It's Monday, September 24th, 2018, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds.

I'm Kishorehari.

Each week, we bring you a new in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.

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If you're on Twitter, you might think 2018 is the worst year ever. That's because there's constant barrage of memes indicating how bad the world is right now. And it feels like

that things are only getting progressively worse. But that commonly

held perception that the world is in terrible shape might not be right. Today's guest is Stephen Pinker,

and his recent book, Enlightenment Now, tries to set out to show that by 15 different measures, human well-being is improving

from the fact that we're living longer and healthier lives, that terrorism is on the decline,

and that much of this is due to the rise of the Enlightenment in the late 1800s,

and that kind of thinking, that sort of rational

approach that uses reason and science and humanism together has really led to a revolution

that continues to prove everyone's lives. It's kind of a strange take in this day and age to have an optimistic

worldview, but that's a continuation of what Stephen has been trying to say since his first

book, The Better Angels of Our Nature first hit the stands a number of years ago.

I interviewed Stephen at the Commonwealth Club a few weeks ago to talk about Enlightenment now,

his views on our future, and also tried to unpack a number of statements that he said recently

that are mildly controversial from everything from his stance on identity politics to political correctness. So let's take a short

...