Steven Pinker Thinks Your Sense of Imminent Doom Is Wrong – The New York Times

I think it s fair to say that the scope of acceptable academic perspectives and subject-matter study areas has widened immeasurably over time. People can study a multitude of things today that would in the past never have been admitted into academia. But the popular conception is that academic discourse is narrowing. How real is that concern? Is the evidence for it just anecdotal? It s a pointed question to me because one of my shticks is don t let your head be turned by flagrant examples, look at the overall trends. The answer is yes, it has gotten worse, as best we can tell. If you look at the number of cases that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has to deal with every year of flagrant violations of students or professors right to express their opinions; if you look at attitudes among students, do you think it s justifiable to fire a professor who has offensive beliefs? There has been a worsening in the last five years. So it isn t just anecdotes. Although some of the anecdotes are hair-raising. Such as, to take a recent example, the law professor who was investigated for raising the possibility that Covid-19 resulted from a lab accident, which until very recently was considered racist beyond the pale. I hope it s not true. But I have to admit that it might be true. We can t call somebody a racist for raising the question. Another thing that we know, no doubt as a consequence of some of these trends, is that confidence in academia is sinking. It is an unfortunate trend because it means that in cases where academics ought to have credibility, where the research is not infected by political correctness, such as climate change, there s a sapping of confidence in the scientific consensus. Given that virtually every climate scientist believes that human activity is warming the planet, how could anyone deny it? The answer is, people don t necessarily believe what scientists say because they correctly sense that within academia a person can get punished for unorthodox beliefs.

via www.nytimes.com

Semi-famous law professor referred to (accurately!) by Steven Pinker in NY Times interview. Maybe the world is getting better.

H/t MR.