Pinker takes this challenge head on, but lapses into some fantastical arguments along the way. Take nuclear weapons, which on the face of it would suggest potentially catastrophic consequences of scientific “progress”. With some deft intellectual moves, he manages to position “enlightenment” and “science” on the right side of every argument or conflict, while every horror of the past 200 years is put down to ignorance, irrationality or “counter-enlightenment” trends. The book is really a polemic, albeit one with a vast number of footnotes. He is well aware that facts don’t settle political and ethical arguments, as much as he might like them to, and he reviews plenty of evidence to confirm this. Pinker would no doubt argue that reason is not a popularity contest, and yet this is scarcely the way to win the public round to the progressive cause. Environmentalists “capitalise on primitive intuitions of essentialism and contamination among the scientifically illiterate public”, while research suggests that “most voters are ignorant not just of current policy options but of basic facts”.

Unlike his allies in the political sphere, he clearly isn’t troubled by the charge of elitism.

As for climate, we all need to calm down and open our minds to geo-engineering. Ultimately, economic inequality “is not itself a dimension of human wellbeing”, he tells us, and that’s that. The confidence with which Pinker tears through the issues that cause such deep anxiety today, such as rising inequality and global warming, is a compelling spectacle, although he relies on some questionable political manoeuvres. Various foes are swatted away, for misreading the facts or using suspect moral reasoning. Photograph: Brooks Kraft/Sygma via Getty Images “The answer is to count.” The litany of facts is awesome, covering health, wealth, inequality, the environment, peace, democracy and on and on, though one wonders if there is any possible tipping point within this deluge where a doubter might suddenly be convinced.

“How can we soundly appraise the state of the world?” he asks. Two thirds of the book, which is a kind of sequel to his bestselling The Better Angels of Our Nature, consists of chapter after chapter of evidence that life has been getting progressively better for most people. Pinker is up for a fight, and his main weapon is quantitative data. With Donald Trump in the Oval Office, populists on the march across Europe and US campuses at the centre of yet another culture skirmish, the timing of the book requires little explanation. Enlightenment Now is a bold, wonderfully expansive and occasionally irate defence of scientific rationality and liberal humanism, of the sort that took root in Europe between the mid-17th and late 18th century. Steven Pinker’s answer to this problem is to double down on progress: the policies of the past 300 years are still the best available.

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker