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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: September, 2014

  • How we got to now

    Published on: Tuesday, 30 September, 2014

    Review of Steven Johnson's book on innovation

    My review of Steven Johnson's book How We Got To Now appeared in the Times:

     

    The meteorologist Edward Lorenz famously asked, in the title of a lecture in 1972: “does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”, and the phrase “the butterfly effect” entered the language. If Steven Johnson’s book How We Got to Nowcatches on — and it deserves to — then the “humming bird effect” will also become common parlance.

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

    Published on: Monday, 29 September, 2014

    Loyalties are to nation and county, rather than region and continent

    My Times column on English devolution following the Scottish independence referendum:

     

    As part of the 1 per cent of England’s population that lives north of Hadrian’s Wall, I have found the past few weeks more than usually intriguing. It was fascinating to find that nearly everybody in the media seems to think the wall is the Scottish border; some news takes 1,500 years to reach the metropolis. And we northeasterners have been banging on for decades about the unfairness of the Barnett formula, which guarantees £1,600 extra in public spending per Scottish head per year, so it’s nice to see the rest of England waking up to that one, too.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • The ozone hole was exaggerated as a problem

    Published on: Thursday, 25 September, 2014

    Serial hyperbole does the environmental movement no favours

    My recent Times column argued that the alleged healing of the ozone layer is exaggerated, but so was the impact of the ozone hole over Antarctica:

     

    The ozone layer is healing. Or so said the news last week. Thanks to a treaty signed in Montreal in 1989 to get rid of refrigerant chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the planet’s stratospheric sunscreen has at last begun thickening again. Planetary disaster has been averted by politics.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Whatever happened to global warming?

    Published on: Sunday, 07 September, 2014

    The explanations for the "pause" only make it less threatening in future

    My op-ed in the Wall Street Journal addresses the latest explanations for the "pause" in global warming and their implications. I have responded to an ill-informed critique of the article below.

     

    On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won't attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Government begins as a monopoly on violence

    Published on: Thursday, 04 September, 2014

    It's an official protection racket

    My Times column last week was on the historical roots of government:

     

    Nobody seems to agree whether Islamic State is best described as a gang of criminals, a terrorist organisation or a religious movement. It clearly has a bit of all three. But don’t forget that it aspires, for better or worse, to be a government. A brutal, bigoted and murderous government, its appeal is at least partly that it seems capable of imposing its version of “order” on the territory it controls, however briefly. It reminds us that the origin and defining characteristic of all government is that it is an organisation with a monopoly on violence.

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