ClaimsSteven Pinker

“Nice introduction to Effective Altruism and its founder, Will MacAskill, who will be a virtual guest lecturer in Rationality later this semester.”

Steven Pinker, Harvard professor, on X 20 March 2020 Post by @sapinker on X, 2020-03-20 (X)

Promise Their own work or organisation

Will MacAskill will give a virtual guest lecture in Pinker's Rationality course later in the spring 2020 semester.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Promise: Commitments to the person's or organisation's own future action, with something to deliver: was it delivered?

The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.

What would count as true or false

Deadline: end of spring 2020 semester (judge at 2020-05-31). True: Will MacAskill gave a virtual (remote) guest lecture or appearance in Pinker's Harvard Rationality course during that semester. Mostly true: he appeared as stated, with a minor detail different (e.g. a recorded talk or Q&A session rather than a full lecture). Mostly false: he took part only after the semester ended, or someone else from effective altruism spoke instead. False: positive evidence that it did not happen, such as the course schedule or recordings for that semester without him, or a statement that the session was cancelled.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (3)

  1. E1 Rationality Spring 2020, Tues & Thurs 1:30-2:45 Harvard ... stevenpinker.com (course syllabus, General Education 1066: Rationality) Own record

    “Thurs, Apr 23: Effective altruism. Guest lecturer, William MacAskill, Professor,”

  2. E2 RATIONALITY | General Education 1066 stevenpinker.com (course page, General Education 1066) Own record

    “Some topics will be presented by expert guest lecturers.”

  3. E3 General Education 1066: Rationality, Spring 2020 (syllabus) Steven Pinker (hosted on stevenpinker.com) Own record

    “Thurs, Apr 23: Effective altruism. Guest lecturer, William MacAskill, Professor,”

Reasoning

The Spring 2020 syllabus on Pinker's own site lists "Thurs, Apr 23: Effective altruism. Guest lecturer, William MacAskill" (E1, E3), and the course page says guest lecturers will present some topics (E2). These are planning documents from the subject, and they are undated. They show the session was scheduled, not that it took place, and they don't say whether it was held remotely. No independent source or record of the session itself confirms or rules out that it happened by the deadline.

Cite this claim

Steven Pinker, “Will MacAskill will give a virtual guest lecture in Pinker's Rationality course later in the spring 2020 semester.” (said 20 March 2020). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_fb35fac5b261, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_fb35fac5b261

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

Reply to this claim

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More promise claims by Steven Pinker

  1. Resolved true Promise 10 November 2011
    “My next book project will be a style manual for the 21st century — a competitor to Strunk and White that will incorporate insights from modern linguistics and cognitive science,”

    Steven Pinker's next book project will be a style manual for the 21st century, a competitor to Strunk and White incorporating modern linguistics and cognitive science.

All of them

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