WELCOME TO MATT RIDLEY'S BLOG

There is no course that involves zero suffering. It’s a question of minimizing it An expanded version of my article for Spectator: It is counterintuitive but the current spread of Covid may on balance be the least worst thing that could happen now. In the absence of a vaccine, and with no real prospect of […]

Letter from 12 Conservative peers to The Times: Sir, It is now clear that a policy of lockdown failed to bring the virus under control while having crippling economic and social side effects. Sweden has achieved a lower death rate from Covid-19 than the UK, with far less economic and social damage, despite being a […]

The scientific method remains the best way to solve many problems, but bias, overconfidence and politics can sometimes lead scientists astray My article for the Wall Street Journal: The Covid-19 pandemic has stretched the bond between the public and the scientific profession as never before. Scientists have been revealed to be neither omniscient demigods whose […]

A groundbreaking new study points to a cheap, safe, effective way of tackling Covid My article with MP David Davis, for the Telegraph: As we face six tough months of curfews, isolation and economic misery, with vaccines a distant hope, testing struggling to control the virus, and the hospitalisation rate once again rising, it’s surely […]

Hart explains why we’re adapted to the environment we evolved in, rather than the one we inhabit My review of Unfit for Purpose: When human evolution collides with the modern world by Adam Hart, for The Critic: Our ancestors have spent a few hundred years in cities at most. Before that, they spent a million […]

JBS Haldane was a polymath — but his communist faith blinded him to the truth about the Soviet Union My article for The Times: When he knew he was dying, the scientist JBS Haldane wrote that he hadn’t walked on the seafloor from England to France, but he had been wounded in war, known the […]

From vaccine triumphs to leadership learning curves, we can finally dare to hope for a breakthrough My article for The Telegraph: Like the ancient mariner, the virus refuses to leave us alone. Resurging in Blackburn, Spain, and America, it is still going to be around here when the winter comes. As we head indoors, it […]

A Silicon Valley Legend Discusses Innovation and More The second half of my much-anticipated interview with Silicon Valley legend Naval Ravikant in May is now available. We discussed my new book How Innovation Works and more. It was a wonderful discussion, and I appreciated hearing the perspective of a true entrepreneur and innovator. You can listen […]

A Silicon Valley Legend Discusses Innovation and More The first half of my much-anticipated interview with Silicon Valley legend Naval Ravikant in May is now available. We discussed my new book How Innovation Works and more. It was a wonderful discussion, and I appreciated hearing the perspective of a true entrepreneur and innovator. You can listen […]

Doomsday thinking about the environment has been popular for decades. My article for PERC: In 1980, the year that PERC was founded, I spent three months in the Himalayas working on a wildlife conservation project. The purpose was to do wildlife surveys on behalf of the Indian government in the stunningly beautiful valleys of the […]