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Bacteria that live in the clouds and the prospect of controlling the weather My good friend Dave Sands is not only a brilliant biologist — I cite him in The Rational Optimist arguing for genetic modification to improve the quality rather than the quantity of food — but a very fine poet. He’s profiled in yesterday’s […]

Pollution from driven cars has fallen so fast it is now below that of parked cars in 1970 One small fact in my book has caught several readers’ attention: Today, a car emits less pollution travelling at full speed than a parked car did in 1970 from leaks. My source for this remarkable statistic was […]

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