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Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Steven Pinker

Start date: July 1, 2019

Finish date: July 31, 2019

Discussion: Book Club 2019

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Book Club 2019

December 2019 - Uninhabitable Earth
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Feb 11, 2018 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, ethics, nonfiction, science, evolution, history, politics

A few months ago, I heard Steven Pinker give a talk about this book. I must say that his speaking skill did not impress me. However, his writing skill is brilliant. This is a very important book--epic in scope, comprehensive, well thought-out and structured, incredibly well researched, and full of some very important messages.

The book begins with a student's question "Why should I live?" To which Pinker answers with a profound interpretation of the "meaning of life". I won't repeat his complete A few months ago, I heard Steven Pinker give a talk about this book. I must say that his speaking skill did not impress me. However, his writing skill is brilliant. This is a very important book--epic in scope, comprehensive, well thought-out and structured, incredibly well researched, and full of some very important messages.

The book begins with a student's question "Why should I live?" To which Pinker answers with a profound interpretation of the "meaning of life". I won't repeat his complete answer, but he writes,

[You have] the ability to like, love, respect, help and show kindness--and you can enjoy the gift of mutual benevolence with friends, family, and colleagues ... You can foster the welfare of other sentient beings by enhancing life, health, knowledge, freedom, abundance, safety, beauty, and peace.

Pinker writes that the Enlightenment helped us escape from superstition and ignorance. It increased our understanding of ourselves through science. Also, Humanism is a secular foundation for morality. And, it is individuals who are sentient, not the tribe. The Enlightenment helped to abolish cruel punishments and slavery. Also, Humanism helped bring about an increase in peace.

The Enlightenment has helped to eradicate some terrible diseases. Science is the most unambiguous achievement by mankind. Science helped to eradicate smallpox, a painful and disfiguring disease that killed 300 million people in the 20th century. And, we have forgotten that on April 12, 1955, "people observed moments of silence, rang bells, honked horns, ... took the day off, closed schools, ... and forgave enemies." That was the day that Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was declared to be safe.

Pinker extols the virtues of genetic engineering, that can accomplish in days what farmers accomplished over millennia, and what Norman Borlaug took years of "mind-warping tedium" to accomplish. Hundreds of studies, every major health and science organization, and over a hundred Nobel laureates have testified to the safety of transgenic crops. Nevertheless, some traditional environment groups persist in denying them to the world.

I just loved this quote from the book:

In 1976, Mao single-handedly and dramatically changed the direction of global poverty with one simple act: he died.

Pinker devotes chapters to improvements in the environment, and the problem of climate change. He shows that there is virtually no dissension among scientists that climate change, and specifically global warming, is a significant problem. However, he is optimistic that these issues can, in principle be solved by courageous governmental action.

The book describes the growth of democracy around the world--not steadily, but in waves. Democratic countries have higher rates of economic growth, fewer wars and genocides, better-educated citizens, and almost no famines. The best reason for democracy, stated by Karl Popper, is that it is a solution to the problem of how to dismiss bad leadership without bloodshed. And, it gives people the freedom to complain.

Pinker shows how disbelief in human-caused climate change is not correlated with scientific illiteracy, but is due to allegiance to values held by one's social circle. Political tribalism is decried as the most insidious form of irrationality today. And this tribalism exists on the left and the right sides of the political spectrum. Pinker writes,

American conservative politics has become steadily more know-nothing, from Ronald Reagan to Dan Quayle to George W. Bush to Sarah Palin to Donald Trump.

Pinker lists all of the ways in which President Trump has resisted progress, and backtracks to a less advanced way of life: Reversal of health care, reversal of globalism, reversal in the growth of wealth, reversal of the environment, safety, law and order, international trade, equal rights, tolerance, and the judicial system. The president has all the hallmarks of a dictator; he is impulsive and vindictive.

The last chapter of the book is about humanism; the chapter starts out well, but then briefly becomes too philosophical and abstract for my taste. Then the chapter returns to a more accessible, concrete structure. It becomes obvious that Pinker is an atheist. He writes that the "existence of the God of scripture is a perfectly testable scientific hypothesis." And, he list some experiments that could be performed to test the hypothesis. He also shows how the religiosity of nations, and even from region-to-region within the United States, is inversely related to happiness and well being. The United States, being more religious on the whole than West European countries, has higher homicide rates, abortion, STD's, child mortality, obesity, educational mediocrity, and premature deaths. And, Pinker points out that non-religious people in the U.S. tend not to vote--that helps explain why we have Trump in office today.

This is such a fascinating book; it takes up arguments where his earlier book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined leaves off. This is the seventh book that I have read by Steven Pinker--and this one is just as wonderful as his previous books. ...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1audio, 2non-fiction, science

I listened to this as an audiobook & it was good, but he has a lot of graphs so quick reference to the PDF is a big plus. There are also sections where it's nice to reread his thoughts, although most are straightforward enough that it's not necessary. His writing is clean & uncluttered. It follows a logical progression.

