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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is a specious piece on many levels. Anyone who claims Bret Weinstein and Eric Weinstein are “pseudo intellectuals” (but provides zero evidence for the claim) has no credibility. Bret is an evolutionary biologist and Eric is a theoretical mathematician. They are two of the most nuanced, creative and articulate geniuses of our era.

I was a student of Pinker and I don’t understand the author’s point. I don’t follow the argument that Pinker is aligned with the far right. The video of him and his wife dancing on Election Day when Trump lost belies that claim. Pinker being photographed with Epstein proves nothing. Who wasn’t photographed with Epstein? [/quote]

In 2007, when Epstein was first indicted for procuring a minor for prostitution, Pinker "provided his expertise on language" for Epstein's defense, according to The New York Times. Pinker offered his services for free and, he told the Times, at the request of his friend, Havard law professor Alan Dershowitz—who has himself been accused of sexually assaulting minors trafficked by Epstein, which he denies.

There is the fact that, as far back as 2002, Pinker’s name appears in that jet’s flight logs for Epstein’s Lolita Express—that flight was to attend a TED conference in Monterrey, California after which one of Brockman and Epstein’s Billionaire Dinners happened. There is a photo of Pinker on the flight.

In an unsealed manuscript written by Virginia Giuffre—one of the main survivors of Epstein's trafficking ring to come forward—Giuffre says she was forced to sleep with a Harvard professor named “Stephen,” his last name redacted, and described him as "a quirky little man with white hair and a mad scientist look about him.” Pinker’s name is spelled “Steven” with a ‘v.’ Another Harvard professor, Stephen Kosslyn, who once taught Pinker, has been tied to Epstein; Kosslyn is bald, with white hair on the sides of his head. Kosslyn does not appear in any known Epstein flight logs.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/en/article/g5pn87/free-speech-crusader-steven-pinker-blocking-anyone-mentioning-his-epstein-ties[/quote]

Again, none of that circumstantial evidence proves anything and, to my original point, has absolutely nothing to do with the author’s premise that the new atheists have joined the far right. [/quote]

The article provides plenty of evidence.

From the Enlightenment to the Dark Ages: How "new atheism" slid into the alt-right

https://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/from-the-enlightenment-to-the-dark-ages-how-new-atheism-slid-into-the-alt-right/

The “new atheist” movement emerged shortly after the 9/11 attacks with a best-selling book by Sam Harris called "The End of Faith." This was followed by engaging tomes authored by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens, among others. Avowing to champion the values of science and reason, the movement offered a growing number of unbelievers — tired of faith-based foolishness mucking up society for the rest of us — some hope for the future. For many years I was among the new atheism movement’s greatest allies.

Hitchens endorsed explicitly the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Sam Harris wrote in a 2004 Washington Times op-ed that “We are at war with Islam.”
Sam Harris said in 2014 that new atheism was dominated by men because it lacks the “nurturing, coherence-building extra estrogen vibe that you would want by default if you wanted to attract as many women as men.” This resulted in an exodus of women from the movement who decided that the “new atheist” label was no longer for them. 
Peter Boghossian: “Why is it that nearly every male who’s a 3rd wave intersectional feminist is physically feeble & has terrible body habitus?”
Boghossian and his sidekick James Lindsay published a “hoax” academic paper in a “gender studies” journal (except that it wasn't) in an attempt to embarrass the field of gender studies, which they — having no expertise in the field — believe is dominated by a radical feminist ideology that sees the penis as the root of all evil. 
Dave Rubin, a guy who has repeatedly given Milo Yiannopoulos — the professional right-wing troll who once said that little boys would stop complaining about being raped by Catholic priests if the priests were as good-looking as he is — a platform on his show. In a tweet from last May, Rubin said “I’d like a signed copy, please” in response to a picture that reads: “Ah. Peace and quiet. #ADayWithoutAWoman.” 
Sam Harris claims that black people are less intelligent than white people.

Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement?
The continuing debate over a murky sexual encounter at a 2008 convention for cheekily anti-establishment skeptics underscores a broader dilemma: How can a progressive, important intellectual community behave so poorly towards its female peers?

On June 19, 2008, Alison Smith, 26 and aflame with commitment to her cause, was at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, working for the James Randi Educational Foundation as part of the staff for The Amaz!ng Meeting. “TAM,” as everyone calls it, was started by the foundation in 2003 and is a four-day annual convention of what’s loosely called the freethought movement, comprising atheists, agnostics, debunkers of pseudoscience, and others promoting rationalism over superstition, and reason over religion. What Comic-Con is to X-Men fans, TAM has become to freethought: an intellectual mixer, a party zone, and the place where the average fan can meet his or her heroes. The featured speaker in 2008 was astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, now the host of Cosmos, the update of Carl Sagan’s classic miniseries. Christopher Hitchens spoke that year, and the illusionists Penn and Teller, heroes to the freethought movement, performed. Yet one of the biggest draws was Michael Shermer, a swaggering historian of science who, after an earlier career as an ultra-long-distance bicyclist, founded Skeptic magazine.

I ran into Shermer in the hallway," Smith said recently, speaking publicly for the first time about what happened that night. They began talking, and he invited her to a Scotch and cigar party at the Caesars Palace hotel. “He was talking about future articles we could write, and he mentioned this party and asked if I could come, and I said yes.” At the party, they began downing drinks. “At some point,” Smith said, “I realized he wasn’t drinking them; he was hiding them underneath the table and pretending to drink them. I was drunk. After that, it all gets kind of blurry. I started to walk back to my hotel room, and he followed me and caught up with me.”

On their way from Caesars to the Flamingo, where they were both staying, she chatted briefly with a friend on her mobile phone, she told me. They got to the Flamingo. “He offered to walk me back to my room, but walked me to his instead. I don’t have a clear memory of what happened after that. I know we had sex.” She remembers calling a friend from an elevator after leaving his room. “I was in the elevator, but didn’t know what hotel.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/markoppenheimer/will-misogyny-bring-down-the-atheist-movement?utm_term=.hg1rnMzNgy%23.rfM3EGJR9v

How ‘new atheists’ are just as dangerous as the religious extremists they rail against

What do “new atheists” have in common with the fundamentalist Christians of the radical right whom they despise?

Both depend on extremist and simplistic views of right and wrong, creating starkly defined roles of “us” and “them.” Both have visions of a great utopia, where only those who have the right beliefs will be saved. And the two groups are cartoonish versions of day-to-day moderate atheists and Christians. It’s ironic that these new, very vocal and fundamentalist atheists spend so much time arguing against religious beliefs when their own views are just as misguided, fantastical and harmful — just as religious, in a word — as those they claim are the source of all the world’s problems.

https://bangordailynews.com/2016/05/04/opinion/how-new-atheists-are-just-as-dangerous-as-the-religious-extremists-they-rail-against/

If you describe yourself as an atheist and are unaware of this association, perhaps you should educate yourself, because it’s very troubling.

[/quote]

Most self-described atheists are blissfully unaware of these groups and people.  Thanks for informing them.  But please don't expect them to get up in arms about it.  They, an moderate religious people, could be more worried about the Christian right, trying to make the US into a Christian nation.[/quote]

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