Enlightenment Now

  11. Heroic blood-bespatterers: Nietzsche 1887/2014.

  12. Snow never assigned an order to his Two Cultures, but subsequent usage has numbered them in that way; see, for example, Brockman 2003.

  13. Snow 1959/1998, p. 14.

  14. Leavis flame: Leavis 1962/2013; see Collini 1998, 2013.

  15. Leavis 1962/2013, p. 71.

  CHAPTER 4: PROGRESSOPHOBIA

  1. Herman 1997, p. 7, also cites Joseph Campbell, Noam Chomsky, Joan Didion, E. L. Doctorow, Paul Goodman, Michael Harrington, Robert Heilbroner, Jonathan Kozol, Christopher Lasch, Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, Kirkpatrick Sale, Jonathan Schell, Richard Sennett, Susan Sontag, Gore Vidal, and Garry Wills.

  2. Nisbet 1980/2009, p. 317.

  3. The Optimism Gap: McNaughton-Cassill & Smith 2002; Nagdy & Roser 2016b; Veenhoven 2010; Whitman 1998.

  4. EU Eurobarometer survey results, reproduced in Nagdy & Roser 2016b.

  5. Survey results from Ipsos 2016, “Perils of Perception (Topline Results),” 2013, https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/migrations/en-uk/files/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-mori-rss-kings-perils-of-perception-topline.pdf, graphed in Nagdy & Roser 2016b.

  6. Dunlap, Gallup, & Gallup 1993, graphed in Nagdy & Roser 2016b.

  7. J. McCarthy, “More Americans Say Crime Is Rising in U.S.,” Gallup.com, Oct. 22, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/186308/americans-say-crime-rising.aspx.

  8. World is getting worse: Majorities in Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and the United States; also Malaysia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. China was the only country in which more respondents said the world was getting better than said it was getting worse. YouGov poll, Jan. 5, 2016, https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/01/05/chinese-people-are-most-optimistic-world/. The United States on the wrong track: Dean Obeidallah, “We’ve Been on the Wrong Track Since 1972,” Daily Beast, Nov. 7, 2014, http://www.pollingreport.com/right.htm.

  9. Source of the expression: B. Popik, “First Draft of History (Journalism),” BarryPopik.com, http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/first_draft_of_history_journalism/.

  10. Frequency and nature of news: Galtung & Ruge 1965.

  11. Availability heuristic: Kahneman 2011; Slovic 1987; Slovic, Fischof, & Lichtenstein 1982; Tversky & Kahneman 1973.

  12. Misperceptions of risk: Ropeik & Gray 2002; Slovic 1987. Post-Jaws avoidance of swimming: Sutherland 1992, p. 11.

  13. If it bleeds, it leads (and vice versa): Bohle 1986; Combs & Slovic 1979; Galtung & Ruge 1965; Miller & Albert 2015.

  14. ISIS as “existential threat”: Poll conducted for Investor’s Business Daily by TIPP, March 28–April 2, 2016, http://www.investors.com/politics/ibdtipp-poll-distrust-on-what-obama-does-and-says-on-isis-terror/.

  15. Effects of newsreading: Jackson 2016. See also Johnston & Davey 1997; McNaughton-Cassill 2001; Otieno, Spada, & Renkl 2013; Ridout, Grosse, & Appleton 2008; Unz, Schwab, & Winterhoff-Spurk 2008.

  16. Quoted in J. Singal, “What All This Bad News Is Doing to Us,” New York, Aug. 8, 2014.

  17. Decline of violence: Eisner 2003; Goldstein 2011; Gurr 1981; Human Security Centre 2005; Human Security Report Project 2009; Mueller 1989, 2004a; Payne 2004.

  18. Solutions create new problems: Deutsch 2011, pp. 64, 76, 350; Berlin 1988/2013, p. 15.

  19. Deutsch 2011, p. 193.

  20. Thick-tailed distributions: See chapter 19, and, for more detail, Pinker 2011, pp. 210–22.

  21. Negativity bias: Baumeister, Bratslavsky, et al. 2001; Rozin & Royzman 2001.

  22. Personal communication, 1982.

  23. More negative words: Baumeister, Bratslavsky, et al. 2001; Schrauf & Sanchez 2004.

  24. Rose-tinting of memory: Baumeister, Bratslavsky, et al. 2001.

  25. Illusion of the good old days: Eibach & Libby 2009.

  26. Connor 2014; see also Connor 2016.

  27. Snarky book reviewers sound smarter: Amabile 1983.

  28. M. Housel, “Why Does Pessimism Sound So Smart?” Motley Fool, Jan. 21, 2016.

  29. Similar points have been made by the economist Albert Hirschman (1991) and the journalist Gregg Easterbrook (2003).

  30. D. Bornstein & T. Rosenberg, “When Reportage Turns to Cynicism,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 2016. For more on the “constructive journalism” movement, see Gyldensted 2015, Jackson 2016, and the magazine Positive News (www.positive.news).

