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Wolves versus lesser predators
Matt Ridley
The return of top predators is good for prey eaten by “mesopredators” My latest Mind and Matter column at the Wall Street Journal is on wolves and “mesopredators”: The return of the wolf is one of the unexpected ecological bonuses of the modern era. So numerous are wolves that this fall Wisconsin and Wyoming have […]
Why Can’t Things Get Better Faster (or Slower)?
Matt Ridley
The surprising regularity of technological progress My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: In 1965, the computer expert Gordon Moore published his famous little graph showing that the number of “components per integrated function” on a silicon chip-a measure of computing power-seemed to be doubling every year and a half. […]
Epigenetic inheritance is a wild goose chase
Matt Ridley
Epigenetics matters, but not between generations This week’s award of the Nobel Prize for medicine to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka effectively recognizes the science of epigenetics. Dr. Gurdon showed that almost any cell (in a frog) contains all the genetic information to become an adult. What makes the cell develop a certain way is […]
Matt Ridley
After 15 years, the ecological and economic dividends are big My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is on genetically modified crops: Generally, technologies are judged on their net benefits, not on the claim that they are harmless: The good effects of, say, the automobile and aspirin outweigh their dangers. Today, […]
Matt Ridley
The psychology of libertarian views My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal finds that just as liberals and conservatives have predictable personalities, so do libertarians: An individual’s personality shapes his or her political ideology at least as much as circumstances, background and influences. That is the gist of a recent […]
Matt Ridley
It’s happened before My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is about the retreat of Arctic Sea Ice and what it means: This week probably saw the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice reach its minimum extent for the year and begin to expand again, as it usually does in mid-September. Given that […]
Tobacco denial and pesticide alarm
Matt Ridley
Rachel Carson and Al Gore relied on a tobacco denier I have an article in the Spectator drawing attention to the curious fact that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring owed much to a passionate tobacco denier. It’s behind a paywall, but there it is with the sources as links. Hat tip Ron Bailey. Rachel Carson’s […]
Don’t Look for Inventions Before Their Time
Matt Ridley
Innovation as an evolutionary process My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: Bill Moggridge, who invented the laptop computer in 1982, died last week. His idea of using a hinge to attach a screen to a keyboard certainly caught on big, even if the first model was heavy, pricey and equipped […]
Matt Ridley
Modern disease is often caused by a lack of parasites My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is a review of a remarkable new science book: Your great-grandparents faced infectious diseases that hardly threaten you today: tuberculosis, polio, cholera, malaria, yellow fever, measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, typhoid, typhus, tapeworm, hookworm…. […]
Matt Ridley
Science keeps reminding us that we are not special My latest Mind and Matter column at the Wall Street Journal: The astronomer Martin Rees recently coined the neat phrase “Copernican demotion” for science’s habit of delivering humiliating disappointment to those who think that our planet is special. Copernicus told us the Earth was not at […]
