This list is curated from 3 mentions and sorted by most mentioned, then by date of most recent mention. The more a book is mentioned, the more likely it's recommended and a favorite!
This list is curated from 3 mentions and sorted by most mentioned, then by date of most recent mention. The more a book is mentioned, the more likely it's recommended and a favorite!
The book argues that things have actually improved. I find it hard to believe that any sane and half-well-read person would think otherwise, without entire chapters on medieval torture. Someone else might like it, but I found it too exhausting. Quitting ~1/3rd through. 3/5View source
For instance, the science journalist Steven Pinker played that trick with his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, which claims a decline of violence in modern human history, and attributes this to modern institutions. My collaborator Pasquale Cirillo and I, when we put his “data” under scrutiny, found out that either he didn’t understand his own numbers (actually, he didn’t), or he had a story in mind and kept adding charts, not realizing that statistics isn’t about data but distillation, rigor, and avoiding being fooled by randomness—but no matter, the general public and his state-worshipping IYI colleagues found it impressive (for a while).View source
