put an end to it.2.6×05.4k1.1k20
35Oct 29, '24The right says the country is dying so you should vote for Trump despite his flaws. The hard left says the country is a hellscape so you may as well vote in protest for a 3rd party2.6×342k2.3k436474
36Jan 27, '21The spring semester at Harvard has begun, and I will be posting my lectures from Psy 1: Introduction to Psychological Science. Here's the introductory lecture (still working on imp2.6×04.3k7551.1k
37Sep 9, '18Egregious: A math paper that tries to explain a fascinating fact (greater male variability) is censored. Again the academic left loses its mind: Ties equality to sameness, erodes c2.6×04k1.7k114
38Apr 6, '19Nuclear Power Can Save the World: My op-ed, posted a few minutes ago in the New York Times, with Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist.2.5×04k1.5k134
39Nov 26, '24"Disempower DEI" was one of my 5 recommendations for how universities (one in particular) could save themselves (w academic freedom, nonviolence, viewpoint diversity, & institution2.5×326k2.7k506421
40Dec 8, '19Happy 91st, Noam Chomsky!2.5×05.6k91341
41Feb 8, '19Ever since I first taught psycholinguistics in 1980, I've been collecting lexically or syntactically ambiguous headlines. Today's NYP is one of the best: deliberate, but clever in 2.5×04.1k96084
42Oct 8, '18Why hasn't this made headlines? 1/2 the world is now middle class or richer. I & others have highlighted the fall in extreme poverty (down 75% in 30 years) but this is just as 2.4×03.5k1.6k81
43Jul 8, '20Attackers of the free speech letter signed by Rowling, Chomsky et al miss the point: It’s not about us. It’s about the writers, scientists, & artists who are told ”NIce career 2.3×04.7k914112
44Sep 22, '23Thomas Sowell, going strong at 93, is among the most brilliant thinkers I know (which doesn't mean I agree w him on everything). Particularly insightful on distributed knowledge; i2.2×283k3.5k475371
45Apr 30, '21Nothing is moving in this illusion2.2×03.9k922337
46Mar 31, '18Sam Harris is among our farthest-ranging, deepest-probing, and most straight & open public intellectuals, engaging sincerely with ideas & people whether he agrees with them2.1×04.3k91047
47Jul 11, '20It's not about the signatories. A common email (example from this morning): "I left academia because I didn't conform to ultraleft views. I was walking on eggshells to avoid being 2.0×04.3k587123
48Jan 13, '191. Reverse-engineer what you read. If it feels like good writing, what makes it good? If it’s awful, why?2.0×03k781585
49Jul 20, '19Anyone quantifying the history of violence has had to deal with Mao's Great Leap Forward: How many 10s of millions killed? Criminal stupidity or deliberate genocide? Study w new da1.9×02.5k1.3k121
50Nov 7, '17Spelling and punctuation matter.1.8×03.2k1.1k3
51Aug 8, '18India is the worst country in the world for women? US 10th worst? A Thompson-Reuters "study" with these claims is based on anonymous subjective impressions, not data: a travesty of1.8×02.4k1.4k64
52Dec 9, '18Fewer babies & mothers dying; more kids educated; fewer starving, lynched, executed, oppressed, killed in wars; more w access to travel & culture... True, it's a value judg1.8×03.6k90729
53Oct 28, '18Part of a growing realization that journalism currently has a negativity bias which not only causes depression and anxiety, and turns people off from the news, but creates an inacc1.8×03.1k1k41
54Aug 9, '17I'm pleased to announce my next book, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, coming 2/27/2018. Learn more & pre-order here:1.8×03k82420
55May 5, '24A Columbia grad student in cognitive psychology wants to ask a sign-toting activist, "What exactly do you mean by ‘any means necessary’?...Knives? Guns and rifles? Raping and takin1.7×226k2.1k269227
56Jun 2, '19The first presidential candidate who is versed in behavioral genetics.1.7×03.8k61132
57Aug 28, '19Any solution to climate change that does the math will see that growing emissions from poor nations will swamp savings from developed ones. Only solution is tech:abundant cheap cle1.7×02.9k93697
58Aug 11, '25One reason, I suspect, that younger people are cynical about democracy and open to "socialism" is that they did not grow up with the USSR, Mao, & Pol Pot & don't learn abou1.7×224k3.1k569212
59Feb 16, '18Saturation coverage of rampage killers gives them exactly what they seek. Every day as many Americans are killed in homicides as in a mass shooting. Legal scholar Adam Lankford pro1.7×02.8k1.1k1
61Apr 18, '18The Blank Slate is cracking: With polygenic scores corroborating twin & adoption studies in showing IQ is in good part heritable, even schools & left-leaning mags are walki1.6×02.5k876134
62Sep 25, '19You can't make this stuff up: Philosopher James Flynn, of the eponymous Flynn Effect (rising IQ scores), and one of today's greatest liberal thinkers, wrote a book on free speech, 1.6×02.4k895125
63Feb 4, '20This is what happens when you abandon nuclear power: Japan Races to Build New Coal-Burning Power Plants, Despite the Climate Risks1.6×02.8k89961
64Mar 31, '19Seventeen years after I wrote The Blank Slate, the dogma remains strong: NYT op-ed claims boys are socialized to be rougher than girls, despite cross-cultural universality, presenc1.6×02.8k820161
65Aug 3, '20Thomas Sowell is among the most brilliant & original thinkers I've read. Excellent new profile by Coleman Hughes @coldxman1.6×03.2k625233
66Oct 23, '25Agree with Luke (former grad student at Harvard) - This feeds the most damaging anti-science narratives.1.6×207k2.6k294212
