Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay

Abstract

Nils Borquist here reviews how Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay's volume Cynical Theories unpacks the post-Enlightenment emphasis on the scientific method in academia deeply infiltrated universities and scholastic institutions, ultimately proving very valuable in accelerating intellectual breakthroughs across various fields, including medicine, physics, anthropology, and philosophy. As a result, a collection of methods known as liberal practices became significant for making discoveries. The subsequent decades proved incredibly progressive in terms of new ideas and innovation, and this fruitful period serves as the precursor to Pluckrose and Lindsay’s text.