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Enlightenment now : the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress
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Enlightenment now : the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress

by Steven Pinker

Using data, this book argues that global life, health, prosperity, and safety are improving. It presents a defence of Enlightenment values, including reason and science, against modern threats such as tribalism and authoritarianism.

Accession 13656 ISBN 9780525427575 Publisher Viking
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Curated Derived
Crime Culture Enlightenment Philosophy Politics Science Social Sciences
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2026-06-10 09:39
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LOCATION HISTORY
G:W1:20 3 Current vertical
1 week, 1 day ago
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Enlightenment now : the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress
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vernon_slug
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brief_description
Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

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Steven Pinker
tags→ tags
Science, Philosophy, Social sciences, Civilisation, Sociology, Social history, Social institutions, Crime, Social problems, Knowledge, Theory of, Reason, Rationalism, Science -- Philosophy, Reasoning, Civil rights, Human rights, Progress, Enlightenment, Philosophy, Modern -- 18th century, Political rights, Social policy
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Steven Pinker (b.1954)
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