ClaimsScott Alexander

“I was proud to receive support from voices like Harvard professor Steven Pinker”

Scott Alexander, blog author 14 February 2021 Statement on New York Times Article (Astral Codex Ten) archived copy

Factual Their own work or organisation

Scott Alexander received support from Steven Pinker, Larry Sanger, Jonathan Haidt, Liv Boeree and Yascha Mounk.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

Judged as of 2021-02-14, about the 2020–21 controversy over the New York Times and his anonymity. Count how many of the five named people (Steven Pinker, Larry Sanger, Jonathan Haidt, Liv Boeree, Yascha Mounk) publicly supported him, for example by signing the petition, tweeting support, or making statements against de-anonymizing him. True: all five did. Mostly true: four of five did. Mixed: two or three did. Mostly false: one did. False: none did.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 DontDoxScottAlexander.com - A Petition EA Forum · 25 June 2020

    “Thanks to Paul Graham, Steven Pinker and many others for their early signatures.”

  2. E2 Responses to Cade Metz's hit piece on Scott Alexander Minds Aren't Magic (blog) · 15 February 2021

    “Thread by Steven Pinker”

  3. E3 DontDoxScottAlexander.com - A Petition LessWrong · 25 June 2020

    “Thanks to Paul Graham, Steven Pinker and many others for their early signatures.”

Reasoning

Two posts from June 2020 announcing the DontDoxScottAlexander.com petition thank Steven Pinker for his early signature (E1, E3), so Pinker publicly supported him. E2 also lists a thread by Pinker among responses to the NYT article. None of the evidence mentions Larry Sanger, Jonathan Haidt, Liv Boeree or Yascha Mounk. Without anything showing whether those four supported him, the count can't be placed in any band of the criteria: it could be anywhere from one of five to all five.

Cite this claim

Scott Alexander, “Scott Alexander received support from Steven Pinker, Larry Sanger, Jonathan Haidt, Liv Boeree and Yascha Mounk.” (said 14 February 2021). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_415bfb78c920, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_415bfb78c920

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Scott Alexander, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Scott Alexander

  1. Mostly true Factual 5 October 2026
    “Reader Nikita Sokolsky has completed his work getting some extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English.”

    Reader Nikita Sokolsky has finished obtaining extra Fatima documents from Portugal and translating them into English.

  2. Resolved true Factual 5 October 2026
    “Rob Ennals, who made this year’s book review contest site, has gathered the reviews from earlier years into epubs here.”

    Rob Ennals, who made this year's ACX book review contest site, has gathered reviews from earlier years into epubs.

  3. Resolved true Factual 10 December 2024
    “There’s a good interview with Skarbek in last month’s issue of Asterisk, I think it will be online shortly.”

    Last month's issue of Asterisk (November 2024) contains an interview with Skarbek, which Scott thinks will be online shortly.

  4. Resolved true Factual 20 February 2023
    “Things felt so fuzzy that I (partly) abandoned my usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for total guesses.”

    In 2018 Scott Alexander partly abandoned his usual clear-resolution probabilistic predictions for rough guesses in his five-year predictions.

  5. Resolved true Factual 14 March 2022
    “Also last month, I suggested Manifold Markets have a loan feature to help boost investment in long-term markets.”

    In February 2022 Scott Alexander suggested that Manifold Markets add a loan feature to boost investment in long-term markets.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.