Source? I have one.

> *"Epstein found aid from star psychologist Steven Pinker in the form of a 2007 legal document"

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinker...

I think parent was referring to this

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinker...

(disclaimer: I know nothing about this and have no personal opinion on the matter)

I’m familiar with what he is referring to. It’s the least charitable interpretation, and one that disregards Pinker’s explanation and greatly overstates his role. Something you’d only sneak in a comment if you’re eager to throw shade at someone you don’t know but who you constructed an oppressor narrative for anyway.

He absolutely assisted in his defense, if you believe his story, at the behest of Dershowitz.

From what I gather from the article linked above, he privately gave his expert opinion as a linguist regarding a passage of legal text. To make the claim that he "absolutely assisted", you'd have to presume it wasn't something he'd do for anyone else, that he expected it to be used (apparently he claimed otherwise?), and that it actually helped, despite seeming completely off-the-wall. Did I miss anything?

And even so, any one of us can hire an expert witness to make a statement like that. Especially big-shot professors. They aren't cheap I bet, but they surely don't cost 6 million bucks per line.

to claim he absolutely assisted, you actually just need to presume that he did something that helped. You can argue with those other points to try to argue about whether or to what extent it was a bad thing to do, but those arguments, even if valid, do not change the bare fact that he did in fact assist to some extent in Epstein's legal defense as a favour to his friend who was representing Epstein.

Though Pinker himself has said he regrets having provided that aid, so I don't think he himself fully agrees with you if you want to argue against it being something he should not have done.