Matt Ridley
Science writer, author of The Rational Optimist and How Innovation Works, member of the House of Lords
On the podcast
Matt Ridley has appeared on the show twice.
On the record
In June 2020, weeks into the pandemic, Ridley argued on the show that the peer review system was failing in real time and that institutional science would need a root-and-branch rethink — a position that moved from contrarian to widely debated over the following two years.
In their own words
“I did say in a book I published in 1999, if we are gonna experience a bad pandemic in the 21st century, it's gonna come from bats and it's gonna be a virus, not a bacterium.”April 2020, on the Vance Crowe Podcast
“Instead of natural selection, which is survival of the fittest, sexual selection is reproduction of the sexiest... it's all about parasites, it's all about diseases. That is to say you have to change the locks on your cells.”April 2020, on the Vance Crowe Podcast
Where this conversation traveled
Moments in later episodes where Matt Ridley's ideas and work resurfaced, drawn from the show's transcripts.
Four years after his last appearance, guest Tim Durbin summarized the argument of The Rational Optimist on the show unprompted — he had picked the book up on another podcast's recommendation, not realizing Ridley had been a guest here twice.
Listen →Tim Durbin, April 2024
When molecular biologist Alina Chan came on to discuss the origins of COVID, she and Ridley were co-writing Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 — two guests of the show writing one book.
Listen →Alina Chan, November 2021
Ridley's early comments on vitamin D and COVID were cited by Vance in a later episode as one of the voices raising the topic before it was mainstream.
May 2020
Returning guest Ben Anderson named Ridley among the standout conversations of the show's archive when reflecting on past episodes.
Ben Anderson
If you valued this conversation
- Alina Chan — on the origins of COVID — Ridley's co-author on Viral
- Kenneth Stanley — on why greatness cannot be planned — innovation from a computer scientist's angle
- Jayson Lusk — on food systems and the economics of abundance
Link to this page
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https://articulate.ventures/podcast/guest/matt-ridley
I spoke with Vance Crowe on the Vance Crowe Podcast. The full conversation and transcript are here: https://articulate.ventures/podcast/guest/matt-ridley
This page is maintained by Articulate Ventures as part of the permanent record of the Vance Crowe Podcast. Quotes are drawn from episode transcripts.