Let in more scientists, not fewer
Matt Ridley
Science can thrive after Brexit: there is public support for skilled migration My Times column on skilled versus unskilled migration and Brexit: Michael Kosterlitz, one of the four British-born but American-resident winners of Nobel prizes in science this year, is so incensed by Brexit that he is considering renouncing his British citizenship: “The idea of […]
Optimism and Innovation During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Matt Ridley
“I thought you were the rational optimist. Why are you fear-mongering over Covid-19?” This is a real threat. But we will beat this. And we’ll go on to make an even better life for people in the years ahead. I took a deep dive into the Covid-19 epidemic, how to manage risk, solutions to past […]
GM Crops Like Golden Rice Will Save the Lives of Hundreds of Thousands of Children
Matt Ridley
My recent article in Quillette: Any day now, the government of Bangladesh may become the first country to approve the growing of a variety of yellow rice by farmers known as Golden Rice. If so, this would be a momentous victory in a long and exhausting battle fought by scientists and humanitarians to tackle a huge […]
Why vaping causes harm in the US but not in the UK
Matt Ridley
It pays to legalise but regulate, rather than prohibit My recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the very different experiences of two countries with respect to electronic cigarettes. Why the U.K. Isn’t Having Problems With Vaping The lessons of Prohibition’s failure in the U.S. haven’t been lost on the British. A woman […]
Matt Ridley
Renewables and austerity can’t decarbonise My Sunday Telegraph article on the need for realism about carbon dioxide targets: If the British government declared the abolition of sin by 2050, commentators would be rightly cynical. The announcement last week that Britain will enact a net-zero carbon target for 2050 was instead welcomed, especially by “faith leaders”. […]
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 […]
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 […]
