steven pinker welcome to hardtalk. thank you.f the enlightenment is very dear to your heart. can you briefly, if you will, catch for me what you mean by enlightenment enlightenment the. the first of the intellectual movement of the second half of the 18th century that put a premium of reason as opposed to authority, tradition, doctors, on science, on the attempt to explain the world by testing hypotheses and on humanism, the individual humans as the ultimate good as opposed to the triumph of a nation and faith. is it your proposition that it captures universal values? european and american. although every idea has to come from somewhere, so it is european in that sense, but it is based on reason and universal human interests. everyone wants a long life, to be healthy, almost everyone wa nts life, to be healthy, almost everyone wants knowledge and education. people would prefer to live in safety rather than danger, all things being equal. science and reason have underpinned so much of human thought and scientific and technological

steven pinker welcome to hardtalk. thank you.s idea of the enlightenment is very dear to your heart. can you briefly, if you will, just capture for me what you mean by the enlightenment. it refers to the intellectual movement in the second half of the 18th century that put a premium on reason as opposed to authority, tradition, dogma, charisma, on science, on the attempt to explain the world by testing hypotheses and on humanism, on the wellbeing of individual humans as the ultimate good as opposed to the glory of the nation or the tribe, or perpetuation of the faith. and a movement borne out of european thought but is it your proposition that it captures universal values? european and also american, but i guess that's an offshoot of europe. although every idea has to come from somewhere, so it is european in that sense, but it is based on reason which humans are universally capable and it's based on universal human interests. everyone wants a long life, everyone wants to be healthy, almost everyone wants knowledge and education.

steven pinker welcome to hardtalk. thank you.t capture for me what you mean by the enlightenment. it refers to the intellectual movement in the second half of the 18th century that put a premium on reason as opposed to authority, tradition, dogma, charisma, on science, on the attempt to explain the world by testing hypotheses and on humanism, on the wellbeing of individual humans as the ultimate good as opposed to the glory of the nation or the tribe, or perpetuation of the faith. and a movement borne out of european thought but is it your proposition that it captures universal values? european and also american, but i guess that's an offshoot of europe. although every idea has to come from somewhere, so it is european in that sense, but it is based on reason which humans are universally capable and it's based on universal human interests. everyone wants a long life, everyone wants to be healthy, almost everyone wants knowledge and education. people would prefer to live in safety rather than in danger, all things being equal. sci

i will speak to steven pinker about his new book "enlightenment now."rawing a conclusion compared to that we have seen in florida and las vegas and texas last year, much less the death toll in syria and the savagery rry roh and elsewhere. democrat chris coons of delaware served in the senate from delaware since 2010. earning both his graduate in tkweupbity and law. and senator james langford from oklahoma. before being elected to the senate in 2014 served in the house. and before that he ran oklahoma's largest and most famed church camp, falls creek, where basically every oklahoman has to spend a few weeks of their life. together they are leaders of the senate's bible study and the efforts to find a solution for the dreamers. they are co-chairs of the national prayer breakfast. and i want to start there perhaps with you senator, coops, welcome, senator langford. a week ago you had a bipartisan deal on the budget. you had carson wentz at the big prayer breakfast, and it looked like things were coming together. a week later we have a slaughter in florida

steven pinker.says quite simply that life is getting better, that humans are healthier, safer and even smarter than ever before. and his new book is called "enlightenment now, the case for reason, science, humanism and progress" and he's in london on his book tour. professor pinker welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> i sit here listening and absorbing all this bad news. certainly this week has been a catastrophe, listening to what happened about the school shooting in parkland, syria, everywhere you look. but you say we've never had it better? >> yes. if you don't just concentrate on the things that go wrong -- and there are always things that go wrong. but if you count up the amount of violent incidents, poverty, ill literacy, in many ways this is the best time to be alive. the life span is longer. it used to be 30. now it's 70. 80% literacy, 90% for our children. diseases are in decline. global poverty has gone from 90% of humanity a couple of hundred years ago to 10% today. wars have not bee

reporter: that's right, better, psychologist steven pinker insists. >> all too often, something happens, there's a terrorist attack, there's a horrific killing, there's a market plunge, and all of a sudden it's a symptom of a sick society and of a downward spiral. reporter: but in his new book, "enlightenment now," pinker aates the positive, to the delight of superfan bill gates, who's dubbed it his favorite book of all time, even pred a trippy video about it. >> i loved "better angels of our nature." i'm even more thrilled about your next book "nolightenment " >> reporter: "better angels" argued that violas been plunging worldwide for centies. "enlightenment now" says pretty much everything has. >>ewer of us die of diseas and starvation, fewer of us are illiterate, fewer of us are ewctims of violent crimes, of us die in wars, fewer of us live under dictatorships. >> reporter: i'm doing this as the economics correspondent because the end goal of economics is welfare. and you'reg that overall, net welfare for humankind has never been better and is getting better all the time? it's never