Steven Pinker The Observer Steven Pinker: ‘The way to deal with pollution is not to rail against consumption’ The feather-ruffling Harvard psychologist’s new book, a defence of Enlightenment values, may be his most controversial yet• Read an extract from Enlightenment Now here Steven Pinker: ‘If scientific beliefs are just mythology, how come we can get to the moon?’ Photograph: Scott NoblesSay the word “enlightenment” and it tends to conjure images of a certain kind of new-age spiritual “self-improvement”: meditation, candles, chakra lines. But according to Enlightenment Now, a new book by the celebrated Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, this is precisely where we’re getting our priorities wrong. Isn’t obesity a form of violence?”Graphic evidence: Steven Pinker's optimism on trial Read moreThis time round, Pinker appears to have written with his doubting audience more firmly in mind. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steven Pinker in 1994, the year he published The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. • Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker is published by Allen Lane (£13.99).

Source: The Guardian February 11, 2018 07:52 UTC