From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

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
By Betsy , co-mod · 8 posts · 108 views

last updated Dec 21, 2020 08:09AM

November 2019 - Invisible Women
By Betsy , co-mod · 17 posts · 122 views

last updated Oct 18, 2020 06:07PM

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What Members Thought

Jul 17, 2021 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it really liked it

Shelves: psychology-sociology, science, economics

I really like the overall arc of this book and how it was presented. Couched in the ideas of the enlightenment I though this was a nice vantage point for him to bring forward his arguments. I really liked reading about this topic and the changes in the world in a more positive light than what is generally perpetuated in the common media channels. However two parts that I didn't like was his takes on the Environment which I think were fairly weak arguments poorly made and missed a huge amount of ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Evan Crane rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

It can feel like Pinker is Straw Manning, but it is easy to forget that many people actually hold the views he positions himself against (i.e., the Curse of Knowledge). The reactions to Pinker’s work are a good reminder of this fact. You may notice that your ability to nitpick increases as he moves his attention to your personal bugaboo. He doesn’t get AI safety and deploys some dubious arguments that seem based in semantics.

I will now rant against a review in the NY Times by Szalai for my own It can feel like Pinker is Straw Manning, but it is easy to forget that many people actually hold the views he positions himself against (i.e., the Curse of Knowledge). The reactions to Pinker’s work are a good reminder of this fact. You may notice that your ability to nitpick increases as he moves his attention to your personal bugaboo. He doesn’t get AI safety and deploys some dubious arguments that seem based in semantics.

I will now rant against a review in the NY Times by Szalai for my own cathartic benefit.

The author writes that the Enlightenment is actually to blame for Trump because “enlightenment institutions” have engaged in “consolidation of power.” Reason and democratic institutions may seem nice, but if they have led to an insufficiently progressive tax code are they not the roots of all that is evil in the modern world? I hear they got to eat cake in pre-enlightenment France.

From the review:

Pinker goes so far as to downplay the harm of the notorious Tuskegee syphilis study. The study, a “one-time failure to prevent harm to a few dozen people” (as he breezily puts it) “may even have been defensible by the standards of the day.” Why do this? Why not simply state that the study is a ghastly stain on the history of medicine?

The full quote:

“At a recent conference, another colleague summed up what she thought was the mixed legacy of science: vaccines for smallpox on the one hand; the Tuskeegee experiment on the other […] My colleague’s comparison assumed that the Tuskegee study was an unavoidable part of the scientific practice as opposed to a universally deplored breached, and equated a one-time failure to prevent harm to a few dozen people with the prevention of hundreds of millions of deaths per century in perpetuity”

So he does say that it is a ghastly stain on the history of medicine. But he doesn’t simply do this because the entire thrust of his argument is against thought-stopping talismanic memes that banish discussion. She claims she isn’t disputing any of the data in the book but is only criticizing the “rhetoric.” Rhetoric is easier if you confine yourself to simplicity.

The review: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/bo... ...more

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Feb 14, 2018 GONZA rated it liked it

So it is not so bad as it seems, or at last that is the opinion of Pinker. This is the age of enlightenment even if everything seems so dark....well I would like to share the author's optimism, but in a way I was not so convinced by his reasoning and suggestions of how to read the world right now. Best part is the chapter about humanism.

A quanto pare le cose non sono cosí brutte come sembrano, o almeno questa é l'opinione di Pinker, anzi siamo nella fase di un nuovo illuminismo (anche se sembra ...more

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