Freethought Matters: Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, an honorary FFRF director, and Steven Pinker, FFRF’s distinguished honorary president, are renowned the world over. Goldstein is a philosopher who has taught at Barnard, Rutgers, Dartmouth and New York University. Her numerous accomplishments include receiving the MacArthur Genius award and the National Humanities Medal at a White House ceremony. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard and has been named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.”

Pinker and Goldstein were interviewed remotely from their home on Cape Cod. Hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF’s co-presidents, chatted with them not only about freethought and philosophy, but how the couple is doing during the pandemic shutdown.

“How can there be design without a designer? Well, we’ve got the theory of evolution to the theory of natural selection to dismantle that argument: step-by-step cumulative processes over 4 billion years,” says Pinker. “And the theory of natural selection goes to town on that. So there is the appearance of design, but we can explain it away and that's exactly what the theory of natural selection does.”

[davidanderson]

THAAAANK you! Proof my modest donations to FFRF isn't wasted: two of my favorite intellectuals together in a nice chat for half an hour. Wonderful.
I think we rationalists/humanists have to really up our game and our profile given the times we inhabit seem to lend themselves to all kinds of magical thinking
D.A., J.D., NYC

[TheMobileHomestead]

Stevens book The Blank Slate and others who studied and wrote about EVO Psy completely changed my life ... such a perfect and common sense approach to understanding why us humans behave as we do .... thanks so much for making my life better.

[ethiopiannewsentertainment]

I love you guys. Great organization for the common good of all humanity. I recently stumbled on to your channel. I have been enjoying FFRF since then.

[SolarSeaman]

Fuck. At one point I had an offer to join classes at Harvard. I wasn't working on a degree and I wish I had taken it. Rationality is beautiful. Damn. There's things in life you might miss, but you can always learn. I like Mrs. Goldstein's idea. Mattering is valuable. She and Mr. Pinker are valuable. I am glad they can afford a retreat in Cape Cod to study and contemplate. Dan, Annie, you need this, too.

[chrisconklin]

Mr. Pinker, I own all three of your books and enjoy them.

For the first time in my life I am concerned about our society backing away from enlightenment values. It is as if a medieval force has be loosed upon us. Our President D. Trump is a prime example. Most importantly is his base. He is playing to a segment of our society that views our values quite differently. Of course Hope is an enlightenment value.

[OFFSITE]

Good informative video unfortunately the sound quality was terrible considering the state of art of video conferencing.

[bitwise]

This was informative. Unfortunately the poor Skype audio quality is a bit distracting. However, I do appreciate their insights and FFRF for coordinating this.

[luizr.]

Great man this Pinker and his wife's great too.

[Mayanah]

One day, you guys should do a show with Jordan Peterson. Dan Barker, a renown atheist and a member of the Prometheus Society, and we have Jordan Peterson, a trending intellectual who draws a lot of inspiration from Judeo-Christian narratives. It would be like two intellectual connoisseurs enjoying a bona fide conversation that is cerebrally pleasing and entertaining!

[franksalo]

Enjoyed the video, looking forward to watching more.
Sounds like by your guests recommendation, my recent purchase of Spinoza's writings was a good choice.

[exponent]

Fantastic!👌🏼 I could listen to approximately 475, 000 hours of these two philosophizing, hopefully with better audio next time.
PS: The Blank Slate is probably my favorite book too! 10/10

[atheisticusmaximus]

I'm thoroughly enjoying this discussion.

[bobh]

As always, a great show. Thanks to everyone. 👍 ❤️
I'm going to order Goldstein's book "36 Arguments for the Existence of God, etc." (I've just recently read Pinker's wonderful book "Enlightenment Now.")

[deeliciousplum]

FFRF is a priceless resource. Not only for the support that FFRF's members lend to those who are in need of help, but for their incredible and empowering legal and justice work. With that said, it has become difficult to listen to Steven Pinker after learning of and exploring his association(s) with the nonsensical and questionable "intellectual dark web" community(ies). What is a brilliant and humanist-leaning mind doing with such low brow childish associations? I do not know. Maybe, Steven is susceptible to certain kinds of costly and divisive ingroup thinking. Oh, well. Beneath it all we are human.

[alittleofeverything]

I would imagine it is enjoyable for them. The smarter people are, the more annoying other people are, so being alone is probably preferred. 10:58 - Possibly Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development? The Prime Mover idea is the best religion can come up with. It is an interesting thought experiment, but there is no good evidence that an intellectual being is the Prime Mover, as it begs the question of what created the Prime Mover. Great interview! Thank you!

[cyberoptic]

Thank you for a conversation with Pinker and Newberger. I'm still working on the middle section of the Steven's "the Sense of Style"... his books are insightful and challenging!

[somethingyousaid]

The music sounds like a sped up version of the song melody "It Ain't Necessarily So". But it probably isn't.

[lindalee]

I wonder why all four people in screen who are socially powerful and successful look so unhappy. probably, it is just me.

[stan]

Good discussion, but I wish the audio quality on Pinker's end was better.

[jasoncarpp]

I've heard of Steve Pinker, but I've never heard of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.