WELCOME TO MATT RIDLEY'S BLOG

Jon Henley interviews Matt Ridley: The Rational Optimist is, essentially, about progress: how, of all the species on earth, only humans have managed so radically and completely to change the way they live. Animals, even the most intelligent ones, have not thus far known “economic growth” or “rising living standards” or “technological revolutions” (or, indeed, […]

Generous praise from Dominic Lawson Here. This inspiring book, a glorious defence of our species, explains why: it is a devastating rebuke to humanity’s self-haters.

Human take-off after 45,000 years ago followed the invention of exchange I have a long article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. It tries to explain how the sophistication of the modern world lies not in individual intelligence or imagination. It is a collective enterprise. Nobody-literally nobody-knows how to make the pencil on […]

The Red Queen versus Craig Venter’s new cell Here is why Craig Venter’s new organism carries absolutely no fears for me: the Red Queen. Evolution is a treadmill. People speak about artificial life forms getting loose and running amok. But that’s not how life works. It’s a jungle out there. Nature is continually trying new life forms […]

John Tierney writes in today’s New York Times: Doomsayers beware, a bright future beckons John Tierney reviews The Rational Optimist in today’s New York Times:   Every now and then, someone comes along to note that society has failed to collapse and might go on prospering, but the notion is promptly dismissed in academia as happy talk from a […]

Humans’ capacity for solving problems has been improving our lot for 10,000 years. Don’t think it will stop now The Sunday Times printed an edited extract of the book on 16 May.  

Gas is great stuff People love to talk about the energy industry in voices of gloom and doom. The oil’s running out, the lights are going out, the pollution’s getting worse. But pause to consider the good news. Like shale gas. Over the past decade, a wave of drilling around the world has uncovered giant supplies […]

These are a bit premature, but the book’s available next week in the US, week after in the UK The Economist LA Times

Science gets polarised when people only read their friends’ caricatures of their enemies’ views As own goals go, this was a stunning shot.                       Science magazine published a letter from 255 scientists (few of them climatologists) complaining in remarkably strong tones about the recent escalation of […]

Buying organic food may make you feel superior, but stop pretending it is better for the planet The quantity of cereals harvested in the world has trebled in 40 years [correction: nearly trebled in 50 years!], but the acreage planted to cereals has hardly changed at all. (graph from my book) That remarkable achievement is […]