Steven Pinker - Psychologist HARDtalk


Steven Pinker - Psychologist

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Now on BBC News Stephen Sackur

is here with HARDtalk.

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Welcome to HARDtalk.

I'm Stephen Sackur.

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This HARDtalk programme,

like so many others in the churn

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of 24/7 news tends to focus

on people and places facing

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problems and challenges.

More often than not we hold

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the powerful to account for things

that went wrong, not right.

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Are we missing the bigger picture

about the world we live in?

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My guest psychologist and writer

Steven Pinker

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Thinks so.

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His new book, Enlightenment Now,

is a paean to human progress

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driven by reason and science.

How convincing are his

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reasons to be cheerful?

THEME MUSIC PLAYS.

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Steven Pinker welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you. This idea of the

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enlightenment is very dear to your

heart. Can you briefly, if you will,

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catch for me what you mean by

enlightenment enlightenment the.

The

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first of the intellectual movement

of the second half of the 18th

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century that put a premium of reason

as opposed to authority, tradition,

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doctors, on science, on the attempt

to explain the world by testing

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hypotheses and on humanism, the

individual humans as the ultimate

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good as opposed to the triumph of a

nation and faith.

Is it your

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proposition that it captures

universal values?

European and

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American. Although every idea has to

come from somewhere, so it is

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European in that sense, but it is

based on reason and universal human

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interests. Everyone wants a long

life, to be healthy, almost everyone

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wants knowledge and education.

People would prefer to live in

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safety rather than danger, all

things being equal.

Science and

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reason have underpinned so much of

human thought and scientific and

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technological developments in recent

centuries but is it you're feeling

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that this enlightenment is under

threat?

It absolutely is and has

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been since it was formulated. The

counter Enlightenment of the 90s

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century Roseberry quickly. -- 19th

century rose very quickly. The idea

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that the individual is merely a cell

in the super organism, consisting of

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race and groups. And also

authoritarian populism with Trump in

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the US, and populous movement in

Eastern Europe.

You are suggesting

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that Donald Trump in the US, as far

as you are concerned, and utterly

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illogical and counter-productive

political movement.

Indeed. Talking

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about the intellectual roots of

trumpeter sounds like an oxymoron

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but he was advised by people like

Stephen Bannon and Steve Miller and

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Michael Anton who consider

themselves intellectuals and are

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influenced by a counter

enlightenment tradition and you can

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see some of the themes of Trumpism

Trumpism wet the soul is embodied in

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a strong leader. These are things

that run through Trumpism.

It seems

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to me his politics is driven by

emotions, by an appeal to a person's

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cup in sticks rather than their

rational brain. -- instincts. The

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skill of Donald Trump is that,

unlike many of his political rivals,

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he found and continues to find a way

to connect with a significant part

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of the American population.

Indeed

and emotional impulses such as

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tribalism, authoritarianism, besting

power in a charismatic leader,

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reasoning by an act don't rather

than by fax and data -- anecdote,

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the story of the American who is

mowed down by an illegal immigrant

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breaking traffic law, is an appeal

to our not so rational side...

If

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Trump is an aberration, he is not a

bleep, he is part of a long line of

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politicians that you would say the

last few centuries have been a

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triumph of science and reason, many

would say that last few centuries

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have absolutely shown is that the

human species is often driven by gut

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instinct and emotion and by feelings

that are not anything to do with

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science or reason.

Indeed. One of

the misconceptions about

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enlightenment thinkers is that we

assume we are all rational. Like Mr

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Spock from Star Trek. But David

Hume, Spinoza, there were avid

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students of human nature and they

proposed norms and institutions that

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would work around for our Dhaka

impulses so those impulses are over

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with us. -- dark.

You are saying

that we need to understand that as

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human beings have never had it so

good and that in terms of statistics

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on world hunger, on poverty, on loss

of life to warfare, that things are

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rather wonderful on our planet today

and that is not the way many people

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in both the developed and developing

world actually sit and experience of

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the world?

That is right. As long as

tragedy and problems have not been

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reduced to zero, there will always

be enough of them to feel the news

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and since we are driven by anecdotes

and narratives rather than data,

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unless we see the data, we can miss

the fantastic progress. Not

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uniformly...

We cannot dismiss half

of all Syrians, 12 million people,

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being displaced on their homes, many

hundreds of thousands killed. We

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cannot dismiss that as an

unimportant bleep in the data.

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Absolutely not but because of our

rising moral standards, we care more

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about people than out ancestors did

so things can look worse than...

How

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can you measure compassion?

I do not

have data on compassion but, if you

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look at the way events are described

and categorise, people forget that

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there were greater number of

displacement during the partition of

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India, the Korean War had far more

casualties than the war in Syria.

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This is not to minimise the horrific

suffering of the people in Syria but

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the imperative to recognise the

people in earlier eras and to

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realise that not stuck with the

amount of suffering. Just as earlier

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generations reduced the number so do

we. The realisation that these are

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not utopian aspirations, that

displaced people and walls and

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refugees can be reduced.

