Famous Harvard psychologist and author Steven Pinker was a recent guest on the podcast Aporia. This horrendous podcast has justifiably been condemned for its connections to far-right extremism and its propagation of racial pseudoscience. To begin with, Aporia’s parent company is the Human Diversity Foundation, LLC, a Wyoming based limited liability company. This American organization was actually founded back in 2022 by Emil Kirkegaard, self-described eugenicist and race scientist from Denmark.
Kirkegaard’s foundation has since become a Mecca for suckers and con artists. Yet their rabid desire to push such controversial and widely discredited racialist notions of superiority and inferiority in terms of intelligence. The podcast has featured numerous prominent figures associated with white nationalism, including Helmuth Nyborg, a Danish psychologist who has faced significant backlash for his research linking gender and intelligence.
Aporia’s editorial team includes Erik Ahrens. German authorities have considered him a “rightwing extremist” and given him an “extremely high” danger level. This outcry only points more to the podcast’s controversial nature and its base in far-right agenda.
Aporia is an event space that has previously hosted racist Jared Taylor, founder of white supremacist American Renaissance. We know this organization well. They are prominent purveyors of white nationalist ideas. Taylor’s work with Aporia is understandably controversial and sheds light on the dangerous normalization of racist, violent, and exclusionary views in academic and public discourse.
Noah Carl, another editor currently listed on Aporia’s masthead, was dismissed from a non-tenure-track fellowship at Cambridge University in 2019. An investigation found that he had co-written articles with white nationalists and other far-right extremists. This recent dismissal arises in the context of a growing public scrutiny surrounding Aporia and their contributors.
A 2021 academic study classified Aporia as a node in a wider network propagating the ideas of “human biodiversity,” racial pseudoscience, and online alt-right theories. This network, in sum, is trying to upend the settled scientific agreement on race and intelligence. It continues to push harmful narratives the academy has rightfully and thoroughly debunked.
The podcast has been previously criticized for featuring guests like Helmuth Nyborg, who stated, “the more genetically inhomogeneous a population is, the more critical it becomes in terms of social unrule, or what you’ll call that social disturbance, criminality and so on.” These kinds of assertions have understandably sent researchers and public activists up in arms, as they further this bogus stereotype and ridiculous theory around race.
Patrik Hermansson, a researcher for the UK anti-racism NGO Hope Not Hate, turned that evidence into alarm. He thinks a social media company like Aporia would have dangerous associations with terrorists. He stated, “Considering the coverage Aporia has received and its long list of racist contributors, it’s hard for Pinker to argue he engaged with it unknowingly.” Hermansson emphasizes that Pinker’s involvement lends credibility to Aporia’s controversial ideologies.
Hermansson further noted, “By lending his Harvard credentials to Aporia, Pinker contributes to the normalization and spread of dangerous, discredited ideas.” This seemingly innocuous statement raises important questions. What duty of care do researchers have when they participate in spaces associated with racist thought and terrorism?
More generally, Aporia’s operations were critiqued for their financial support. Reports later identified U.S. tech entrepreneur Andrew Conru as the secretive backer behind the initiative. Even still, the only response he gave about the allegations over the podcast came after being directly reached out to for comment. The heavy dependence on this funding is a huge conflict of interest. It further highlights questions about what might be driving efforts to promote certain narratives over others.
Matthew Frost, another commentator on this issue, remarked that organizations like Aporia aim to “become something bigger, become that policy, front-facing thinktank, and bleed into the traditional institutions.” This press release is an indication of a broader plan to shape mainstream discourse by subverting traditional institutions from the inside with radical ideas.