Harvard University professor and best-selling author Steven Pinker considers why open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement matter beyond the academy. He makes the case that healthy colleges and universities equip citizens, scientists, policymakers, parents, and others with the habits of heart and mind necessary to advance the human condition.



The talkback and Q&A host is Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large of Reason magazine.



A transcript is available on Youtube.







Editor's note: This episode is Steven Pinker's keynote talk at the 2019 Heterodox Academy Conference.







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See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>

64. Steven Pinker, An Unnecessary Defense of Reason and a Necessary Defense of the University's Role in Advancing It

The latest from the HxA podcast features the best of Heterodox Academy's panels and conversations. 
Earlier episodes of the HxA podcast are part of the series "Half Hour of Heterodoxy," hosted by social psychologist and co-founder of HxA, Chris Martin. Martin talks civility, polarization, truth, ideology, and pedagogy with Jon Haidt, John McWhorter, Alice Dreger, Glenn Loury, Cristine Legare, and other fascinating guests. 

You can find all of our recorded panels, conversations, and interviews at https://heterodoxacademy.org/

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This is a bittersweet moment for us. Today is our final and brief episode of this podcast. We will be shifting our energy to focus solely on our new podcast, Heterodox Out Loud (https://heterodoxacademy.org/heterodoxoutloud/), where we bring the most compelling and thought-provoking pieces from our selection of over 350 Heterodox Academy blogs, along with exclusive interviews with our blog authors. We hope to see you on the other feed!
Subscribe to Heterodox Out Loud (https://heterodoxacademy.org/heterodoxoutloud/): Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heterodox-out-loud/id1550885150?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200), Google Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heterodox-out-loud/id1550885150?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200), Android (http://subscribeonandroid.com/feeds.blubrry.com/feeds/heterodoxoutloud.xml), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/3qv4oQ14kmRkDnHC4RNJgd?si=Yid6rq_mSuK0ISuqnrhh0A&dl_branch=1)
 
HxA Top Picks: Five of the most thought provoking episodes from Half Hour of Heterodoxy:
1. Becoming Culturally Intelligent (https://heterodoxacademy.org/podcast/episode-55-maria-dixon-hall-becoming-culturally-intelligent/) with Maria Dixon Hall
2. Social Research and Political Bias (https://heterodoxacademy.org/podcast/episode-21-musa-al-gharbi-social-research-and-political-bias/) with Musa al-Gharbi
3. On Paradigms in Sociology (https://heterodoxacademy.org/podcast/episode-14-arthur-sakamoto-paradigms-in-sociology/) with Arthur Sakamoto
4. The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society (https://heterodoxacademy.org/podcast/episode-59-nicholas-christakis-the-evolutionary-origins-of-a-good-society/) with Nicholas Christakis
5. What is Moral Grandstanding (https://heterodoxacademy.org/podcast/podcast-hhh-91-justin-tosi-brandon-warmke/) with Brandon Warmke & Justin Tosi

Final Episode

For the past few months at Heterodox Academy, we’ve been exploring a range of perspectives on the philosophy, purpose, and effectiveness of diversity-related training in the context of higher education. 
In this episode, a recording of our virtual event, A Deep Dive into DEI: Research, Interventions, and Alternatives, that took place on June 9th, 2021. The moderator is Ilana Redstone, Associate Professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The panel includes leading experts on diversity, equity and inclusion. Frank Dobbin, Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard University, Edward Chang, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Garrett Johnson, co-founder and executive director of the Lincoln Network. Enjoy!
For more HxA blogs, events, tools and resources, please visit us at: https://heterodoxacademy.org/
Check out our other podcast, Heterodox Out Loud: the best of the HxA blog, here (https://heterodoxacademy.org/heterodoxoutloud/).