67Feb 14, '21A typical essay by Scott Alexander is deeper, better reasoned, better referenced, more original, and wittier than 99% of the opinion pieces in MSM. It's sad that the NYT can see hi1.5×03.3k357379
68Oct 10, '21In virtually every country that has closed nuclear plants, clean electricity has been replaced with dirty power.1.5×02.9k770116
69Jul 20, '19Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years.' Anyone who was a student in the 70s remembers he was a campus hero: t-shirts, posters, Little Red Books everywhere. "Mao1.5×02.4k94495
70Jul 25, '18Jordan Peterson should stop repeating the canards that morality must come from God and that 20th-Century tyrannies were atheistic. He needs to learn the concept "humanism." Fine an1.5×02.5k567171
71Nov 3, '25Steven Pinker: “The hatred of capitalism is deeply ingrained in academic culture” via @welt1.5×193k2.6k368390
72Aug 26, '22Journalists & psychologists take note: Nature Human Behavior is no longer a peer-reviewed scientific journal but an enforcer of a political creed. I won't referee, publish, or 1.5×02.4k753237
73Nov 9, '20We are technically in perhaps the worst governance crisis in US history. The commander-in-chief, in control of the military & executive, rejects election results, sows distrust1.5×03k36456
74Jul 10, '20Interview in The Times (UK) on why I signed the letter on justice and open debate in Harper’s.1.4×02.9k526146
75Dec 1, '21Dislike meritocracy? Consider the time-honored alternatives: nepotism, patronage, cronyism, inheritance, racial & ethnic discrimination. We dismantle it at our peril, says Adri1.4×02.5k533249
76Jul 12, '20Not just profs. This AM, from a worker: "I feel uncomf. expressing my thoughts, moderate as they are, to coworkers for fear of being labeled a bigot. I'm a moderate centrist & 1.4×02.3k33468
77Dec 5, '20Visual illusion of the month (nothing is actually moving).1.4×02.7k558163
78Aug 10, '19An ingenious new illusion (and a metaphor for Fox News).1.4×02.6k652105
79Aug 24, '19The newest member of A.W.F.U.L. (Americans Who Figuratively Use "Literally"): Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’1.4×02.2k25854
80Jun 8, '19Contrary to media impressions and event-driven stereotypes, life has been improving for African American men, a majority of whom are middle-class.1.4×02.6k64576
81Apr 16, '24Sad to watch academia getting stupider and stupider ...1.3×173k2.1k27889
83Mar 20, '22The Soviet-era joke has come true. A man in a train station hands out leaflets to passersby. The KGB arrests him—but they discover that the leaflets are blank pieces of paper. “Wha1.3×02.6k61375
84Aug 13, '18I dislike Jordan Peterson's counter-Enlightenment wooliness (Christianity, Nietzsche, Jung, lobsters), but Caitlyn Flanagan explains his appeal in an era when the cultural Left see1.2×02.2k455115
85Oct 19, '21"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear." - George Orwell (taken at BBC Broadcasting House).1.2×02.7k46969
86Oct 21, '18Men and women’s preferences differ more in more developed and egalitarian countries, contra idea that diffs arise from “roles.” Hard lives force 2 sexes to focus on necessities; fr1.2×02.1k71891
87Jan 10, '21I'm a strong free speech guy, but tech's deplatforming of Trump seems justified. Even 1st amend jurisprud (lenient standard) excepts inciting imminent lawless action. POTUS w uniqu1.2×02.6k36239
88Aug 19, '20I'm honored to have written the foreword to Nobel Peace Laureate & Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos's new book Un Mensaje Optimista Para un Mundo en Crisis (an opt1.2×02.4k46023
89Jul 15, '20Most important: The sheer number of cancellations (though not small) misses the point: it's the regime of intimidation that silences many more and warps our knowledge. It's like sa1.2×02.5k40866
90Jun 23, '20Tragedy in the blogosphere: One of the best is being taken down. Scott Alexander (not his real name) explains: NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Delet1.1×02.1k49769
91Dec 18, '20Visual illusion of the day: No actual motion in this display.1.1×02.3k470112
92Jun 11, '24Would refusing to talk to Daniel Kahneman when he was at Hebrew U have made the world a better place? If I stopped corresponding with 93-year-old Nobelist Robert Aumann about his g1.1×143k2.3k512142
93Nov 27, '20Jordan Peterson: how the left manufactured a folk devil1.1×02.2k330161
94May 8, '18Excellent analysis by Bari Weiss of the "Intellectual Dark Web." I can confirm Joe Rogan & Dave Rubin's reach: More strangers recognize me from their shows than MSM appearances1.1×02k50739
95Jun 7, '18Forget the honorary degrees & scientific bling. I've just received the greatest honor: a species of beetle has been named after me, Xixuthrus pinkeri, by the entomologist Andre1.0×02.6k2385
96Sep 11, '21Journalists should cover environmental successes, not just crises, to reinforce the idea that conservation & environmental protection measures can succeed, countering cynicism 1.0×02.2k39536
97Feb 17, '25The Weimar Fallacy: Free speech enabled Hitler. Not true.1.0×129k2.4k339143
98Apr 21, '21An example of the mockery the AHA has brought up on itself: Woke humanists have become as dogmatic as religious fundamentalists via @mailplus1.0×02.1k33084
99Jan 20, '21I’m sure I’m not the only one who teared up a few moments ago, and last night during the Covid memorial ceremony. We have much to savor at this moment, but the greatest is that Don0.9×02.4k1639
100Aug 20, '25"Often university administrations indulge students who think that it's a legitimate form of expression to occupy buildings and eject deans from their offices, to obstruct passagewa0.8×107k2.5k350201

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