>Pinker traces the origins of this dynamic all the way back to 1975 and the publication of E.O. Wilson’s “Sociobiology,” when Wilson and other biologists “would get shouted down” for expressing the view that genetic and other evolutionary considerations determine, in part, social organization.
Two things that might serve as food for thought:
1) I guarantee that know-it-all, newly-minted young adults getting mad at professors didn't start in 1975, though simultaneous social shifts (e.g. things like the anti-Vietnam-War movement) might have made it more socially acceptable for the youngins to speak up in those places.
2) People complaining about being oppressed on campus because of their ideas frequently seem to have the same weird idea. Whereas, no one goes and yells at Lee Smolin when he bags on string theory.
edit: I like this analogy the more I think about it. If I tell my friends I strongly disagree with Steven Pinker today and his "valuation" continues to fall, I can gain social credit. There is a risk involved in this, however, because sometime in the future science may gather strong confirmatory evidence that Steven Pinker was right all along, and I'll have to trade in an even greater amount of social capital (e.g. because I'm forced to admit I was wrong or go all defensive kook).
Sorry, following the increasingly bizarre news with cryptocurrency and GME is something I've been doing too much of lately.