Come back

to the point that most people on

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this earth do not think the way that

you do, partly because they are not

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trained in the way that you have,

but you are driven by bigger data,

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meta data and you crunch the numbers

and you take a very high overview of

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the way the world works. Most folks

do not do that. They relate to their

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own experience and their own

perception. How much value is there

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only telling us we should be more

cheerful and positive and optimistic

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when it does not match reality for

most of us?

That is why we have

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education, persuasion, discourse,

debate. In order to counter our

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intuitions and impulses which are

often misleading. A lot about

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intuitions are systematically

biased. Something that can be

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amplified...

But you have abayas

also. We all do. You are the product

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of your nurture just as high. When

people today expressed doubt about

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expertise and they sometimes say,

you know what, you can prove almost

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anything with statistics, they have

a point, don't they?

You cannot

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prove everything with statistics,

not if you are honest ...

But you

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make choices about the data you put

into your numbercrunching computers,

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you decide what particular facet of

the human condition to profile, it

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is all subjective.

Then you

challenge me and observers get to

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hear the various sides and see who

has the most persuasive case. The

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fact that science has progressed

shows that, despite human

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disagreement and the fact that we

are blinded by our buyer says, over

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the long run, with free speech, open

debate, the ability to challenge

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people and the onus to provide data

to support your ideas, over the

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longer run, we can approach and

understanding of truth.

No question

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that everybody would agree that the

data on global hunger and poverty

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suggests that most people in the

world, in that material sense,

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things are better at today for most

people but, if you take the most

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advanced society, the US, your radio

progress and runs into real trouble

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because the generations the middle

class has seen the living standards

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stagnate and in some years declined.

When you look at the polls,

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Americans and said, the years that

they have felt the country is on the

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wrong track. Your theory of the

eternal march to progress has been

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thwarted.

Forget about the eternal

march to progress. Problems are

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inevitable. We sold them as they

arise. On average we make progress.

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The US is a peculiar case because

although people think of it as the

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prototypical advanced democracy, it

is a laggard among Western

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democracies...

You cannot have an

outlay of which is the most

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important economy in the world. It

sets a standard and it is in many

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ways a country the rest of the world

looks to stop if the message from

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the United States is that the

values, the science, the humanism

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can take you so but then things

start to go wrong, that is a message

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important to the entire world.

It is

an unfortunate message and in many

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ways it is a backward country

compared to it's West Stand peers.

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It has high incidences of crime,

lower lifespans, more abortions,

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high drug use. Any measure of social

pathology. It is ahead of most

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countries of the world. But behind

other...

White?

The US is an

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ambivalent enlightenment country

because its constitution was perhaps

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the most famous product of the

Enlightenment. Jefferson, Adams,

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were men of the Enlightenment but in

many ways the country itself has

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been divided. There is an

enlightenment country but also a

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more traditional culture of honour,

more heavily represented in the

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south than the West, the ethics that

instead you have this interest

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institutions, that meet out justice

and secure social welfare, it is up

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to the individual defending himself

and his family by the justifiable

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use of violence if necessary and a

lot of American politics has always

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struggle between the culture of

honour and the culture of the

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Enlightenment. And so it is a

peculiar example of a Western

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democracy.

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The time when those values, weather

it be from Russia, China all

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elsewhere, are being challenged in a

concerted and important and

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considerable way.

They are being

challenged, that's why I would not

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allude to an inexorable march of

progress. The end of history was a

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brilliant bit of marketing.

It's now

a millstone that hangs around

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Francis Fukuyama's neck.

In defence

of Fukuyama, the number of

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democracies has increased since the

end of democracy was published.

In

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the last 12 years more countries

have seen a regression in diplomatic

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values.

It's one of the more

pessimistic measures of democracy.

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It's also an activist organisation

and they are always biased towards

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our crime crisis. Other indicators

of democracies. There's certainly

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been a deceleration. But freedom

house has somewhat an alarmist

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picture and when you think about it,

in our youth we both had 31

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democracies in the early 1970s, half

of Europe was behind the Iron

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Curtain. There was barely a

democracy in Latin America. Taiwan

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and the Philippines, Indonesia,

Greece was a military dictatorship,

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Spain and Portugal were under the

control of fascism. It's true that

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there has been a push bike in

countries like Russia, Turkey and

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Venezuela. But still the overall

trend continuing through the end of

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history has been towards

democratisation.

In your world view,

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is religion nothing more than an

aberration when it enters the realm

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of public policy and governance?

It

is certainly... Theistic belief,

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belief in a God who can work

miracles, that's something that

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should be kept out of politics, yes.

In the United States we have the

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separation of church and state, and

I think this is an excellent

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principle, yes, we should not base

policy on miracles.

Do you think you

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have too rosy a view of human

nature?

