# NYTimes: In Which Steven Pinker eviscerates Malcolm Gladwell **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 14, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564 "2009-11-14T17:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/21 "2009-11-16T23:47:42Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Igon Values. That’s a classic. When I was reading the Book Review yesterday morning I had to explain to my wife what I was laughing my ass off about. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/22 "2009-11-16T23:59:52Z")
I’ve read lots of the essays in this book in The New Yorker already. There is a danger in this kind of essay, which even John McPhee fell victim to, which is spending so much time with a few scientists that you become convinced of their possibly way out there views. it is especially a danger when you don’t know enough about a subject to have a working bullshit detector. My favorite example. After “A Soul of a New Machine” some guy spend a bunch of time with some AI grad students at Berkeley, and built up their fairly boring research to sound like a big thing. The payoff was that the paper that was the focus of the book got rejected at the AI conference. The writer had no clue what was really going on in AI work, and didn’t bother finding out - not even to the level of driving down to Stanford. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/23 "2009-11-17T00:22:57Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > There are two issues here worth considering. > > First, my sample is clearly not representative, but as a professional social scientist, I do not know a single colleague in any discipline who gives a wet fart about the Standard Social Science Model. A few psychologists might, but this subject simply never comes up anywhere else. > > Second, “social science” is a bit of a misnomer, insofar as it includes disciplines and methodologies that have very little in common with even the basics of scientific epistemology. It is entirely possible to argue that the squishiest social science is not a “science”, but not only does no one really care, it also does not undermine the basis of its more analytically rigorous cousins. > > I suppose it takes one to know one, seeing that Pinker is a psychologist. People tell me that psychology is a social science. Actually he’s a cognitive scientist, which is a bit more of a hard science than psychology. ‘These are the parts of the brain that will activate when you bleach your…’ ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/24 "2009-11-17T00:33:08Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Steven Pinker, noted Harvard academic and author of science-for-the-masses explorations in thought and how the brain functions. Isn’t Pinker at MIT, not Harvard? Did I miss a move, or am I experiencing a false memory? ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/25 "2009-11-17T01:01:54Z")
> [@Cerowyn](#): > > Isn’t Pinker at MIT, not Harvard? Did I miss a move, or am I experiencing a false memory? Aaaaaaaaaand, apparently he left MIT for Harvard in 2003. So, yeah, I missed a move. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/26 "2009-11-17T12:25:12Z")
> [@susan](#): > > I understand where Pinker is coming from, but I’ve heard him make some highly uniformed, cringe-worthy comments about race and Africa in professional presentations. That a statement is cringe-worthy doesn’t preclude it being truthful, does it? Sometimes facts are not pleasant or politically correct. I say that in general; not specifically about any of Pinker’s comments because you have not mentioned any specific comment. But I would be curious to know about these “highly uniformed” comments. Can you tell me just what Pinker was speaking about where he was uninformed? Why do you believe he was uninformed about this? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/27 "2009-11-17T12:45:09Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Actually he’s a cognitive scientist, which is a bit more of a hard science than psychology. ‘These are the parts of the brain that will activate when you bleach your…’ Cognitive science is just a broad range of disciplines that seem to work together in similar problems. The dude’s PhD is in psychology and has taught mostly in, you guessed it, psychology departments. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/28 "2009-11-17T12:59:16Z")
[Gladwell responds to Pinker](http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2009/11/pinker-on-what-the-dog-saw.html), calls him out on his “IQ fundamentalism” and ties with well known Internet racist Steve Sailer: > [@](#): > > It is always a pleasure to be reviewed by someone as accomplished as Stephen Pinker, even if—in his comments on “What the Dog Saw” (Nov. 15)—he is unhappy with my spelling (rightly!) and with the fact that I have not joined him on the lonely ice floe of IQ fundamentalism. But since football has been on my mind these days, I do want to make one small observation about his comments. > > (snip)quarterbacks taken in positions 11 through 90 in the draft actually slightly outplay those more highly paid and lauded players taken in the draft’s top ten positions. I found this analysis fascinating. Pinker did not. This quarterback argument, he wrote, “is simply not true.” > > ``` > I wondered about the basis of Pinker’s conclusion, so I e-mailed him, asking if he could tell me where to find the scientific data that would set me straight. He very graciously wrote me back. He had three sources, he said. The first was Steve Sailer. Sailer, for the uninitiated, is a California blogger with a marketing background who is best known for his belief that black people are intellectually