LISTEN. We're off to see my surgeons and physical therapists shortly, two weeks after dual surgery. I'm eager for their confirmation that my convalescence has been swift and that at least the more oppressive restrictions on my activity can now be loosened.
The great advances of medical science in our time is one of Steven Pinker's large themes, as tonight we open his Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress -- the book that inspired our course. A hundred or so scientists are responsible for saving more than five billion lives! - so far. Pinker's right to indict the pervasive ingratitude/ignorance of too many of us about that. "[T]he neglect of the discoveries that transformed life for the better is an indictment of our appreciation of the modern human condition."
I think he's right, too, to say that we can measure and thus mark our progress with respect to countless indices. "...life is better than death. Health is better than sickness. Sustenance is better than hunger. Abundance is better than poverty. Peace is better than war. Safety is better than danger. Freedom is better than tyranny. Equal rights are better than bigotry and discrimination. Literacy is better than illiteracy. Knowledge is better than ignorance. Intelligence is better than dull-wittedness. Happiness is better than misery..." (continues)
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