  31. The UN Millennium Development Goals are: 1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 2. To achieve universal primary education. 3. To promote gender equality and empower women. 4. To reduce child mortality. 5. To improve maternal health. 6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. 7. To ensure environmental sustainability. 8. To develop a global partnership for [economic] development.

  32. Books on progress (in order of mention): Norberg 2016, Easterbrook 2003, Reese 2013, Naam 2013, Ridley 2010, Robinson 2009, Bregman 2017, Phelps 2013, Diamandis & Kotler 2012, Goklany 2007, Kenny 2011, Bailey 2015, Shermer 2015, DeFries 2014, Deaton 2013, Radelet 2015, Mahbubani 2013.

  CHAPTER 5: LIFE

  1. World Health Organization 2016a.

  2. Hans and Ola Rosling, “The Ignorance Project,” https://www.gapminder.org/ignorance/.

  3. Roser 2016n; estimate for England in 1543 from R. Zijdeman, OECD Clio Infra.

  4. Hunter-gatherers: Marlowe 2010, p. 160. The estimate is for the Hadza, whose rates of infant and juvenile mortality (which account for most of the variance among populations) are identical to the medians in Marlowe’s sample of 478 foraging peoples (p. 261). First farmers to Iron Age: Galor & Moav 2007. No increase for millennia: Deaton 2013, p. 80.

  5. Norberg 2016, pp. 46 and 40.

  6. Influenza pandemic: Roser 2016n. American white mortality: Case & Deaton 2015.

  7. Marlowe 2010, p. 261.

  8. Deaton 2013, p. 56.

  9. Reducing health care: N. Kristof, “Birth Control for Others,” New York Times, March 23, 2008.

  10. M. Housel, “50 Reasons We’re Living Through the Greatest Period in World History,” Motley Fool, Jan. 29, 2014.

  11. World Health Organization 2015c.

  12. Marlowe 2010, p. 160.

  13. Radelet 2015, p. 75.

  14. Global healthy life expectancy in 1990: Mathers et al. 2001. Healthy life expectancy in developed countries in 2010: Murray et al. 2012; see also Chernew et al. 2016, for data showing that healthy life expectancy, not just life expectancy, has recently increased in the United States.

  15. G. Kolata, “U.S. Dementia Rates Are Dropping Even as Population Ages,” New York Times, Nov. 21, 2016.

  16. Bush’s Council on Bioethics: Pinker 2008b.

  17. L. R. Kass, “L’Chaim and Its Limits: Why Not Immortality?” First Things, May 2001.

  18. Longevity estimates regularly superseded: Oeppen & Vaupel 2002.

  19. Reverse-engineering mortality: M. Shermer, “Radical Life-Extension Is Not Around the Corner,” Scientific American, Oct. 1, 2016; Shermer 2018.

  20. Siegel, Naishadham, & Jemal 2012.

  21. Skepticism about immortality: Hayflick 2000; Shermer 2018.

  22. Entropy will kill us: P. Hoffmann, “Physics Makes Aging Inevitable, Not Biology,” Nautilus, May 12, 2016.

  CHAPTER 6: HEALTH

  1. Deaton 2013, p. 149.

  2. Bettmann 1974, p. 136; internal quotation marks omitted.

  3. Bettmann 1974; Norberg 2016.

  4. Carter 1966, p. 3.

  5. Woodward, Shurkin, & Gordon 2009; see also the Web site ScienceHeroes (www.scienceheroes.com). The team’s statisticians are April Ingram and Amy R. Pearce.

  6. Book on the past tense: Pinker 1999/2011.

  7. Kenny 2011, pp. 124–25. br />
  8. D. G. McNeil Jr., “A Milestone in Africa: No Polio Cases in a Year,” New York Times, Aug. 11, 2015; “Polio This Week,” Global Polio Eradication Initiative, http://polioeradication.org/polio-today/polio-now/this-week/, May 17, 2017.

  9. “Guinea Worm Case Totals,” The Carter Center, April 18, 2017, https://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/case-totals.html.

  10. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Our Big Bet for the Future: 2015 Gates Annual Letter, p. 7, https://www.gatesnotes.com/2015-Annual-Letter.

  11. World Health Organization 2015b.

  12. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “Malaria: Strategy Overview,” http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/Malaria.

  13. Data from the World Health Organization and the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group, cited in Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Our Big Bet for the Future: 2015 Gates Annual Letter, p. 7, https://www.gatesnotes.com/2015-Annual-Letter; UNAIDS 2016.