inferior to white people. Sailer’s “proof” of the connection between draft position and performance is, I’m sure Pinker would agree, crude: his key variable is how many times a player has been named to the Pro Bowl. > > ``` It seems that Gladwell’s blog is now flooded by Sailer blog readers… I’m not a fan of Gladwell for the same reasons that he was criticized by Pinker (it’s too much close to popular journalism and less of scientific analysis for me to enjoy), but like **susan** I don’t like Pinker’s sickening polemics. I find that Pinker [is](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/pinker_rose_p1.html) [a gene](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/part2/part2_p1.html) [ce](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/18/iq-steven-pinker-blank-slate)[nt](http://reason.com/archives/2002/10/01/biology-vs-the-blank-slate)[ric](http://books.google.ca/books?id=7rJ5gI1LbXoC) [fundamentalist](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html); a point of view which IMO leads him to [reactionary](http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2005_01_19_crimson.html) [anti-leftism](http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.14.02/work-0246.html) and to an [uncomfortably close](http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#pinker) [relation with racists](http://www.vdare.com/sailer/pinker_progress.htm). ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/29 "2009-11-17T13:32:42Z")
> [@](#): > > he is unhappy with my spelling (rightly!) “igon value” vs. eigenvalue is a bit more than a spelling error. If you are going to pontificate on linear algebra it’s reassuring for the reader if you know how to spell basic concepts; at the very least it reassures them you’re worth reading. This is very quickly degenerating into a cock waving competition. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/30 "2009-11-17T14:22:48Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > [Gladwell responds to Pinker](http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2009/11/pinker-on-what-the-dog-saw.html), calls him out on his “IQ fundamentalism” and ties with well known Internet racist Steve Sailer:It seems that Gladwell’s blog is now flooded by Sailer blog readers… > > I’m not a fan of Gladwell for the same reasons that he was criticized by Pinker (it’s too much close to popular journalism and less of scientific analysis for me to enjoy), but like **susan** I don’t like Pinker’s sickening polemics. I find that Pinker [is](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/pinker_rose_p1.html) [a gene](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/part2/part2_p1.html) [ce](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/18/iq-steven-pinker-blank-slate)[nt](http://reason.com/archives/2002/10/01/biology-vs-the-blank-slate)[ric](http://books.google.ca/books?id=7rJ5gI1LbXoC) [fundamentalist](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html); a point of view which IMO leads him to [reactionary](http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2005_01_19_crimson.html) [anti-leftism](http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.14.02/work-0246.html) and to an [uncomfortably close](http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#pinker) [relation with racists](http://www.vdare.com/sailer/pinker_progress.htm). Heh. If you’ve actually read his books you’ll find him very much a leftist. And wait, believing that genes and evolution matter is “fundamentalism” now? Gotta go tell those creationists that. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/31 "2009-11-17T14:56:32Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > What is the context? Chapter on criminal profiling. He has the glorious wisdom and brilliance of judgment to mention me and my book on cold reading, and in quite a favourable way. Proof, if proof were needed, that Gladwell really is a most wonderful author, whose shimmering talent and impressive taste in excellent source material, should serve as a lesson to us all. Pinker on the other hand has written several books but has thus far signally failed to mention me at all. It is therefore entirely safe to conclude that he is a third-rate ‘pop science’ hack well suited to his natural home in the ‘discount’ bins of book stores, not to mention a disreputable bottersnike who can go and jump off a pier. In my considered and wholly impartial opinion, you understand. And BTW, ‘bottersnike’ is actually a word. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/32 "2009-11-17T15:00:29Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > [Gladwell responds to Pinker](http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2009/11/pinker-on-what-the-dog-saw.html), calls him out on his “IQ fundamentalism” and ties with well known Internet racist Steve Sailer:It seems that Gladwell’s blog is now flooded by Sailer blog readers… > > I’m not a fan of Gladwell for the same reasons that he was criticized by Pinker (it’s too much close to popular journalism and less of scientific analysis for me to enjoy), but like **susan** I don’t like Pinker’s sickening polemics. I find that Pinker [is](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/pinker_rose_p1.html) [a gene](http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/part2/part2_p1.html) [ce](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/18/iq-steven-pinker-blank-slate)[nt](http://reason.com/archives/2002/10/01/biology-vs-the-blank-slate)[ric](http://books.google.ca/books?id=7rJ5gI1LbXoC) [fundamentalist](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html); a point of view which IMO leads him to [reactionary](http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2005_01_19_crimson.html) [anti-leftism](http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.14.02/work-0246.html) and to an [uncomfortably close](http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#pinker) [relation with racists](http://www.vdare.com/sailer/pinker_progress.htm). I read through many of those links and I don’'t see that they support your point. Some are mere commentary by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. The comments by Pinker mainly serve as a reminder that genome studies are changing everything. The genetic evidence we now have is stronger than the socio-cultural evidence. That’s pretty much nothing more than a pendulum swing. It will swing back in a few years, just as it always does. But it’s hard to read what Pinker actually says as proof of a right-wing bias. [http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06\_3.html#pinker](http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#pinker) > [@](#): > > Whether or not these hypotheses hold up (the evidence for gender differences is reasonably good, for ethnic and racial differences much less so), they are widely perceived to be dangerous. Summers was subjected to months of vilification, and proponents of ethnic and racial differences in the past have been targets of censorship, violence, and comparisons to Nazis. Large swaths of the intellectual landscape have been reengineered to try to rule these hypotheses out a priori (race does not exist, intelligence does not exist, the mind is a blank slate inscribed by parents). The underlying fear, that reports of group differences will fuel bigotry, is not, of course, groundless. > > The intellectual tools to defuse the danger are available. “Is” does not imply "ought. " Group differences, when they exist, pertain to the average or variance of a statistical distribution, rather than to individual men and women. Political equality is a commitment to universal human rights, and to policies that treat people as individuals rather than representatives of groups; it is not an empirical claim that all groups are indistinguishable. Yet many commentators seem unwilling to grasp these points, to say nothing of the wider world community. There’s real lynching material, there is. If you want real biological determinism, try [The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending](http://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465002218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258469827&sr=1-1). ---
**Author:** ![pallas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cab0a1/32.png) [@pallas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pallas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/33 "2009-11-17T15:02:25Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I suspect the point of having Pinker review Gladwell’s book (I’m not aware that he does regular book reviews) is that he himself is an expert in human cognition. Experts can disagree on many issues, and have their biases, sects, superstitions, and beliefs. Are we supposed to take Pinker’s word because he’s an “expert”? In principle, he should be indicating what the empirical evidence shows, and how it shows it. Pinker’s writing might be terrific in other areas, but that review might as well have been written by a witchdoctor, shaman or priest. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/34 "2009-11-17T18:54:47Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I read through many of those links and I don’'t see that they support your point. Some are mere commentary by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. I take it you are talking about the Steve Sailer link? If so, I find that the racist is quite good at talking about subjects he knows nothing about. He **is** a blogger… > [@](#): > > The comments by Pinker mainly serve as a reminder that genome studies are changing everything. The genetic evidence we now have is stronger than the socio-cultural evidence. I really don’t have any idea on what you are saying here. Genetic evidence for what? Socio-cultural evidence for what? If you don’t name a trait, gene(s), nor an environment you really have no idea how they combine to contribute to a result. This is really my main bone to pick with those who draw some imagined “line in the sand” in the glorious gene-environment/nature-nurture war. > [@](#): > > That’s pretty much nothing more than a pendulum swing. It will swing back in a few years, just as it always does. What are you talking about? Public opinion? > [@](#): > > But it’s hard to read what Pinker actually says as proof of a right-wing bias. “Anti-leftist” not “right-wing” > [@](#): > > [http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06\_3.html#pinker](http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#pinker) > > There’s real lynching material, there is. Never claimed he lynched blacks. Just that he has close relations with racists (which by [all accounts is true](http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/human-biodiversity.html)). > [@](#): > > If you want real biological determinism, try [The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending](http://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465002218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258469827&sr=1-1). Heheh, oh you crazy Harpending; what will [you be doing next](http://preservingwesternciv.com/speakers.html)?