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Matt Ridley
People behave just like the apes they are My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is about how predictably “primate” we all are in the workplace: Generally, junior professors write long and unsolicited emails to senior professors, who reply with short ones after a delay; the juniors then reply quickly and […]
Matt Ridley
Opposition to shale gas is a storm in a teacup The Times has published my op-ed on shale gas: It is now official: drilling for shale gas by fracturing rock with water may rattle the odd teacup, but is highly unlikely to cause damaging earthquakes. That much has been obvious to anybody who has followed […]
Is eventual eradication of malaria possible?
Matt Ridley
A new technique for sterilising certain mosquitoes looks promising After a break of two weeks, here is my latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: April 25 is World Malaria Day, designed to draw attention to the planet’s biggest infectious killer. The news is generally good. Never has malaria, which is carried […]
Matt Ridley
A new study confirms that the threat from CO2 is exaggerated A new study of the Great Barrier Reef will apparently confirm what I argued in The Rational Optimist that local pollution and over-fishing are a much greater threat to coral reefs than either climate change or changing alkalinity (sometimes wrongly called acidification). The actual […]
Matt Ridley
Emma Marris’s fine new book on ecology Belatedly, here is my Mind and Matter column from the Wall Street Journal on 24 March 2012. In her remarkable new book “The Rambunctious Garden,” Emma Marris explores a paradox that is increasingly vexing the science of ecology, namely that the only way to have a pristine […]
Matt Ridley
Reader’s Digest on rational optimism April’s Reader’s Digest carries an article on rational optimism, based on an interview with me and extracts from my book: “The world has never been a better place to live in,” says science writer Matt Ridley, “and it will keep on getting better.” Today, in a world gripped by global […]
Rival theories for a global cooling
Matt Ridley
Did a cosmic impact cause the Younger Dryas cooling? My latest Mind and Matter column for the Wall Street Journal: Scientists, it’s said, behave more like lawyers than philosophers. They do not so much test their theories as prosecute their cases, seeking supportive evidence and ignoring data that do not fit-a failing known as confirmation […]
Matt Ridley
Maybe I was too pessimistic From the Ideas Market Blog at the wall Street Journal: Last month, the Review columnist Matt Ridley discussed a new book called “Abundance,” by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, which argues that the future will be “better than you think.” (Diamandis is founder of the X Prizes, which reward breakthroughs in technology, […]
Blurring the line between genetic and infectious disease
Matt Ridley
My latest Mind and Matter column for the Wall Street Journal is about the possibility that some neurological conditions might be caused by infectious agents — of a sort Might some forms of neurological illness, such as multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia, be caused at least partly by bacteria, viruses or other parasites? A largely Danish […]
Matt Ridley
My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: The island of Gaua, part of Vanuatu in the Pacific, is just 13 miles across, yet it has five distinct native languages. Papua New Guinea, an area only slightly bigger than Texas, has 800 languages, some spoken by just a few thousand people. “Wired […]
