I have a public bet with Sir Martin on whether an act of bioterror or bio-error will kill a million people before the year 2020. When did you take the bet? Just two years ago. I think I'm going to win. But the, well, we don't know that we're incapable of acting on it. The world has gotten together and dealt with pretty serious threats in the past.
For this edition, Intelligence Squared revisits a compelling discussion from 2019 with one of the world's foremost cognitive psychologists, Steven Pinker, whose work often focuses on language, the mind, and human nature. He was joined in conversation by David Runciman, the academic and podcaster who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, to discuss the themes of Pinker’s book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. This is the first half of a two-part conversation. Join us for part two in the following episode.
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