If you believe author Matt Ridley, life is getting better. Not only that, but it’s getting better at an accelerating rate. There’s more food and cash - and less violence and disease. And we’re all ...

Editor’s Note: Tonight on the NewsHour, Paul Solman talks to Matt Ridley — best-selling author, zoologist and one-time bank chairman. The “rational optimist” makes the case — rare in these days of ...

"Optimism is cowardice," Oswald Spengler proclaimed in 1923. His polemic, "The Decline of the West," demonstrated that pessimism sells. These days, Matt Ridley reminds us, pessimism is as fashionable ...

Editor's Note: Last week, Paul Solman talked to "rational optimist" Matt Ridley about why he believes that life on earth for humans is getting better and better. Ridley agreed to answer some of your ...

It's a hackneyed image, I admit, but I'm beginning to feel like the boy who noticed that the monarch was suffering from a serious wardrobe malfunction. In this case, however, the story's not working ...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 2015 New Year's resolution was to read an important book every two weeks and discuss it with the Facebook community. Zuckerberg's book club, A Year of Books, has focused ...

There are two kinds of leaders: One type is what I call the "rational optimist," who can see opportunities in difficult situations and respond appropriately when problems arise. I consider the other ...

Matt Ridley is one of the best-selling—and best-regarded—science and economics writers on the planet. He wrote recently that in the face of the coronavirus pandemic "we are about to find out how ...