Last week, the latest feather-ruffling book by Harvard psychologist Professor Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now, was published in paperback. Its basic thesis? That we have never had it so good – and yet, churlishly, we refuse to accept the fact that we have benefited from progress.

Like the scientist he is, Prof Pinker has substantiated his thesis with an avalanche of data, proving that we are living longer, and more healthily, and more safely and prosperously than ever before. This has already attracted some cynicism from those who believe we live in a society of increasing crime, delinquency and danger: prompting a fightback from Prof Pinker, stressing that the enlightenment values he champions…