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Frankenstein’s anti-science message was always wrong
Matt Ridley
A curious connection between the Gothic novel and Lucretius My Times column on the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein and the 600th of De Rerum Natura’s rediscovery: It was in May 1817, two centuries ago this month, that Mary Shelley completed the writing of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which was published anonymously the next year. […]
The conceptual penis as a social construct
Matt Ridley
A hoax shows how easy it is to fool peer review My Times column on an academic hoax: The latest university prank is embarrassing to academia and hilarious for the rest of us. Philosophy professor Peter Boghossian and mathematician Dr James Lindsay made up a learned paper on the “conceptual penis” as a “gender-performative, highly […]
Nobody knows how best to tackle obesity
Matt Ridley
People differ in tendencies to gain weight, and hectoring doesn’t work My Times column on obesity: Even optimists admit that some things are undoubtedly getting worse: things like traffic jams, apostrophe use — and obesity. The fattening of the human race, even in middle-income countries, is undeniable. “Despite sustained efforts to tackle childhood obesity, […]
The Red Queen race against computer viruses
Matt Ridley
The battle against both digital and biological diseases is endless My Times column on malware, ransomware and the battle against viruses: The WannaCry ransomware cyberattack of last week, which briefly crippled much of the National Health Service, may be the biggest, but it will not be the last outbreak of cybercrime. Remember your Through the […]
Wind is an irrelevance to the energy and climate debate
Matt Ridley
Even after 30 years of huge subsidies, it provides about zero energy My Spectator article on the futile numbers behind wind power: The Global Wind Energy Council recently released its latest report, excitedly boasting that ‘the proliferation of wind energy into the global power market continues at a furious pace, after it was revealed […]
The argument for controlling badgers
Matt Ridley
It’s environmentally, commercially and humanely the right thing to do My Times article on badger culling: If Theresa May is happy to see a return of foxhunting, she must be consistent and face down the misguided animal welfare lobby with a pledge to cull more badgers. There are three reasons that a continuing, wider […]
The Paris climate treaty is weak, so why do climate activists defend it?
Matt Ridley
How a climate change treaty was mis-sold to the green movement My Times column on the Paris climate deal: President Trump will decide shortly whether to pull the US out of the Paris agreement on climate change. By all accounts, his instincts and his campaign promises encourage him to do so while his daughter Ivanka […]
Britain should adopt the Innovation Principle
Matt Ridley
We must test legislation against whether it impedes innovation Here’s my recent Times column: An open letter to George Freeman MP, chairman of the government’s policy board. Dear George, as a former biotech venture capitalist, you are a passionate champion of innovation. It has pulled an average of 137,000 people out of extreme poverty each […]
Matt Ridley
Will we find a way to replace meat eating before it becomes unpopular? My Times column on meat eating: A few years ago I had a conversation at Harvard with Steven Pinker, the bestselling evolutionary psychologist. We were both writing optimistic books at the time, his being The Better Angels of Our Nature, about the […]
European Commission buries science on bees
Matt Ridley
Study suggests ban on neonicotinoids has done more harm than good My Times column on a shocking case of European policy cover-up over bees and insecticides: Is the European Commission determined to dim the Enlightenment? I ask this because its behaviour in one specific instance goes so utterly with dogma and against evidence as […]
