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Is The World Getting Better?

L. Lerner

 

We have started this new year with quite a bit of uncertainty: We're in the midst of a partial government shutdown, there are ongoing civil wars and humanitarian crises in Syria and Yemen, tensions with Russia and North Korea, and then there's the looming threat of climate change. 

 

If you follow the news, it can be easy to feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But Steven Pinker says that would be inaccurate.

The Harvard scholar argues that a hard look at numbers reveals that the world today is safer, cleaner, and more equal than at any time in the past. He makes that case in his most recent book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. That book was published almost a year ago, but the message is no less relevant today. 

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