“No one is infallible, no one is omniscient, the only way our species has been able to do anything worthwhile is by voicing opinions and allowing them to be criticised.” “If you’ve got a regime where merely voicing an opinion gets you silenced or punished then we’ve kind of turned off the only mechanism that we have of discovering knowledge. Reason is the most powerful human value because it is the only one able to step back and look at itself, he said, adding that you can’t use reason to criticise reason.Ĭancel culture - which Pinker defines as “silencing or punishing someone for an opinion” - runs counter to reason, he said. “To the extent that we can spin-doctor or bend the evidence to make it seem as if we were right all along, we think that reflects well on us as a wise person worth listening to.” When it comes to belief, people have always been disinclined to change their minds as it can seem to prove the poor basis for their earlier beliefs or predictions, he said. “It’s always a mistake to observe something deplorable and think things are getting worse.” “We’ve always practiced medical quackery and paranormal beliefs … conspiracy theories go way back, fake news.” “We’ve always been vulnerable to the kinds of irrationality that are catching our attention right now,” Pinker said. Throughout history, public rationality has always been hard-won and easily eroded, he says.Īnd although it may seem like there’s more irrationality around today, we can’t say that unless we can measure how much there used to be. Most people aren’t aware of the academic tools of determining rationality - such as logic, probability and game theory - and Rationality is his attempt to share them, Pinker told Kim Hill. Pinker defines rationality as “the use of knowledge to attain goals” and knowledge as “a justified true belief”.

How do we determine and stand up for what is rational in 2021?Ĭognitive scientist Steven Pinker tackles this question in his new book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.

Steven pinker new book