In Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Steven Pinker argues that the human race has never had it so good. These eight graphs show why he's so wrong.
Thanks to Stanford University Prof. Paul Ehrlich for pointing this out to us. Pinker's book has been both lauded and pilloried.
From the article: Bill Gates has, for example, effervesced that "It's my new favorite book of all time." On the other hand, Pinker has been fiercely excoriated by a wide range of leading thinkers for writing a simplistic, incoherent paean to the dominant world order.
Ehrlich's comment: "A fine demolition of one of Earth's most dangerous 'intellectuals.'"