[ [QUOTE=Preserving Western Civilization] We believe that America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and European identity must be defended. Today, our glorious Western civilization is under assault from many directions. Three such threats will be discussed at this conference. First, the massive influx to the United States and Europe of Third-World immigrants who do not share our fundamental political and cultural values. Second, the threat from Islam, a militant ideology that is hostile to our society and, in principle, committed to destroying it. Third, because of the persistent disappointing performance of blacks (which many whites mistakenly blame on themselves) many whites have guilt feelings that undermine Western morale and deter us from dealing sensibly with the other threats. [/QUOTE] ](http://preservingwesternciv.com/purpose.html) ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/35 "2009-11-17T19:47:31Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > “igon value” vs. eigenvalue is a bit more than a spelling error. > > If you are going to pontificate on linear algebra it’s reassuring for the reader if you know how to spell basic concepts; at the very least it reassures them you’re worth reading. > > This is very quickly degenerating into a cock waving competition. Well, to be fair Gladwell wasn’t pontificating on linear algebra. He was quoting someone else use the term “eigenvalues” and did not write it correctly. I just finished that section of the book. ETA: I actually like both Gladwell and Pinker. I’ve read most of their books. They both make very good points. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/36 "2009-11-17T20:57:06Z")
Holy ad hominem, Batman! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/37 "2009-11-17T21:06:33Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > Heh. If you’ve actually read his books you’ll find him very much a leftist. And wait, believing that genes and evolution matter is “fundamentalism” now? Gotta go tell those creationists that. I guess some people don’t know how to spell _argumentum ad hominem_. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/38 "2009-11-17T21:19:53Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > I take it you are talking about the Steve Sailer link? Or the Annalee Newitz link. > [@](#): > > I really don’t have any idea on what you are saying here. Genetic evidence for what? Socio-cultural evidence for what? If you don’t name a trait, gene(s), nor an environment you really have no idea how they combine to contribute to a result. This is really my main bone to pick with those who draw some imagined “line in the sand” in the glorious gene-environment/nature-nurture war. Race and intelligence have been defined by cultural methods rather than genetic evidence for a long time. The meme that race doesn’t exist or that intelligence and race are not correlated have not been advanced because of genomic information. The contrary is also true. The Bell Curve based its correlation on verbal and written testing, not genetics. Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man countered with a variety of arguments based on inheritability but couldn’t support that by genetic testing, which wasn’t available. Genetic testing will change everything. > [@](#): > > What are you talking about? Public opinion? Of course not. I’m talking the scientific consensus. Scientists have been swinging back and forth between nature and nurture ever since Darwin. We are in a nature cycle today. That’s to be expected since what’s coming out of genome studies is incredibly exciting. In the short term everybody will be using (and overusing) these studies and ignoring non-genetic findings. In the long run, though, the balance will undoubtedly shift back. > [@](#): > > “Anti-leftist” not “right-wing” Never claimed he lynched blacks. Just that he has close relations with racists (which by [all accounts is true](http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/human-biodiversity.html)). Now you’re just being bizarre. I was making the accusation that Pinker is being lynched for his unpopular opinions. Remember that Gould was attacked throughout his career for being a Marxist. His reputation is currently in decline more because many of the things he espoused seem not to be true in the light of today’s knowledge but during his lifetime it was his politics that drew the heat. Oh yes, from your link: > [@](#): > > Please note that many of the people listed as group members reject the ideology espoused by Sailer and other members. > [@](#): > > Heheh, oh you crazy Harpending; what will [you be doing next](http://preservingwesternciv.com/speakers.html)?[URL=“[Welcome preservingwesternciv.com - BlueHost.com](http://preservingwesternciv.com/purpose.html)”] I didn’t say I agreed with the book or its authors. I’m using it as an example of the way that modern genome studies are being used to swing the conversation toward genetic evidence. They give dozens, possibly hundreds, of references to findings from genome studies that have to be addressed. Unless you read what’s out there, your understanding of the controversy will be limited. As yours seems to be. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/39 "2009-11-17T21:32:29Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > This Pinker chap can go and stick his head in a bucket for all I care. Unless, of course, [his ass is on fire](http://afterbucket.com/_wsn/page3.html). ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564/40 "2009-11-17T21:46:15Z")
It’s interesting how Gladwell inspires such true believer status in his readership. I knew he kind of had a cult figure status but I didn’t realize it was this deep. Anyway, as long as we’re gonna judge by ad hominem, absent evidence to the contrary, I will side with Pinker all the way before Gladwell. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nytimes-in-which-steven-pinker-eviscerates-malcolm-gladwell/517564.md?page=3)