That convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had aid in avoiding federal or state jail is unsurprising: cash and power often purchase whatever they shouldn’t. But the current revelation that Epstein discovered the help of celebrity psychologist Steven Pinker within the kind of the 2007 appropriate document amazed both Pinker’s fans and experts.

At the very least in the beginning. Then arrived the analysis: to supporters of Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, their ties to Epstein can be an aberration in a otherwise life that is commendable a general general general public intellectual — one centered on explanation and truth, also if that’s unpopular. Increasingly, Pinker’s work focuses on the idea that life is great — better than it is ever been — and that individuals don’t enjoy it sufficient.

As Pinker wrote in 2018’s Enlightenment Now: The full Case for explanation, Science, Humanism and Progress, “People appear to bitch, moan, whine, carp and kvetch up to ever, ” despite reams of information on what people’ standard of living continues to enhance.

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