#68 World Renowned Thinker and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker: Human Action Can Improve the World

What this episode is about

Renowned Harvard professor Steven Pinker discusses the potential for human action to positively impact the world, emphasizing that despite contemporary challenges like irrationality, fake news, and rising partisanship, historical evidence shows that societal efforts have successfully reduced issues such as poverty, war, and disease. Pinker remains optimistic about the future, encouraging a rational approach to problem-solving and the pursuit of progress.

Key takeaways

• Progress is a bumpy road: humanity mitigates issues like poverty and war, but it's rarely a smooth ride.
• Irrational beliefs thrive alongside science; humans can juggle smartphones and conspiracy theories like pros.
• Life expectancy has doubled, yet some still fear vaccines, prioritizing tribe loyalty over reason.
• Covid was a setback, but history shows that setbacks don't erase progress; they often define it.
• Unmasking irrationality reveals surprising truths: beliefs, even absurd ones, can bolster community status over logic.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Lynn Tomman (Host) · 6 min speaking
• Steven Pinker (Guest) · 9 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Harvard, Steve Pinker, COVID-19 pandemic, Enlightenment Now
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Rationality
3. 12:00 – 15:00: Enlightenment Now, Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature

Notable quotes from "#68 World Renowned Thinker and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker: Human Action Can Improve the World"

• And Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lynn toen welcome to another episode today I'm excited to be with Steve Pinker Steve is one of the world's most renowned thinkers Bill…

  about Steve Pinker · at 0:21

• Regressing on social progress well it depends on what measure you look at by and large we are improving although the covid-19 pandemic introduced a number of setbacks but…

  about COVID-19 pandemic · at 2:17

• Unhappiness or conflict to try to control them Steve thank you so much this has been terrific I really enjoyed your books especially the better angels of our nature…

  about The Better Angels of Our Nature · at 14:24

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Steve Pinker — Person · Main guest · 1 mention · first at 0:26
  Primary interview subject discussing rationality, progress, misinformation, and threats to democracy; his books and public influence are referenced as evidence of impact.

Books & papers

• Rationality — Book · Referenced work · 4 mentions · first at 0:55
  Steve Pinker's most recent book mentioned, focusing on the theme of rationality in human affairs.
  Professor and author of many books including the better angels of our nature Enlightenment now and most recently rationality I'm excited to find out from Steve why there is so…
• The Better Angels of Our Nature — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 0:53
  One of Steve Pinker's notable books mentioned in the conversation, highlighting his contributions to understanding human progress.
• Enlightenment Now — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 0:55
  Another key book by Steve Pinker discussed, emphasizing the importance of reason and human progress.
  Professor and author of many books including the better angels of our nature Enlightenment now and most recently rationality I'm excited to find out from Steve why there is so…

Companies & orgs

• Harvard — Company · Affiliation · 2 mentions · first at 0:18
  Mentioned as the institution where Steve Pinker is a professor, adding credibility to his expertise.
  A list of the two dozen or so heads of state royalty and other leaders who have consulted with him he is a Harvard professor and author of many books including the better…

Places & events

• COVID-19 pandemic — Event · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 2:24
  Discussed as a significant event that introduced setbacks to global progress, but from which the world is expected to recover.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 welcome to the three takeaways podcast which features short memorable conversations with the world's best thinkers Business Leaders writers politicians scientists and other newsmakers each episode ends with the three key takeaways that person has learned over their lives and their careers and now your host and board member of schools at Harvard Princeton and Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lynn toen welcome to another episode today I'm excited to be with Steve Pinker Steve is one of the world's most renowned thinkers Bill Gates called one of his books his new favorite book of all time and Bill Clinton kept his book on his bedside table Steve keeps on his phone under the heading politicians a list of the two dozen or so heads of state royalty and other leaders who have consulted with him he is a Harvard professor and author of many books including the better angels of our nature Enlightenment now and most

0:58 recently rationality I'm excited to find out from Steve why there is so much irrationality in the world today including the belief in fake news conspiracy theories and medical quackery and I'm also excited to find out why despite so much fake news and negativity and partisanship he is optimistic about the future of democracy and the world welcome Steve and thanks so much for our conversation today thanks Lynn for having me Steve what are the ideas that resonated the most with Bill Gates and Bill Clinton that Human Action can improve the world that if we analiz our problems if we seek out Solutions if we try to apply them we can make the world better the evidence being that when our predecessors tried to do that they by and large succeeded they of course did not solve problems like poverty and War and disease but they mitigated them that is there is less poverty war and disease than there used to be and that emboldens

