[PaulDavisThe1st]

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?

[MrLeap]

Is there some feud here? I see a lot of crossover in the 2 seconds of googling I just did but know nothing about these people.

[regpertom]

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.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Completely and utterly wrong.

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".

[redbar0n]

Hm, let us see. 10 seconds on google and wikipedia revealed:

"Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind."

"Daniel Clement Dennett III is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science."

Not even remotely connected, you say?

[redbar0n]

Curious, how are Pinker and Dennett opposed wrt. "new atheism"?

[jhbadger]

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.