The case for rationalism, progress and globalization.

"Why are they not more convincing?" - The Economist holds up the old Enlightenment band wagon in their review of two books, one by Dick Taverne and the other by Thomas Friedman.

...the book's greatest weakness: an insistence that the scientific, rationalist world-view is not just mostly right, but always so without exception. This is manifest in its skimpy and simplistic treatment of religion. In attacking a loosely defined “fundamentalism”, Lord Taverne conflates private piety with public zealotry, and appears to assume that deeply held religious belief is always synonymous with intolerance.