  14. N. Kristof, “Why 2017 May Be the Best Year Ever,” New York Times, Jan. 21, 2017.

  15. Jamison et al. 2015.

  16. Deaton 2013, p. 41.

  17. Deaton 2013, pp. 122–23.

  CHAPTER 7: SUSTENANCE

  1. Norberg 2016, pp. 7–8.

  2. Braudel 2002.

  3. Fogel 2004, quoted in Roser 2016d.

  4. Braudel 2002, pp. 76–77, quoted in Norberg 2016.

  5. “Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015–2020, Estimated Calorie Needs per Day, by Age, Sex, and Physical Activity Level,” http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/appendix-2/.

  6. Calorie figures from Roser 2016d; see also figure 7-1.

  7. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Food and Agriculture 1947, cited in Norberg 2016.

  8. A definition by the economist Cormac Ó Gráda, cited in Hasell & Roser 2017.

  9. Devereux 2000, p. 3.

  10. W. Greene, “Triage: Who Shall Be Fed? Who Shall Starve?” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 5, 1975. The term lifeboat ethics had been introduced a year earlier by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in an article in Psychology Today (Sept. 1974) called “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.”

  11. “Service Groups in Dispute on World Food Problems,” New York Times, July 15, 1976; G. Hardin, “Lifeboat Ethics,” Psychology Today, Sept. 1974.

  12. McNamara, health care, contraception: N. Kristof, “Birth Control for Others,” New York Times, March 23, 2008.

  13. Famines don’t reduce population growth: Devereux 2000.

  14. Quoted in “Making Data Dance,” The Economist, Dec. 9, 2010.

  15. The Industrial Revolution and the escape from hunger: Deaton 2013; Norberg 2016; Ridley 2010.

  16. Agricultural revolutions: DeFries 2014.

  17. Norberg 2016.

  18. Woodward, Shurkin, & Gordon 2009; http://www.scienceheroes.com/. Haber retains this distinction even if we subtract the 90,000 deaths in World War I from chemical weapons, which he was instrumental in developing.

  19. Morton 2015, p. 204.

  20. Roser 2016e, 2016u.

  21. Borlaug: Brand 2009; Norberg 2016; Ridley 2010; Woodward, Shurkin, & Gordon 2009; DeFries 2014.

  22. The Green Revolution continues: Radelet 2015.

  23. Roser 2016m.

  24. Norberg 2016.

  25. Norberg 2016. According to the UN FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015, “Net forest area has increased in over 60 countries and territories, most of which are in the temperate and boreal zones.” http://www.fao.org/resources/infographics/infographics-details/en/c/325836/.

  26. Norberg 2016.

  27. Ausubel, Wernick, & Waggoner 2012.

  28. Alferov, Altman, & 108 other Nobel Laureates 2016; Brand 2009; Radelet 2015; Ridley 2010, pp. 170–73; J. Achenbach, “107 Nobel Laureates Sign Letter Blasting Greenpeace over GMOs,” Washington Post, June 30, 2016; W. Saletan, “Unhealthy Fixation,” Slate, July 15, 2015.

  29. W. Saletan, “Unhealthy Fixation,” Slate, July 15, 2015.

  30. Scientifically illiterate opinions on genetically modified foods: Sloman & Fernbach 2017.

  31. Brand 2009, p. 117.

  32. Sowell 2015.

  33. Famines not just caused by food shortages: Devereux 2000; Sen 1984, 1999.

  34. Devereux 2000. See also White 2011.

  35. Devereux 2000 writes that during the colonial period, “macroeconomic and political vulnerability to famine gradually diminished” due to infrastructure improvements and “the initiation of early warning systems and relief intervention mechanisms by colonial administrations which recognized the need to ameliorate food crises to achieve political legitimacy” (p. 13).

  36. Based on Devereux’s estimate of seventy million deaths in major 20th-century famines (p. 29) and the estimates of particular famines in his table 1. See also Rummel 1994; White 2011.

