Did you just put Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett in "a gang" ?
Wash out your mouth with soap, this instant!
Seriously, is there anything that connects these two other than having written some reasonably accessible books on matters in the realm of cognitive science?
Here’s my guess: Pinker writes sometimes on evolutionary psychology. A controversy I heard around the atheism plus days was that evopsych should be banned. Therefore it’s likely that Pinker has been declared cancelled. Thus, to mention his name is to sin, and a sinner must repent, so wash your mouth out with soap and divert yourself from this path of heresy lest you join him.
I just don't see Pinker and Dennett as remotely connected. They don't work in the same field, they don't have much to say about the things the other is interested, and they were not even really on the same page w.r.t. "new atheism".
Pinker and Dennett were quite chummy at least 15 years ago (along with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris) as part of the "New Atheist" movement in addition to their shared interest in cognitive matters. I don't know what they feel about each other today -- there's been quite a lot of infighting and "New Atheism" as a movement has sort of splintered.
Even the experts were only 50% accurate. I was close to random.
And it is not like Dennett or Plato are going to change their minds at the end of their careers of changing the minds of others.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzx3m/in-experiment-ai-succ...