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sapinker's profile
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Verified account
@sapinker

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Steven PinkerVerified account

@sapinker

Cognitive scientist at Harvard.

Boston, MA
pinker.wjh.harvard.edu
Joined January 2010

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    Steven Pinker‏Verified account @sapinker Feb 9

    Don’t listen to the gloomsayers, writes Steven Pinker: Every measure of human progress has improved since the late 18th century, thanks to the principles of the Enlightenment. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-enlightenment-is-working-1518191343 … via @WSJ

    9:13 AM - 9 Feb 2018
    • 967 Retweets
    • 1,815 Likes
    • Sarah Lynne Reul absolutdeals Arno Neumann Tyler Kelley David Marc Smith Margaret Warren Kelly Crossman David Burt Fahim Coreshi (Aadarsh)
    111 replies 967 retweets 1,815 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Forfare Davis‏ @Pseudoplotinus Feb 9
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        Forfare Davis Retweeted Steven Pinker

        Pinker's case for optimism assumes only that which is measurable is real. It does not take into acct trends showing declining faith in democratic institutions, it's leaders and, it needs to be noted, birthrates. He's also mistaken abt reasons for progress.https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/962011654346043394 …

        Forfare Davis added,

        Steven PinkerVerified account @sapinker
        Don’t listen to the gloomsayers, writes Steven Pinker: Every measure of human progress has improved since the late 18th century, thanks to the principles of the Enlightenment. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-enlightenment-is-working-1518191343 … via @WSJ
        2 replies 1 retweet 4 likes
      3. Forfare Davis‏ @Pseudoplotinus Feb 9
        Replying to @Pseudoplotinus @sapinker @WSJ

        The Enlightenment Project was almost lost at least three times in the 20th century: WWI, WWII and the Cold War. What saved it wasn't a faith in secularism and science but the United States - a country that in contrast to Europe was an amalgam of Enlightenment and Puritanism.

        1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
      4. Forfare Davis‏ @Pseudoplotinus Feb 9
        Replying to @Pseudoplotinus @sapinker @WSJ

        Left to secularism and science, Communism and/or Fascism would have had the upper hand. Ultimately it took a country with the capacity for faith in it's culture and way of life - which was religious as much as civic - that saved the Enlightenment.

        2 replies 1 retweet 6 likes
      5. Forfare Davis‏ @Pseudoplotinus Feb 9
        Replying to @Pseudoplotinus @sapinker @WSJ

        Forfare Davis Retweeted

        To the extent Pinker insists on putting his faith in narrow minded materialism, he ensures the 21st century will succumb to the forces which almost overtook the Enlightenment in the 20th century. https://twitter.com/Pseudoplotinus/status/962028925193830400 …

        Forfare Davis added,

        This Tweet is unavailable.
        0 replies 1 retweet 3 likes
      6. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Stuart Rojstaczer‏ @StuartEtc Feb 9
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        Are you kidding me? We had Beethoven in the 18th century. Now we have Taylor Swift. OK we have penicillin now. Big deal. I’d take my chances and go back to Beethoven. I rest my case.

        11 replies 1 retweet 17 likes
      3. Tweet unavailable
      4. Orange Whips‏ @MrOrangeWhips Feb 10
        Replying to @michaelaranger @StuartEtc and

        Countless, eh?

        1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      5. Tweet unavailable
      6. No Matter‏ @thechefpants Feb 10
        Replying to @michaelaranger @MrOrangeWhips and

        Hey, you have 280 characters now, instead of being a snarky asshole, name some. (And I don't disagree, just...)

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      7. No Matter‏ @thechefpants Feb 10
        Replying to @thechefpants @michaelaranger and

        Also, "countless" and "many" aren't synonyms, if we're being snarky.

        3 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
      8. 1 more reply
      1. New conversation
      2. Peter Joseph‏ @ZeitgeistFilm Feb 9
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        Except the litany of current negative trajectories occurring that void relevance of what you observe. I know you think you're doing a service by being contrary, showing "progress" in a climate of disappear. But all you're really doing is preserving a destructive normative society

        3 replies 4 retweets 13 likes
      3. John E. D. P. Malin‏ @JohnEDPMalin2 Feb 9
        Replying to @ZeitgeistFilm @sapinker @WSJ

        Peter, Thank you for your observation. I have read more than four books by Dr. Professor Steven Pinker. But I just ordered your book to read from Amazon. I think we are headed for universal catastrophe, because we are not implementing rational ideas from the Enlightenment.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      4. Peter Joseph‏ @ZeitgeistFilm Feb 9
        Replying to @JohnEDPMalin2 @sapinker @WSJ

        "Enlightenment" principles are a bit vague, but I understand what is meant. Adaptation today is an issue of understanding the complex "systems" relationship between the species and the habitat. A new kind of scientific vocabulary is required. #holism

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      5. 1 more reply
      1. New conversation
      2. Alison Emily‏ @aalexis1234 Feb 9
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        True, but doesn't mean people can't expect more, when the baseline isn't great. Progress is just slower than many of us want. We don't get to live to be 1000 years old, so advancements that are possible today, but won't be realized for hundreds of years frustrate people.

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
      3. Mohieldin Gamal‏ @mohimg Feb 9
        Replying to @aalexis1234 @sapinker @WSJ

        I agree! But sometimes people wreck what they have in the hope of return to a mythical better past, when the reality is that it wasn’t better. We are a naturally nostalgic species.

        2 replies 1 retweet 5 likes
      4. Alison Emily‏ @aalexis1234 Feb 11
        Replying to @mohimg @sapinker @WSJ

        Very true. As the say "the right is nostalgic for a past that never was and the left is hoping for a future that never will be".

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      5. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. enzo f arcangeli‏ @nonnoenzo Feb 10
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        the worst @wsj (i have been reading4decades) op ever, totally ignoring: 1 causal chains, 2 greatest contemp. historians, e.g., @EHESS_fr Francois Furet& @DeirdreMcClosk, 3 the #SciRev reasonable periodisation by @harari_yuval @emanuelefelice2

        2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. Stephen Wigmore‏ @stephen_wigmore Feb 10
        Replying to @nonnoenzo @WSJ and

        Seems to just take every good thing that's happened in 200 years and go 'The Enlightenment did it'. Barely counts as historical analysis at all.

        2 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
      4. Tweet unavailable
      5. Stephen Wigmore‏ @stephen_wigmore Feb 10
        Replying to @stalysfa @nonnoenzo and

        French Revolution also produced Terror, the Vendee, dictatorship & 20 years of war. Millions died. It later inspired the far greater terror after the Russian Revolution. It may have been a good thing regardless. But this is not some simple historical fable, good guys vs bad guys

        2 replies 1 retweet 2 likes
      6. Tweet unavailable
      7. Stephen Wigmore‏ @stephen_wigmore Feb 10
        Replying to @stalysfa @nonnoenzo @WSJ

        True in a way. But the one came from the other. The heritage is complex and potentially dangerous, it needs careful picking apart. Pinker seems to want to promote a simplistic good=Enlightenment narrative. That's not history.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      8. 8 more replies

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