As someone relatively new to following "public intellectuals" (think Tyler Cowen, Jonathan Haidt, Pinker, etc.) I've been surprised at who reductive their arguments seem to be.

There is a lot of talk among this class of people regarding the current state of debate but as in many cases I've seen examples of two people who are absolutely grounded in their beliefs and use straw man arguments, diversion and reductive reasoning to defend their points. If you ever listened to the Ezra Klein v. Sam Harris podcast you know what I mean.

This isn't the first occasion that I've seen someone rebute the philosophy of Pinker's work only for him to double down on the same argument. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because persuasion is difficult in general, but I expected a deeper dive into the complexities of these arguments.