  37. Deaton 2013; Radelet 2015.

  CHAPTER 8: WEALTH

  1. Rosenberg & Birdzell 1986, p. 3.

  2. Norberg 2016, summarizing Braudel 2002, pp. 75, 285, and elsewhere.

  3. Cipolla 1994. Internal quotation marks have been omitted.

  4. The physical fallacy: Sowell 1980.

  5. The discovery of wealth creation: Montgomery & Chirot 2015; Ridley 2010.

  6. Underestimating growth: Feldstein 2017.

  7. Consumer surplus and Oscar Wilde: T. Kane, “Piketty’s Crumbs,” Commentary, April 14, 2016.

  8. The term Great Escape is from Deaton 2013. Enlightened economy: Mokyr 2012.

  9. Backyard tinkerers: Ridley 2010.

  10. Science and technology as causes of the Great Escape: Mokyr 2012, 2014.

  11. Natural states versus open economies: North, Wallis, & Weingast 2009. Related argument: Acemoglu & Robinson 2012.

  12. Bourgeois virtue: McCloskey 1994, 1998.

  13. From Letters Concerning the English Nation, cited in Porter 2000, p. 21.

  14. Porter 2000, pp. 21–22.

  15. Data on GDP per capita from Maddison Project 2014, displayed in Marian Tupy’s HumanProgress, http://www.humanprogress.org/f1/2785/1/2010/France/United%20Kingdom.

  16. The Great Convergence: Mahbubani 2013. Mahbubani credits the term to the columnist Martin Wolf. Radelet (2015) calls it the Great Surge; Deaton (2013) includes it in what he calls the Great Escape.

  17. Countries with rapidly growing economies: Radelet 2015, pp. 47–51.

  18. According to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, “The number of people in the working middle class—living on more than $4 a day—has almost tripled between 1991 and 2015. This group now makes up half the workforce in the developing regions, up from just 18 per cent in 1991” (United Nations 2015a, p. 4). Of course most of the “working middle class” as defined by the UN would count as poor in developed countries, but even with a more generous definition the world has become more middle class than one might expect. The Brookings Institution estimated in 2013 that it comprised 1.8 billion and would grow to 3.2 billion by 2020 (L. Yueh, “The Rise of the Global Middle Class,” BBC News online, June 19, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-22956470).

  19. Camel and dromedary curves: Roser 2016g.

  20. More accurately, a Bactrian camel; one-humped dromedaries are technically “camels,” too.

  21. Camel to dromedary: For another way of showing the same historical development, see figures 9-1 and 9-2, based on data from Milanović 2016.

  22. This is also equivalent to the frequently cited $1.25 cutoff, stated in 2005 international dollars: Ferreira, Jolliffe, & Prydz 2015.

  23. M. Roser, “No Matter What Extreme Poverty Line You Choose, the Share of People Below That Poverty Line Has Declined Globally,” Our World in Data blo
g, 2017, https://ourworldindata.org/no-matter-what-global-poverty-line.

  24. Veil of ignorance: Rawls 1976.

  25. Millennium Development Goals: United Nations 2015a.

  26. Deaton 2013, p. 37.

  27. Lucas 1988, p. 5.

  28. The goal is defined as $1.25 a day, which is the World Bank international poverty line in 2005 international dollars; see Ferreira, Jolliffe, & Prydz 2015.

  29. The problem in getting to zero: Radelet 2015, p. 243; Roser & Ortiz-Ospina 2017, section IV.2.

  30. The danger in crying “crisis”: Kenny 2011, p. 203.

  31. Causes of development: Collier & Rohner 2008; Deaton 2013; Kenny 2011; Mahbubani 2013; Milanović 2016; Radelet 2015. See also M. Roser, “The Global Decline of Extreme Poverty—Was It Only China?” Our World in Data blog, March 7, 2017, https://ourworldindata.org/the-global-decline-of-extreme-poverty-was-it-only-china/.

  32. Radelet 2015, p. 35.

  33. Prices as information: Hayek 1945; Hidalgo 2015; Sowell 1980.

  34. Chile vs. Venezuela, Botswana vs. Zimbabwe: M. L. Tupy, “The Power of Bad Ideas: Why Voters Keep Choosing Failed Statism,” CapX, Jan. 7, 2016.

  35. Kenny 2011, p. 203; Radelet 2015, p. 38.

  36. Mao’s genocides: Rummel 1994; White 2011.

  37. According to legend, said by Franklin Roosevelt about Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza, but probably not: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=8204/.

  38. Local leaders: Radelet 2015, p. 184.

  39. War as development in reverse: Collier 2007.

  40. Deaton 2017.

  41. Hostility to the Industrial Revolution among Romantics and literary intellectuals: Collini 1998, 2013.

  42. Snow 1959/1998, pp. 25–26. Enraged response: Leavis 1962/2013, pp. 69–72.

  43. Radelet 2015, pp. 58–59.

  44. “Factory Girls,” by A Factory Girl, The Lowell Offering, no. 2, Dec. 1840, https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/periodicals/lo_40_12.pdf. Cited in C. Follett, “The Feminist Side of Sweatshops,” The Hill, April 18, 2017, http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/labor/329332-the-feminist-side-of-sweatshops.

  45. Quoted in Brand 2009, p. 26; chaps. 2 and 3 of his book expand on the liberating powers of urbanization.