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

1. Recent examples (not from psychologists): J. Gray, “The Child-Like Faith in Reason,” BBC News Magazine, July 18, 2014; C. Bradatan, “Our Delight in Destruction,” New York Times, March 27, 2017.

2. Nagel 1997, pp. 14–15. “One can’t criticize something with nothing”: p. 20.

3. Transcendental arguments: Bardon (undated).

4. Nagel 1997, p. 35, attributes the phrase “One thought too many” to the philosopher Bernard Williams, who used it to make a different point. For more on why “believing in reason” is one thought too many, and why explicit deduction has to stop somewhere, see Pinker 1997/2009, pp. 98–99.

5. See the references in chapter 2, notes 22–25.

6. See the references in chapter 1, notes 4 and 9. Kant’s metaphor refers to the “unsocial sociability” of humans, who differ from trees in a crowded forest that grow straight to stay out of each other’s shadows. It has been interpreted as applying to reason insofar as humans have difficulty seeing the advantages of cooperation. (Thanks to Anthony Pagden for pointing this out to me.)

7. Selection for rationality: Pinker 1997/2009, chaps. 2 and 5; Pinker 2010; Tooby & DeVore 1987; Norman 2016.

8. Personal communication, Jan. 5, 2017; for supporting detail, see Liebenberg 1990, 2014.

9. Liebenberg 2014, pp. 191–92.

10. Shtulman 2005; see also Rice, Olson, & Colbert 2011.

11. Evolution as a litmus for religiosity: Roos 2012.

12. Kahan 2015.

13. Climate literacy: Kahan 2015; Kahan, Wittlin, et al. 2011. Ozone hole, toxic waste dumps, and climate change: Bostrom et al. 1994.

14. Pew Research Center 2015b; see Jones, Cox, & Navarro-Rivera 2014, for similar data.

15. Kahan: Braman et al. 2007; Eastop 2015; Kahan 2015; Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, & Braman 2011; Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, et al. 2012; Kahan, Wittlin, et al. 2011.

16. Kahan, Wittlin, et al. 2011, p. 15.

17. Tragedy of the Belief Commons: Kahan 2012; Kahan, Wittlin, et al. 2011. Kahan calls it the Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons.

18. A. Marcotte, “It’s Science, Stupid: Why Do Trump Supporters Believe So Many Things That Are Crazy and Wrong?” Salon, Sept. 30, 2016.

19. Blue lies: J. A. Smith, “How the Science of ‘Blue Lies’ May Explain Trump’s Support,” Scientific American, March 24, 2017.

20. Tooby 2017.

21. Motivated reasoning: Kunda 1990. My-Side bias: Baron 1993. Biased evaluation: Lord, Ross, & Lepper 1979; Taber & Lodge 2006. See also Mercier & Sperber 2011, for a review.

22. Hastorf & Cantril 1954.

23. Testosterone and elections: Stanton et al. 2009.

24. Polarizing effect of evidence: Lord, Ross, & Lepper 1979. For updates, see Taber & Lodge 2006 and Mercier & Sperber 2011.

25. Political engagement as sports fandom: Somin 2016.

26. Kahan, Peters, et al. 2012; Kahan, Wittlin, et al. 2011.

27. Kahan, Braman, et al. 2009.

28. M. Kaplan, “The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever,” Alternet, Sept. 16, 2013, http://www.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever. Study itself: Kahan, Peters, et al. 2013.

29. E. Klein, “How Politics Makes Us Stupid,” Vox, April 6, 2014; C. Mooney, “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math,” Grist, Sept. 8, 2013.

30. Bias bias (actually called the “bias blind spot”): Pronin, Lin, & Ross 2002.

31. Verhulst, Eaves, & Hatemi 2015.

32. Rigged studies on prejudice: Duarte et al. 2015.

33. Economic illiteracy among leftists: Buturovic & Klein 2010; see also Caplan 2007.

34. Economic illiteracy follow-up and retraction: Klein & Buturovic 2011.

35. D. Klein, “I Was Wrong, and So Are You,” The Atlantic, Dec. 2011.

36. See Pinker 2011, chaps. 3–5.

37. Deaths from communism: Courtois et al. 1999; Rummel 1997; White 2011; see also Pinker 2011, chaps. 4–5.

38. Marxists among social scientists: Gross & Simmons 2014.

39. According to the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom compiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking), New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Denmark equal or exceed the United States in economic freedom. All but Canada exceed the United States in the proportion of GDP devoted to social spending (OECD 2014).

40. The trouble with right-wing libertarianism: Friedman 1997; J. Taylor, “Is There a Future for Libertarianism?” RealClearPolicy, Feb. 23, 2016, http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2016/02/23/is_there_a_future_for_libertarianism_1563.html; M. Lind, “The Question Libertarians Just Can’t Answer,” Salon, June 4, 2013; B. Lindsay, “Liberaltarians,” New Republic, Dec. 4, 2006; W. Wilkinson, “Libertarian Principles, Niskanen, and Welfare Policy,” Niskanen blog, March 29, 2016, https://niskanencenter.org/blog/libertarian-principles-niskanen-and-welfare-policy/.

41. The road to totalitarianism: Payne 2005.