SOCIETY The optimist vindicated? Er, no!*

Everyone loves an optimist. A glass half-full type. A happy warrior. And when the optimist is “rational” as well, what is not to love?

 

The “rational optimist” is the informal title that British writer (Lord) Matthew Ridley gave himself back in 2010, when he wrote the well-known book of the same name. Prior to that book, Ridley had written a number of books, mainly about science (the genome) and scientists (Francis Crick). But The Rational Optimist was the book that put him o…

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