Steven Pinker’s choice to consistently support and validate biological essentialists throughout his career has sparked some conversation and curiosity, with folks asking for more information about the people he has supported. Rocks tend to be pretty up front and honest about their nature. I think that we should believe them when they tell us who they are.
At the end of this article is a link to the “Field Guide,” featuring direct quotes from the people Pinker has supported and or found himself in repeated association with throughout his career. I’ll add to these profiles as I research the network, and I’ll update the Field Guide as this work continues. Thank you to those of you who suggested looking into additional figures like Noah Carl, Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence Krauss. It seems like this will be a long running project.
There were also those who felt that by naming Pinker’s actions and describing the people he undertook them for, I assigned guilt to Pinker. I want to be extremely clear about this — I am unable to assign guilt. If, upon viewing a documented pattern of his own behavior across decades, Steven Pinker feels guilty, that is something for him to grapple with. The same goes for his institutions and his fans — If these actions do not reflect your values, I encourage you to state that and begin that conversation with him directly. Discomfort is a signal that the actions documented do not align with who you understand him to be and that is worthy of discussion and self-reflection.
I’m afraid I have some bad news to share about actions: Actions may cause harm whether you intend them to or not. This is a mortifying bit of being human — sometimes despite our best intentions, we cause harm.
Sometimes, we cannot predict the outcome of an action. Sometimes there is an extremely predictable, very obvious outcome and we simply disregard it because we don’t take either the outcome or the people warning of it seriously. Sometimes we feel compelled into a course of action above and beyond our control. In that case we often wash our hands of responsibility and pretend to ourselves and those around us that we simply had no choice.
To an individual who does not want to cause harm or contribute to it, acknowledging that you have harmed others is deeply uncomfortable. The temptation is to separate yourself from the outcome, focusing instead on the reasonable, rational choices that you made with your good heart, or perhaps the millions of years of amoral adaptation that made this action understandable, if not reasonable. In pursuit of absolution we reject accountability. We can simply recognize the power and agency we hold instead, acknowledging the outcomes of our actions (intended or not), and making thoughtful, considered choices about our next steps.
Rushton, Wilson, and others on this list are dead but Pinker is still alive. He and his colleagues can choose new courses of action, re-evaluate their old ones, and decide whether they intend to pursue the better angels of their nature or not. Harm done can be acknowledged and addressed, apologies can be made for actions that did not and do not match their intent. They are not trapped. They do not have to circle the wagons either. Unless they want to, of course. That is also a choice.
Field Guide to Rocks
Pinker has chosen to support and legitimize the work of the following people for three decades. Their motivations and conclusions are described below in quotes from their own articles, books, and talks that speak to the actions which recently caused the American Psychological Association to issue an apology for supporting human hierarchy: creating, sustaining, and promulgating ideas of human hierarchy through the construction, study, and interpretation of racial differences. I am expanding these actions to include other marginalized groups as well. Where an academic paper has been retracted, I have noted that, and where additional context is needed it appears under the quote itself. They are organized by their commitment to the concept of human hierarchy — Ideologues, Adherents and Edgelords. Find them here.
For the rock collectors out there:
