Book of the Week

Matt Ridley does a yeoman's job here describing why we need and should be optimistic towards civilization in the next century. He describes his theory of how ideas have sex and multiply and grow. He discusses how apocraholics constantly get in the news but are always wrong, yet still seem to keep their bona fides. He talks of most of the panic buttons we are working on now. Africa, climate change, technology, environment, politics. It is full of good information from a zoologist who describes the behavior of our species pretty accurately and fairly. I recommend this for anyone who would like to tread in this topical clime and do so with a scientist who understands the development of species and their behavior. One can also see him interviewed here by Peter Robinson. People say and believe a lot of things, adding Mr. Ridley's thoughts in the mix will be a help.

UPDATE: I think this excerpt from the book, page 280 is of worth.

A constant drumbeat of pessimism usually drowns out any triumphalist song of the kind I have vented in this book so far. If you say the world is getting better you may get away with being called naive and insensitive. If you say the world is going to go on getting better, you are considered embarrassingly mad......When Bjorn Lonborg tried it in the 2000s, he was temporarily 'convicted' of scientific dishonesty by the Danish National Academy of Sciences....If on the other hand, you say catastrophe is imminent, you may expect a McArthur genius award or even the Nobel Peace Prize. The bookshops are groaning under the ziggurats of pessimism....I have listened to implacable predictions of growing poverty, coming famines, expanding deserts, imminent plagues, impending water wars, inevitable oil exhaustion, mineral shortages, falling sperm counts, thinning ozone, acidifying rain, nuclear winters, mad-cow epidemics, Y2K computer bugs, killer bees, sex-change fish, global warming, ocean acidification and even asteroid impacts....I cannot recall a time when one or other of these scares was not solemnly espoused by sober, distinguished and serious elites and hysterically echoed by the media. I cannot recall a time when I was not being urged by somebody that the world could only survive if it abandoned the foolish goal of economic growth.