2:01 us to try to seek further improvements so we keep hearing negative news it seems about almost everything including Rising partisanship anger challenges to democracy and inequality our world conditions getting worse are we regressing on social progress well it depends on what measure you look at by and large we are improving although the covid-19 pandemic introduced a number of setbacks but that's the way progress works it's not a magical process that makes everything better for everyone everywhere all the time it often goes in fits and starts and sometimes reversals and not everything improves that would be a miracle not progress as the result of human Ingenuity and activity but taking into account the reversal from the local reversal from covid which the world will soon emerge from extreme poverty has been in Decline war deaths have been in Decline illiteracy has been in Decline policies that discriminate

3:01 against women and racial and ethnic minorities have been in Decline longevity has increased it'll probably take a temporary hit in the past year not everything is improving certainly carbon emissions and emission of greenhouse gases have not come down globally and as you noted in the United States political polarization including negative polarization that is the demonization of one's opponents has increased what do you see as Humanity's most impressive human achievements the more than doubling of our lifespan from about 30 years life expectancy at Birth to over 70 worldwide and more than 80 in developed countries so Humanity has made enormous progress and yet there is also a lot of irrationality in the world let's talk about that irrationality you've used the words insanity and poppycock can you give some examples of what you call insanity and poppycock certainly the conspiracy theories such as that covid

4:06 vaccines are a subri fuge to implant microchips into people's bodies so that Bill Gates can track them the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was somehow stolen from Donald Trump despite there being not a shred of evidence for it the use of holistic and alternative and homeopathic and other versions of snake oil in complimentary and alternative medicine widespread belief in the Paranormal such as the existence of ESP telepathy Clairvoyance ghosts and spirits Crystal healing powers that should be enough examples to keep us busy for a while why is there so much of this irrationality this what you call insanity and poppycock there always has been conspiracy theories go way back and some of them quite destructive like the Illuminati and the protocols of the Elders of Zion the most of medicine was quackery until recently paranormal phenomena are the very essence of religious belief and so

5:07 they've been with us for thousands of years Miracles and divine intervention what makes them all the more striking is that there's so much rationality around us the achievements of Science and Technology such as smartphones and Robotics and artificial intelligence and vaccines and DNA sequencing the application of rational methods to activities that used to be the realm of superstition and conventional wisdom and cut feelings such as in medicine in policing in sports in policy all of them make the lack of rationality all the more striking you mentioned the covid vaccines can you explain why some people even with their lives at stake are essentially irrational and don't want to get the vaccines a lot of it is a partisan bias sometimes called the mys side bias namely we endorse the beliefs that have become for whatever reason sacred values within our coalitions our political tribes our religious sects and because

6:14 people can even gain status within their ceks by endorsing beliefs all the better if the beliefs are implausible because it signals your commitment if you're willing to put them forward then people can in a narrowly rational sense do what it takes to earn Prestige within their own Community while endorsing a belief that is factually false that's a large part of it and for whatever reason vaccine resistance became a CO celebra among certain sectors of the American libertarian and trumpian right although there are also factions that oppose vaccines out of solidarity for another ideology namely the holistic green anti-corporate left so most forms of irrational ity can be bipartisan but also many of these intuitions are rooted in deeply ingrained ways of thinking that have probably been with our species for thousands of years such as that health comes from keeping your internal Essence pure and disease comes from some

7:16 kind of adulterant or contaminant that is introduced into the system and vaccines being at least with traditional vaccines a killed or weakened form of the very virus that makes you sick and that it's injected right into into your flesh is quite unintuitive now most of us learn to discard these primitive intuitions because we trust the scientific establishment we figure that people in the white coats must know what they're talking about and if they recommend it then it's advisable but if you're alienated from the scientific establishment then it's easier to fall back on these primitive intuitions if we take a step further back to fake news in general why do people believe in fake news and why is it so pervasive well it's not clear How Deeply they believe it the belief say that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring out of a pizzeria in DC the people who believe that most of them didn't call

8:13 the police which is what you do if you really thought that children would being raped in the basement of a local restaurant but asserting that belief is a way of saying boo Hillary that whether she did it or not it's a kind of thing that she's so evil she would be capable of doing so it's an expression of a sentiment of an ideology more than a factual belief and the thing is that most people are very happy to endorse beliefs where they don't care whether they're factually true or false but they just feel that it's morally valuable it's uplifting it's empowering it's inspiring to hold that belief whether it's true or false is you can't know and who cares and many people are susceptible to that style of belief that's what most religious Faith consists of a lot of people people who believe in God and the Savior and the resurrection they would be hardpressed to justify that belief but they would

