George Monbiot criticised the book in his Guardian column. David Papineau praised the book for refuting "doomsayers who insist that everything is going from bad to worse". Michael Shermer gave the book positive reviews in Nature and Scientific American before going on to present similar ideas in conference talks, and writing The Moral Arc partly in response. Ricardo Salinas Pliego praised the book as a defence of free trade and globalisation. Reception īill Gates praised the book for critiquing opposition to international aid, but criticised the book for under-representing global catastrophic risks. Ridley argues that this trait, together with the specialization linked to it, is the source of modern human civilization, and that, as people increasingly specialize in their skill sets, we will have increased trade and more prosperity. The book primarily focuses on the benefits of the innate human tendency to trade goods and services. Man-made climate change too may "provide us with an opportunity in crisis", he says.The Rational Optimist is a 2010 popular science book by Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Wells suggests that the switchback climate as the planet lurched out of the last ice age forced us to cultivate plants we would once have simply harvested from nature. Both display some optimism about our ability to adapt, even benefit from, climate change. Both men argue that we got where we are today through our social skills and ability to innovate and spread the word about what works, whether round the hunters' camp fire or the internet. These two compelling studies share some themes. Contrast this with Ridley's assertion that we are the happiest people ever, and that richer people in richer countries are generally the happiest of all. Mental illness will be the second biggest cause of death and disability by 2020. While our genes yearn for the wide open spaces, the noise and stress of modern life is driving us demented. We have a sweet tooth because that put us off rotting food. Meanwhile, says Wells, our old genes increasingly get their own back.
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