Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

6. Ecomodernism: Asafu-Adjaye et al. 2015; Ausubel 1996, 2015; Brand 2009; DeFries 2014; Nordhaus & Shellenberger 2007; see also chapter 10.

7. Problems with ideology: Duarte et al. 2015; Haidt 2012; Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, & Braman 2011; Mercier & Sperber 2011; Tetlock & Gardner 2015; and see much more in chapter 21.

8. An adaptation of a quotation by Michael Lind on the back cover of Herman 1997. See also Nisbet 1980/2009.

9. Eco-pessimism: Bailey 2015; Brand 2009; Herman 1997; Ridley 2010; see also chapter 10.

10. A pastiche by the literary historian Hoxie Neale Fairchild of phrases from T. S. Eliot, William Burroughs, and Samuel Beckett, from Religious Trends in English Poetry, quoted in Nisbet 1980/2009, p. 328.

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).