1: “If it bleeds, it leads,” is the old adage regarding newspaper headlines.

And, it’s more true than ever today.

Yesterday, we looked at the data regarding deaths due to terrorism.

“Though terrorism poses a minuscule danger compared with other risks, it creates outsize panic and hysteria because that is what it is designed to do,” Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and … continue reading

1: The short answer: No.

In fact, far from it.  According to the data, the opposite is true: We live in the safest time ever. 

In prior RiseWithDrews, we’ve celebrated the dramatic decline in violent deaths, including homicide, automobile accident, plane crash, accidental deaths due to falls, drownings, fire, ], and death resulting from workplace accidents.

But what about so-called “Acts of God,” Steven Pinker asks in Enlightenment … continue reading

1: Headlines regularly lament the decline in the number of manufacturing jobs.

“With the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, many social critics have expressed nostalgia for the era of factories, mines, and mills,” Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

“[P]robably because they never worked in one,” he notes.

There is, however, powerful good news regarding workplace safety.

In … continue reading

1: Compared with our ancestors, we are significantly less likely to die by homicide, automobile accident, plane crash, a fall, or in a fire.

So far this week, we’ve examined multiple areas with much to celebrate.

There is, however, one area of accidental death where the news is not good: Poison (solid or liquid).

Because this category includes drug overdoses.

2: 98 percent of the “poison” deaths are … continue reading

1: “Since 1980, about 650,000 Americans have lived who would have died if traffic death rates had remained the same,” Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

Automobile deaths are down twenty-four-fold since the numbers were tabulated for the first time in 1921. Which is “not even the full story,” he writes, “since for every person who died there were others who … continue reading

1: Many people believe that we live in the worst of times and that things continue to get worse.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

How do we know this is true? 

Data.

In prior RiseWithDrews, we’ve looked at a number of incredible trends: the mind-boggling uptick in prosperity, the dramatic decline … continue reading

1: Yesterday, we looked at the stunning increase in prosperity over the past 200 years. 

“The story of the growth of prosperity in human history is close to: nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . (repeat for a few thousand years) . . . boom!” writes Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. 

Imagine a standard nine-inch pie … continue reading

Much of the discussion around poverty centers on who is to blame.

“Few people believe that accidents or diseases have perpetrators,” writes Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.”  

Yet “discussions of poverty consist mostly of arguments about whom to blame for it.” 

Wrong question, Steven believes.

Poverty “needs no explanation. In a world governed by entropy and evolution, it is the default … continue reading

Consider this: we need less than a third of the land to generate the same amount of food today vs. 50 years ago.  

“Transgenic crops are being developed with high yields, lifesaving vitamins, tolerance of drought and salinity, resistance to disease, pests, and spoilage, and reduced need for land, fertilizer, and plowing,” writes Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now.

Incredible. And yet, not everyone is happy about all this progress.… continue reading

1: The world has reached “peak farmland,” the environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel has estimated. We may never again need as much as we use today.

This reality is very good news for the planet, Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: “Despite their bucolic charm, farms are biological deserts which sprawl over the landscape at the expense of forests and grasslands. Now that farms have receded in some parts of … continue reading