Lisa Eckstein’s Reviews > Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress > Status Update

Done! (The rest of the book is the footnotes and references.) This was a slow read for me, and my enjoyment level varied, but overall I found it more interesting than not.

"Reason tells us that political deliberation would be most fruitful if it treated governance more like scientific experimentation and less like an extreme-sports competition."

Finished with the largest middle section of the book, which I found overall interesting, educational, even enlightening (pun intended). Curious to see how I'm going to feel about the last section. (The book's main text only goes to 54% because of the many endnotes and references.)

A variety of interesting concepts examined in the chapter on happiness. I appreciated this point: "A bit of anxiety is not a bad thing if it motivates people to support policies that would help solve major problems."

Continues to be full of fascinating analysis and facts. For example, "As a result [of fire safety measures], fire departments are putting themselves out of business. About 96 percent of their calls are for cardiac arrests and other medical emergencies, and most of the remainder are for small fires. ... A typical firefighter will see just one burning building every other year."

"We cannot be complacently optimistic about climate change, but we can be conditionally optimistic."

Glad to be into the part with concrete facts about world progress.

Not super compelled by the beginning section, but I'm hoping it will get better now that I'm into the central premise.