I'm well-equipped to deny

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that charge. Probably the strongest

case is that human nature is saddled

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with flaws such as dominance,

egocentrism, revenge, magical

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thinking and so on. I'm the last

person that can be accused of having

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too rosy a view of human nature. I

think human nature is a complex

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system and together with our

policies, there are, and I stole the

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phrase from Abraham Lincoln, but

better angels of our nature, sides

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of human nature such as reason,

empathy, self-control, moral norms

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that are in constant tension with

our darker sides and it's up to our

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institutions and our norms to

empower our better angels, the parts

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of human nature that over the long

run can read to institutions that

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tame our inner demons.

Your academic

discipline is psychology rather than

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history for example. I want to quote

to you something that perhaps puts

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an historical sense of perspective

onto your thinking about the

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Enlightenment, it comes from a

commentator in the UK responding to

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your book, Jenni Russell, she says

every civilisation has believed in

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its in vulnerability until it falls,

from the Greeks, the Romans, the

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Mongols, the Ming Dynasty, it

couldn't recognise the threats to it

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before it is too late and your blind

spot is believing the appeal of

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liberal democracies and the light

and values that underpin them are so

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powerful that they need only to be

spelt out to be accepted.

-- in

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light and. No. I would identify the

blind spot among people who confuse

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the existence of progress with some

forced inevitability or

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indestructibility ash Enlightenment.

People are so unused to even

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conceiving of progress that they

can't distinguish a factual claim

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like things are better than they

were several decades ago, or several

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centuries ago, with these mystical

notions of vulnerability or

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inexorable march is. They're not the

same thing. You can acknowledge we

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live longer without saying that we

live in a utopia all we are going to

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live forever.

What about science,

you are a scientist they sought, but

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if one looks your claims for

technology and science and the

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degree to which they continue to

deliver us to a better place, one

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can quite quickly counter with

obviously climate change being a

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massive global problem which science

for the moment seems incapable of

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coming up with a clear solution, one

could look at the degradation of our

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environments, particularly the

oceans and microplastics right now.

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One could say your faith in science

looks misplaced.

All of the facts

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you mention of course our scientific

discoveries, and so without

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science...

Their discoveries of the

harm science is doing.

That's what

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technology has done. The way to deal

with them is to understand what

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caused them and what camera burst

them.

That's where you have to marry

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human ingenuity in science and human

motivation and science -- what can

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reverse them. We don't have the

motivation to undertake the massive

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cooperative effort to solve these

problems.

We do, not enough, but we

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do. The Paris climate accord and

certainly shows the world, again

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with one conspicuous exception, can

come to an agreement.

The exception

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is pretty darned important.

Although

remember that the pushing back on

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our president, and we can't withdraw

from the accord for another three

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years anyway, by which time it is

possible President Trump will be a

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lame duck and his successor will

reinstate the American

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participation, but individual

states, individual corporations, the

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rest of the world and the rest of

the world of course can push back

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against the United States when it

violates the Paris Agreement by

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putting tariffs on American goods

based on their carbon emissions. So

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the act of one president

unnecessarily undo the progress,

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although they might.

When you talk

like that I'm just reminded that the

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historian Mall Ferguson said at

times he is reminded of Doctor

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Pangalos when he listens to use.

Doctor Pangalos, that's a mistake,

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Pangalos is a pessimist, he said we

live in one, the best of all

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possible worlds. -- listens to you.

You're much more optimistic than

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Doctor Pangalos?

Pangalos was a a

defender of the belief that God was

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incapable of making the world any

better than the way we find it

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today. Just go back to climate

change, we are not on track to

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solving the problem of climate

change, there's no doubt. I'm not an

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optimist in the sense that

everything will all workout.

We're

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almost out of time but in essence

you always are. Here's my invitation

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to you at the end of this programme,

some people today look at where we

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are with climate change, for

example, or indeed with nuclear

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proliferation, and in particular the

nuclear stand-off right now with

0:23:100:23:14

Donald Trump's United States

administration and North Korea, and

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they think to themselves, we've

probably never been closer to seeing

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existential threats to humanity come

to reality, but your worldview would

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suggest we have it within us always

to avert those accidental threats?

I

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think there is an imperative to see

our way through to avoiding the ex-

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essential threats, to treating these

as problems to be solved, not to

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declare that we're doomed so we may

as well enjoy life while we can, but

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to put the pressure where it has to

be placed for the changes of

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policies, changes of administration,

so we mitigate the severest threats.

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And your life, your experience

suggests to you that there is every

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good reason to continue to believe

that human beings will get to where

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they need to be?

Not that there is

every reason but there is a reason,

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not that it's inevitable, who knows

what the probabilities are, but it

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is possible and therefore there is

the imperative to take the steps

0:24:140:24:17

that have the greatest chance of

solving the problems.

We have to end

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there but Steven Pinker, thank you

very much for joining me on

0:24:220:24:25

HARDtalk.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you very much.

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