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Welcome to Matt Ridley's Blog

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Matt Ridley is the author of provocative books on evolution, genetics and society. His books have sold over a million copies, been translated into thirty languages, and have won several awards.

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Matt Ridley's latest book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, co-authored with scientist Alina Chan from Harvard and MIT's Broad Institute, is now available in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

    Archive for date: February, 2015

  • Free trade's benefits

    Published on: Sunday, 22 February, 2015

    Consumers are the ones that benefit from buying what they want

    My Times column on free trade:

    An American friend recently sent me a gift as a thank you for a weekend’s hospitality. It arrived in the form of a card from the Post Office telling me to pay a hefty sum of tax before the item itself (a wooden bowl) could be delivered. Had my friend been Scottish or French or from the next village there would have been no charge. What business has government putting a tariff barrier between two friends?

    Last week the Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps delivered a passionate defence of free trade of the kind that used to come from the radicals in the days of the Corn Laws but these days is rarely heard from any part of the political spectrum. Crucially, he took the perspective of the consumer, not the producer.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Britain still needs shale gas

    Published on: Sunday, 15 February, 2015

    Prices may have fallen, but it's the cleanest and safest of fossil fuelsRead Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Mitochondrial donation is a wonderful opportunity

    Published on: Monday, 02 February, 2015

    If it is safe, then we should not prevent families using it

    My Times column on Britain's impending decision to allow mitochondrial donation:

    Tomorrow’s vote in the House of Commons on whether to allow mitochondrial donation has at least flushed out the churches. Both the Catholic and Anglican churches have decided that it is not acceptable to let a handful of desperate families apply to the authorities to be allowed to have their own children free of the risk of rare mitochondrial conditions that, in the words of one parent, “strip our children of the skills they have learnt and tire their organs one by one until they fail”.

    What conceivable greater moral good overrides the need of such families? I suspect some clerics have gone no further into the science behind this than the headline “Three-parent children”, and said “Yuk!” If so, they have been horribly misled. There has rarely been a more inaccurate phrase.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Cryptocurrency

    Published on: Sunday, 01 February, 2015

    A book about bitcoin's implications

    My review of the book Cryptocurrency appeared in the Times:

    When the internet started, few guessed how it would develop. I remember reviewing a string of books in the early 1990s arguing that it would lead to atomised and isolated lives, cut off from social contact. Social media put paid to that.

    So it is rash to suggest just what the internet has in store for us next. But it is also rash to think we can expect merely more of what we have now. The internet is young and it is now evolving in a virtually autonomous fashion with startling surprises in store. If forced to make a (rash) guess, I would hazard that the next big thing is going to be spawned by bitcoin, or rather the “blockchain” technology behind bitcoin: cutting out the middleman in all forms of commerce.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
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