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Matt Ridley
Why do people oppose harm reduction technologies? My essay for Freer: Suppose that millions of Britons were driving a dangerous type of car that was killing 80,000 people a year. Suppose somebody invented a new car that was much, much safer, significantly cheaper, and emitted far fewer fumes, while performing just as well. Would you […]
A counsel of despair about the loss of biodiversity is the wrong approach
Matt Ridley
Why are lions decreasing, wolves increasing and tigers holding steady? My article for Reaction on biodiversity: Driven perhaps by envy at the attention that climate change is getting, and ambition to set up a great new intergovernmental body that can fly scientists to mega-conferences, biologists have gone into overdrive on the subject of biodiversity […]
The near misses of scientific history
Matt Ridley
A new book uncovers those who almost found the secret of life My Times review of Gareth Williams’s new book Unravelling The Double Helix. Who discovered DNA? James Watson and Francis Crick, right? Wrong. Eighty years before they even approached the topic, in 1868, a young Swiss researcher, Friedrich Miescher, working at the University […]
Surface mining in Northumberland
Matt Ridley
Economic and environmental benefits of mining go together Blagdon estate has hosted parts of two surface coal mines, at Brenkley and Shotton, for several years. We are proud to have done so mainly because of the jobs provided and the income to the local economy. But environmentally, too, these projects have been very positive. Managed […]
Matt Ridley
How bad science gets used for power and profit by some activists My Spectator article on a surge in medical and environmental pseudoscience: ‘The whole aim of practical politics,’ wrote H.L. Mencken, ‘is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of […]
Matt Ridley
Scare stories about Brexit without a withdrawal agreement are exaggerated An expanded version of the my recent Times article: Suppose Britain leaves the EU on March 29 with no deal, just a series of last-minute fixes on things such as aviation and data. And suppose it proves to be a fairly damp squib, with […]
Matt Ridley
The psychology behind global pessimism My article in the Wall Street Journal on the persistent appeal of pessimism: Has the percentage of the world population that lives in extreme poverty almost doubled, almost halved or stayed the same over the past 20 years? When the Swedish statistician and public health expert Hans Rosling began asking […]
Matt Ridley
A court case lays bare the EU’s bias towards existing technologies My article on the Brexit Central website about the court decision in the Dyson labelling case: My biggest beef with the European Union has always been the way it stifles consumer-friendly innovation in the interests of incumbent businesses and organisations. Today’s victory for Sir James […]
The genes that contribute to human intelligence and personality
Matt Ridley
A crucial new book by a pioneer of behaviour genetics My Review in The Times of Robert Plomin’s new book: For a long time there was an uncomfortable paradox in the world of behaviour genetics. The evidence for genes heavily influencing personality, intelligence and almost everything about human behaviour got stronger and stronger as more […]
Matt Ridley
Two fine new books on the journeys of birds and the first ornithologist This is recent Times feature article I wrote on the incredible new discoveries of what seabirds get up to far from land, and on the man who first visited seabird colonies with a scientific eye in the 1660s. It’s sometimes […]