9:06 insist that justifying it is beside the point that that's not what faith is all about it's about affirming the right values the right narratives of inspiring people within your Coalition of perhaps demonizing its enemies and I suspect a lot of conspiratorial beliefs and fake news are held because of their expressive uplift power not because people are committed to them factually true so interesting should public policy be driven by reason and if so what does that look like and can you give an example absolutely should be driven by reason what else should it be driven by we shouldn't have irrational policies because once we have settled on some aim or goal like with safety peace prosperity a clean environment we should do the things that bring them about and not do the things that make them worse we can't know what they are a priori because we're not Angels we're not infallible we're not omnicient and so

10:04 the best way to find out is to try them in practice be prepared to learn from best practices in other governments as I think it it was Madison who said that the states should be living Laboratories maybe it wasn't I should fact check that before I assert it on your podcast interview but someone said it and they were right we should use the world as our laboratory for which policies were and which don't because we might be surprised and when there's something that's so emotional such as the murder of George Floyd which was seen on videos all around the world how should public policy take that into account I don't think we should make policy based on viral videos I think we should look at data on what leads people to be victims of police violence and what's effective in preventing it how do you see the future of democracy well it's certainly threatened by authoritarian populist movements in

11:06 many countries it's difficult to predict whether these populist movements will age out once younger generational cohorts who tend to be less populist come of age while the older cohorts who tend to support populism die off it's also unclear whether populist movements can withstand a number of long-running forces that push against it such as the C mopolitan processes that lead people to move to cities to get more education to travel the spread of a world culture where people more and more are wearing the same clothes listening to the same music getting similar kinds of Education want to seek opportunities wherever they are and an insular nationalism will have to fight against that tide and of the global problems that are going to resist any nationalist solution because because they're inherently International including pandemics International terrorism tax Havens climate change cyber sabotage problems that can only be

12:11 solved by global cooperation and that will punish any nation that becomes too parochial what can we do to improve the prospects for the future be more aware of the data on the state of the world and what direction it's going in and which policies are effective ineffective that is be less Guided by the ideological dogmas of the left and the right by demonizing evil enemies and more by understanding problems and seeking Solutions before I ask for the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today is there anything else you'd like to mention that you haven't already touched upon probably countless things but that's why I write books and I highly recommend your books Steve what are the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with that Humanity has always faced the challenge of understanding the world more rationally that we've always been vulnerable to fakery and quackery and

13:12 propaganda and conspiracy theories it's a NeverEnding challenge to promote a rational and objective understanding of reality we have to cherish the norms and the institutions that make that possible such as universities with a commitment to academic freedom open inquiry free expression of ideas open debate responsible journalism with its factchecking and editing Democratic governance with its freedom of speech due process and open debate I don't know how many takeaways that is but we count it as one another one is that we should all be aware that no one is an angel no one is omniscient no one's infallible we should resist both certainty in our own own opinions and following some Guru or leader as a source of Truth No One uniquely has it third I guess we should be wary of our own emotions to try to figure out what they're designed to accomplish and to the extent that we can control them so that they can fulfill

14:19 those functions indulge them but to the extent that they lead to longer term unhappiness or conflict to try to control them Steve thank you so much this has been terrific I really enjoyed your books especially the better angels of our nature Enlightenment now and rationality your last three thanks so much Lyn it was a pleasure to talk to you if you enjoyed today's episode and would like to receive the show notes or get new Fresh weekly episodes be sure to sign up for our newsletter at 3 takeaway.com or follow us on Instagram Twitter and Facebook note that 3 takeaway.com is with the number three three is not spelled out see you soon at 3 takeaways tocom

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "#68 World Renowned Thinker and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker: Human Action Can Improve the World"?

Lynn Tomman (Host), Steven Pinker (Guest).

What is "#68 World Renowned Thinker and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker: Human Action Can Improve the World" about?

Renowned Harvard professor Steven Pinker discusses the potential for human action to positively impact the world, emphasizing that despite contemporary challenges like irrationality, fake news, and rising partisanship, historical evidence shows that societal efforts have successfully reduced issues such as poverty, war, and disease. Pinker remains optimistic about the future, encouraging a…

What is mentioned in this 3 Takeaways episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Steve Pinker, COVID-19 pandemic, Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, Harvard. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#68 World Renowned Thinker and Harvard Professor Steven Pinker: Human Action Can Improve the World"?

The episode runs 15 min; the transcript is about 2,329 words in 15 timestamped sections.

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