Science Quote by Steven Pinker

Pinker’s line is a deliberately provocative diagnosis: not disagreement, but “phobia.” That single word frames the debate over nature and nurture as less an evidence fight than an anxiety response, a moral recoil that short-circuits curiosity. It’s classic Pinker: a scientist posing as cultural critic, using clinical language to suggest the academy has its own taboo system.

The specific intent is to push back against what he sees as an intellectual climate where genetic explanations are treated as politically radioactive. “Most intellectuals” is sweeping on purpose; it paints a sociological pattern rather than an argument-by-argument rebuttal. Pinker isn’t claiming genes explain everything. He’s claiming many influential people act as if even partial genetic causation is inherently suspect, as though biology smuggles in fatalism, hierarchy, or excuses for inequality.

The subtext is a history lesson. In late-20th-century debates over IQ, race, gender, and crime, hereditarian arguments often arrived carrying ugly baggage: eugenics, scientific racism, and policy justifications for neglect. Pinker’s complaint is that the backlash has become overcorrective, turning a valid ethical vigilance into a blanket aversion to certain kinds of explanations. Calling it a “phobia” implies the aversion is irrational, socially reinforced, and emotionally charged.

Contextually, this fits Pinker’s broader project (from The Blank Slate onward): defending the legitimacy of human nature talk against the comforting politics of pure malleability. The line works because it names a real tension in modern liberal culture: we want scientific accounts of behavior, right up until they threaten our preferred stories about responsibility, equality, and change.