Optimism and Innovation
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FacebookMatt Ridley - A journalist and businessman. Ridley is best known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics.
The past half-century has seen unprecedented and spectacular progress in human society allowing vast numbers of people to escape poverty, hunger and disease. This was the result of innovation, a phenomenon unique to human society and imperfectly explained by economists. I will explore how innovation happens through the exchange of ideas, how it is a gradual, incremental and evolutionary process that cannot easily be planned or prevented. Continuing innovation gives hope that we will continue to solve humankind’s problems, including environmental ones.