Matt Ridley
The Times of London
United Kingdom
Contact Matt
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Matt:
No need to fear the rise of the machines
In the early 1960s, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there was a disagreement about what computers would achieve. One faction, led by John McCarthy → Read More
The case for free-market anticapitalism
The champions of markets and enterprise need to recapture their radicalism → Read More
The world will miss Calestous Juma
The death of Calestous Juma last week is miserable news. A Harvard professor who rose from poverty in western Kenya, son of a carpenter father and a farming mother, Calestous was a truly original scholar, writer and thinker on the topic of innovation. He was also enormous fun, always wreathed in smiles and heaving with … → Read More
Blue Planet II was superb, save a few fishy facts
Nothing that Hollywood sci-fi screenwriters dream up for outer space begins to rival the beauty and ingenuity of life under water right here. Blue Planet II → Read More
The Bitcoin revolution is only just beginning
The price of a Bitcoin has risen tenfold in ten months. Yet whether and when the bubble will burst is beside the point, which is that Bitcoin works. What I mean → Read More
Farmers were forced to use pesticides by green protests against GM
Michael Gove’s decision to ban almost all neonicotinoids is probably bad news for insects. The key to neonics is not that they kill insects — of course they do, → Read More
Don’t write off the next big thing too soon
Alongside a great many foolish things that have been said about the future, only one really clever thing stands out. It was a “law” coined by a Stanford Univers → Read More
Either build on fields or cut immigration
The Office for National Statistics says it expects Britain’s population to grow slightly more slowly than it thought three years ago, partly because of lower i → Read More
War against chemicals is a shame on science
Bad news is always more newsworthy than good. The widely reported finding that insect abundance is down by 75 per cent in Germany over 27 years was big news, wh → Read More
Freed from Europe, our fisheries can flourish
A richly abundant sea fish population is one of the great wonders of the world that my generation has rarely seen. Last week I was lucky enough to be aboard a → Read More
Case for free trade has never been stronger
The “ultimatum game” is a fiendish invention of economists to test people’s selfishness. One player is asked to share a windfall of cash with another player, bu → Read More
We will all reap the rewards of roboticised farms
If you will forgive the outburst of alliteration, the harvesting of a “hands-free hectare” at Harper Adams University has made headlines all around the world, i → Read More
Best hope for free trade is to have principles
Why does the European Union raise a tariff on coffee? It has no coffee industry to protect so the sole effect is to make coffee more expensive for all Europeans → Read More
I am more confident than ever about Brexit
More than a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, I realise we who ended up on the Leave side have probably made a mistake. No, not that we sho → Read More
Britain can lead the world in gene editing
Britain has an opportunity to seize on the latest breakthroughs in gene editing and pioneer new approaches in agriculture, research and medicine. We are well pl → Read More
The BBC has no right to levy its licence fee
The revelation that disc jockeys and football presenters are paid millions for topping and tailing segments of rehashed music or rebroadcast football, especiall → Read More
How the electric car revolution could backfire
The government is under pressure to follow France and Volvo in promising to set a date by which to ban diesel and petrol engines in cars and replace them with e → Read More
Gove needs to watch out for the green lobby
Even Michael Gove’s enemies concede he is good at tackling vested interests. Even his friends concede he has a knack for making enemies in the process. In his → Read More
Rural Britain would be better off with more badger culls
If Theresa May is happy to see a return of foxhunting, she must be consistent and face down the misguided animal welfare lobby with a pledge to cull more badger → Read More
Trump is right to be sceptical of climate deal
President Trump will decide shortly whether to pull the US out of the Paris agreement on climate change. By all accounts, his instincts and his campaign promise → Read More