There are 3 sections:
1) Enlightenment
2) Progress
3) Reason, Science, & Humanism

The first two sections are great. I've read about the Age of Ignorance, its history, & its benefits b I listened to this as an audiobook & it was good, but he has a lot of graphs so quick reference to the PDF is a big plus. There are also sections where it's nice to reread his thoughts, although most are straightforward enough that it's not necessary. His writing is clean & uncluttered. It follows a logical progression.

There are 3 sections:
1) Enlightenment
2) Progress
3) Reason, Science, & Humanism

The first two sections are great. I've read about the Age of Ignorance, its history, & its benefits before, but his is one of the best as he proves the benefit of the scientific method to mankind through some very telling statistics. I loved the section on how much wealth we now have comparatively. I've read comparisons about the cost of an hour of light, but it always impresses me. He shows how much less violence, starvation, & disease there is. So why do we think the world is in such danger? He thinks it's due mostly to brain bugs & loud extremists both on the left & right.

The last section "Reason, Science, & Humanism" was preaching to the choir. It was long & boring at times. There was a lot of good information in it & while I agreed with him in general, he went over the top or underplayed several things. For instance, he seems to consider an existential threat as serious only if they'll kill off most people. He fails to mention how horrific a tragedy which abruptly killed 1% of our population would be (1% of 7 billion is 700 million!) or what the loss of an entire city could do to our society. IIRC, some have said it could take as little as losing 10% of the population to bring down our civilization since it is incredibly interconnected. Something like a nationwide outage of electric could be catastrophic even if it lasted a fairly short time. Cities only have a few days worth of food & places like LA rely on a lot of infrastructure. Millions are living in a desert, an area where the first settlement didn't make it.

His thoughts on nuclear bombs were very simplistic & incomplete. Hindsight of what the Kremlin would have actually done during the Cold War based on records we're now reading is armchair quarterbacking at its worst. He also didn't get into the options of nuclear bombs like tactical nukes. I remember some talking heads discussing how great the tactical nuke option was going to be at one point. It was insane! Apparently he doesn't believe how close we were to annihilation.

Worse, he dismissed the effect of the atomic bombs we did drop saying that the Japanese surrendered because the Russians were entering their area of the war. That's ridiculously simplistic, just one of many factors & I don't believe it was the deciding one. The Japanese were out of everything & the Allies were pushing them back in force. Kamikazes weren't their first choice as weapons, but born of desperation. In March, Tokyo was bombed by something like 300 planes - nothing like Dolittle's desperate raid of a few years before. It was a huge force with horrific results, but it was also understandable & they knew we couldn't afford it too often. In August, one plane dropped one bomb that was about as bad. A few days later, we repeated the trick. They didn't know the cost or how many more we had. How can anyone dismiss that?

It's crazy hard to get fissionable materials, but they aren't the only nuclear threat. It's a lot easier to get radioactive waste & spread it around with conventional explosives. It doesn't take a genius & if it or a biological/chemical agent is put in the right place, someplace upwind. It could be devastating. Not an end of the world catastrophe, but up there with the Twin Towers. I don't think it's particularly likely, but everyone thought Clancy's novel, Debt of Honor (1994) was just unlikely fiction, too. If you haven't read it, a guy crashes a jet into Congress & pretty much wipes them all out. This was 7 years before 9/11, but airline security didn't change so his dismissive attitude towards terrorists seems a bit over done. Still, I generally agreed with him. We can be too anxious. Current airline security is a good example, but there are a lot of smart people trying to keep us safe. We're walking a tightrope between safety & losing our freedoms. Our anxiety only makes the latter more likely, so I'm glad of his perspective.

Overall, it's a good book. If you're super religious or a big Trump supporter, you'll probably dislike the last section especially. Pinker beats on both sides of the aisle, but the anti-humanist & anti-science of the current administration is in front of us now, so he gives a lot of good reasons for his negative opinions.

Highly recommended in any format, but do get the PDF with the audiobook. Very well narrated.
...more

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Jun 27, 2018 Mary rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, current-affairs

Pinker's lucid writing and analysis make this book an excellent read. When you are sad because Anthony Kennedy retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, and you know Donald Trump is going to make another appointment to the bench, read this book.

In general, Pinker provides documentation of how many many things are getting better in the world. For example, people are more educated, live longer, suffer from fewer horrible diseases, have a better standard of living, and are more peaceable.

Pinker takes ...more

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Aug 25, 2021 Sam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: proper-books, popular-science, books-about-books

Having heard so much about this book I had some rather high expectations, and while I did enjoy reading it on the whole, it didn't really live up to them. I can see what Pinker is trying to do by demonstrating, with evidence, that science and reason is still important and that progress has been positive (for the human species anyway) and that all is not as negative as is often portrayed. But. On one hand this does preach to the converted as the density of writing/text/font is likely to put off t ...more

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Sep 15, 2018 Dan Meier rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, favorite-authors, science, philosophy

Dec 18, 2017 Keeley marked it as to-read

Shelves: psychology-and-its-playmates

Feb 11, 2018 CK marked it as to-read

Feb 25, 2018 Zac marked it as unread · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, 1-my-kindle, science, non-fiction, history, philosophy, politics-and-sociology, psychology, 3-must-read-kindle-non-fiction, 11-my-audible