Featuring the author Matt Ridley, Journalist, businessman and author of the best-selling book The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010); with comments by Ronald Bailey, Science Correspondent, Reason Magazine, author of The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century; moderated by Marian L. Tupy, Editor, www.humanprogress.org, Cato Institute.
The way human history is taught is misleading, argues Matt Ridley. Far too much emphasis is placed on the “top-down twitch” — the belief that change comes from on high: the politicians who run countries, scientists who discover truths, inventors who make breakthroughs, men and women who head companies. In fact, Ridley says, bottom-up progress through evolution is far more crucial. From the natural forces that formed the universe and human life itself to the cultural mechanisms that have shaped everything from our educational system and global financial structure, to the products we buy and the language we speak, “evolution is far more common, and far more influential, than most people recognize.”
