Whenever I think reality can’t get any worse, along comes a headline. Like, say, this one from The New York Times: “Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race with His DNA.” Really. Read if you dare.
An exchange between Epstein and Steven Pinker recounted in this article caught my attention:
At one session at Harvard, Mr. Epstein criticized efforts to reduce starvation and provide health care to the poor because doing so increased the risk of overpopulation, said Mr. Pinker, who was there. Mr. Pinker said he had rebutted the argument, citing research showing that high rates of infant mortality simply caused people to have more children.I just left a comment at the Times:
It’s striking that we don’t hear Pinker telling Epstein that withholding food and health care from poor people is cruel, immoral, depraved. Instead Pinker rebuts the argument with statistics. The lack of moral outrage here speaks volumes about how Epstein found audiences and allies in academia.And I have to wonder: what if research showed the opposite, that high rates of infant mortality caused people to have fewer children? Would that make withholding food and health care appropriate? I can only repeat what I wrote in my comment: The lack of moral outrage here speaks volumes about how Epstein found audiences and allies in academia.
Related reading
All OCA Steven Pinker posts (Pinboard)
[Good grief: my comment, five minutes old, is now a “NYT Pick.”]