A Deep Dive into DEI: Research, Interventions, and Alternatives with Frank Dobbin, Edward Chang, and Garrett Johnson

Community colleges are a staple of American higher education; there are over 900 community colleges in the US and nearly half of all students attend a community college. This panel conversation features community college educators, Andrea Fabrizio, Greg Marks, and Mark Urista who share their experiences on community college campuses.   They speak to common misconceptions about community colleges, their experiences with viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement in their classrooms, the pedagogical methods and strategies that have been most successful, and campus trends they’ve seen over the years.  The event was moderated by Dr. Helen Benjamin, former Chancellor of the Contra Costa Community College District.
For more HxA blogs, events, tools and resources, please visit us at: https://heterodoxacademy.org/
Check out our other podcast, Heterodox Out Loud: the best of the HxA blog, here (https://heterodoxacademy.org/heterodoxoutloud/).

Do Community Colleges do Heterodoxy Right? A Panel Conversation

What does it mean for professors to have full freedom in the classroom and in their research? What are the requirements of academic responsibility? Former college presidents, Judith Shapiro (https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/judith-r-shapiro) and Brian Rosenberg (https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/brian-rosenberg) joined us to plumb the depths of the various aspects of academic freedom and the limits of viewpoint diversity on campus. Drawing on their experience as former college presidents, Judith and Brian reflected upon the complex interplay of academic freedom and academic responsibility and shared their expertise.
This event originally aired live on 04/09/2021 and a video recording is available here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usy_E04D_ak&t=2235s).



About the speakers:
Judith R. Shapiro is a cultural anthropologist who began her faculty career at the University of Chicago. She then spent a decade on the faculty of Bryn Mawr College where she served as provost between 1986 and 1994. She served as President of Barnard College between 1994 and 2008 and President of the Teagle Foundation from 2013 to 2018.
Shapiro’s scholarly work has been in the areas of gender differences, social organization, cultural theory, and missionization. She was President of the American Ethnological Society, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the American Council of Learned Societies. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Shapiro also serves on the Heterodox Academy Advisory Council.
Brian Rosenberg is the current president-in-residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A scholar on Charles Dickens, Rosenberg began his academic career as an adjunct assistant professor of humanities at the Cooper Union in New York City in 1982. He worked at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, from 1983 to 1998 as an English professor and as chair of the English Department and participated in the development of the college’s strategic plan. From 1998 to 2003, Rosenberg was dean of the faculty and an English professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Rosenberg became the 16th president of Macalester College in August 2003.
About the moderator:
Keith E. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He writes about American constitutional law, politics, history and American political thought. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, is a member of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, and is a fellow with the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University. His most recent books include Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech and Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present. He is completing two books, Constitutional Crises, Real and Imagined and The Idea of Democracy in America, from the American Revolution to the Gilded Age.
For more HxA blogs, events, tools and resources,

A Fine Balance: Academic Freedom and Academic Responsibility

“The message that Black America cannot succeed significantly…until there is a vast overturning...of the very psychological nature of being an American person...then to be a Black American person is to be circumscribed by racism…” In February, John McWhorter joined HxA for a conversation with Amna Khalid about viewpoint diversity among Black intellectuals and the state of open inquiry in higher education. Listen to the full discussion here on Half Hour of Heterodoxy.
McWhorter is Associate Professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. He is the author of over a dozen books on issues including race and language. His most recent book, “The Creole Debate,” was published in 2018 by Cambridge University Press. He has written countless articles and commentaries that have appeared in The Atlantic, Reason, The New Republic, Aeon, and many more. He also hosts Slate’s language podcast Lexicon Valley. McWhorter is the winner of HxA’s 2020 Open Inquiry Award for Leadership.
Video of the conversation can be found here.
For more HxA blogs, events, tools and resources, please visit us at: https://heterodoxacademy.org/
Check out our other podcast, Heterodox Out Loud: the best of the HxA blog, here (https://heterodoxacademy.org/heterodoxoutloud/).

64. Steven Pinker, An Unnecessary Defense of Reason and a Necessary Defense of the University's Role in Advancing It

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