Saturday, June 02, 2012

Steven Pinker, John Derbyshire, Razib Khan

An earlier incarnation of Razib Khan's Gene Expression included 10 Questions for Steven Pinker. But now the original links to that page redirects to Khan's less blatantly racist (but still totally obsessed with race and the "different abilities" of humans based on race) at Discover Magazine.

Neither the old Gene Expression or the Discover Magazine version links refer back to the original 10 Questions for Steven Pinker - they redirect here.

 Luckily there is the Wayback Machine which has the original 10 Questions for Steven Pinker.

If that disappears, I downloaded a copy. Just ask for it.

Another interview at the Gene Expression site is with John Derbyshire - also only available via the Wayback Machine: 10 Questions for John Derbyshire.  (The link from the Discover Magazine page goes nowhere.)

Just as Richard Dawkins revealed what he really thinks of women last summer, Derbyshire revealed what he really thinks of non-white people a couple of months ago.

Those are the kinds of people that Razib Khan admires. Steven Pinker and John Derbyshire.

And certainly in the case of Steven Pinker, the admiration is mutual.

It's interesting to note that nine other people were interviewed as part of the 10 Questions series, and those all link back to the original pages just fine.

UPDATE: the blog ManBoobz links to the most extreme example of flaming right-wing evolutionary psychology yet:

Next, he defends the practice of throwing acid in the face of “independent” women:
[F]emale independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills. Using the utilitarian metric favored by most atheists, a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability. If PZ has turned against utilitarianism or the concept of the collective welfare trumping the interests of the individual, I should be fascinated to hear it.
Predictably the Vox Populi blogger is a fan of Steven Pinker.