All right, I have the distinct pleasure today of being able to sit down and talk to Dr.

Stephen Baker of Harvard University who's just written a new book.

Many, he's written many books, but this is the newest one.

It's called Enlightenment Now and it's New York Times bestseller for seven weeks.

So that's a great accomplishment.

Dr. Baker has indicated to me that it's doing better than his other books have and they've

also done very well, so that's really something.

So Stephen Baker is the Harvard professor of psychology at Harvard University.

He's a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of many awards for his research

teaching in books.

He's been named one of Times 100 Most Influential People and one of foreign policies,

one hundred leading global figures.

His books include the stuff of thought, the better angels of our nature, the blank slate,

and the sense of style.

And so I'm welcoming Dr. Baker, obviously, and I'd like him to start telling us, to start

by telling us about the book itself and then we'll talk about broader issues and about

the other books he's written and that sort of thing.

Well, the book subtitle is the case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

I'll begin with it with a progress because that was the epiphany that more than anything

inspired the book.

I've written a previous book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, when I was surprised to

come across data sets showing that many measures of violence had declined over the course of

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