Matt Ridley

The Right Honourable
The Viscount Ridley
DL FRSL FMedSci

Ridley at Thinking Digital 2013
Member of the House of Lords
for Conservative Hereditary Peers
Assumed office
8 February 2013
Preceded by Robert Shirley, 13th Earl Ferrers
Chairman of Northern Rock
In office
2004–2007
Personal details
Born Matthew White Ridley
(1958-02-07) 7 February 1958
Northumberland
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Spouse(s) Anya Hurlbert (m. 1989)[1]
Children one son, one daughter
Parents Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley
Lady Anne Katharine Gabrielle Lumley
Residence Blagdon Hall, Northumberland
Alma mater Eton College
University of Oxford (BA, DPhil)
Occupation Journalist, businessman, author
Known for
Awards
Employer
Website mattridley.co.uk

Scientific career

Thesis Mating system of the pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) (1983)
Doctoral advisor Chris Perrins[4]

Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley DL FRSL FMedSci[3] (born 7 February 1958),[1] known commonly as Matt Ridley, is a British journalist, businessman and author of popular science books. Since 2013 Ridley has been a Conservative hereditary peer in the House of Lords.[5][6][7]

Ridley is best known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics.[8] He has written several science books including The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (1994), Genome (1999), The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010) and The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge (2015).

Ridley was chairman of the UK bank Northern Rock from 2004 to 2007, during which period Northern Rock experienced the first run on a British bank in 150 years. Ridley chose to resign, and the bank was bailed out by the UK government leading to the nationalisation of Northern Rock.[9]

Early life and education

Ridley was born to Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley (1925–2012), and Lady Anne Katharine Gabrielle Lumley (1928–2006), daughter of Lawrence Roger Lumley, 11th Earl of Scarbrough.[10]

He attended Eton College from 1970–75 and then went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study zoology.[1] He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours and continued with research on the mating system of the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) supervised by Chris Perrins for his PhD in 1983.[4]

Career

Ridley joined the The Economist in 1984, first working as a science editor until 1987, then as Washington, D.C. correspondent from 1987 to 1989 and as American editor from 1990 to 1992.[11][12] He was a columnist for Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and an editor of The Best American Science Writing 2002.[13]

Northern Rock, 1994-2007

In 1994 Ridley became a boardmember of the UK bank Northern Rock after his father had been a boardmember for 30 years and chairman from 1987 to 1992. Ridley became chairman in 2004.[14]

In September 2007, Northern Rock became the first British bank since 1878 to suffer a run on its finances at the start of the Financial crisis of 2007–2010. The bank applied to the Bank of England for emergency liquidity funding at the beginning of the financial crisis of 2007–08.[15] but failed and Northern Rock became nationalized. A parliamentary committee criticised Ridley for not recognising the risks of the bank's financial strategy and "harming the reputation of the British banking industry."[9] He resigned as chairman in October 2007.[9][1]

Journalism

From 2010 to 2013, Ridley wrote the weekly "Mind and Matter" column for the Wall Street Journal, which "explores the science of human nature and its implications".[16]

Ridley writes a weekly column for The Times on science, the environment, and economics.[7][17]

Business

From July 2000 to June 2008, Ridley worked with PA Holdings Limited.[18] For seven years, Ridley served as founding chairman of the International Centre for Life, which opened in 2000 as a non-profit science centre in Newcastle, UK; he is honorary life chairman.[19]

He had been a governor of the Ditchley Foundation, which organises conferences to further education and understanding of Britons and North Americans.[20] He participated in a February 2000 Ditchley conference.[21]

Patronage

He is a Patron of the British Humanist Association.[22]

Northumberlandia

The Banks Group and Blagdon estate developed and sponsored the construction of Northumberlandia, or the Lady of the North, a huge land sculpture in the shape of a reclining female figure, which was part-commissioned and sponsored by Ridley.[23] Now run by a charity group called the Land Trust,[24] it is the largest landform in the world depicting the human form, and, through private funding, cost £3m to build.[25][26] Attracting over 100,000 people per year, the Northumberland art project, tourism and cultural landmark has won a global landscape architecture award and has been named ‘Miss World’.[27]

Publications

Ridley is the author of several books of popular science which have sold more than a million copies and have been translated into 30 languages.[17]

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, Alice meets the Red Queen who stays in the same place no matter how fast she runs. This book champions a Red Queen theory for the evolution of sexual reproduction: that it evolved so that the resultant genetic variation would thwart constantly mutating parasites.

In The Origins of Virtue, Ridley argues that the human mind has evolved a special instinct for social exchange that enables us to reap the benefits of co-operation, ostracise those who break the social contract and avoid the trap of being 'rational fools'. It traces the evolution of society first among genes, then among cells, then in ants, vampire bats, apes and dolphins, and finally among human beings. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, former US President Bill Clinton named this book as one which had influenced his thinking.[28]

This book examines one newly discovered gene from each of the 23 human chromosomes. This was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2000.[29]

This book discusses reasons why humans can be considered to be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture.

Ridley's biography of Francis Crick won the Davis Prize for the history of science from the US History of Science Society. In 2006, Ridley contributed a chapter to Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think, a collection of essays in honour of his friend Richard Dawkins (edited by his near-namesake Mark Ridley).

The Rational Optimist primarily focuses on the benefits of the innate human tendency to trade goods and services. Ridley argues that this trait is the source of human prosperity, and that as people increasingly specialize in their skill sets, we will have increased trade and even more prosperity.[30] This was shortlisted for the 2011 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize.[31]

In The Evolution of Everything, Ridley "makes the case for evolution, rather than design, as the force that has shaped much of culture, technology and society, and that even now is shaping our future.” He argues that "Change in technology, language, mortality and society is incremental, inexorable, gradual and spontaneous…Much of the human world is the result of human action, but not of human design; it emerges from the interactions of millions, not from the plans of a few."[34]

Political and scientific views

Role of government regulation

In a 2006 edition of the on-line magazine Edge - the third culture, Ridley wrote a response to the question "What's your dangerous idea?" which was entitled "Government is the problem not the solution",[35] in which he describes his attitude to government regulation: "In every age and at every time there have been people who say we need more regulation, more government. Sometimes, they say we need it to protect exchange from corruption, to set the standards and police the rules, in which case they have a point, though often they exaggerate it... The dangerous idea we all need to learn is that the more we limit the growth of government, the better off we will all be."

In 2007, the environmentalist George Monbiot wrote an article in The Guardian connecting Ridley's libertarian economic philosophy and the £27 billion failure of Northern Rock.[36] On 1 June 2010 Monbiot followed up his previous article in the context of Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist, which had just been published. Monbiot took the view that Ridley had failed to learn from the collapse of Northern Rock.[37]

Ridley has responded to Monbiot on his website, stating "George Monbiot’s recent attack on me in the Guardian is misleading. I do not hate the state. In fact, my views are much more balanced than Monbiot's selective quotations imply."[38] On 19 June 2010, Monbiot countered with another article on the Guardian website, further questioning Ridley's claims and his response.[39]

In November 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy exchange between Ridley and the Microsoft founder Bill Gates on topics discussed in Ridley's book The Rational Optimist.[40][41] Gates said that "What Mr. Ridley fails to see is that worrying about the worst case—being pessimistic, to a degree—can actually help to drive a solution"; Ridley said "I am certainly not saying, 'Don't worry, be happy.' Rather, I'm saying, 'Don't despair, be ambitious.'"

Ridley summarised his own views on his political philosophy during the 2011 Hayek Lecture: "[T]hat the individual is not – and had not been for 120,000 years – able to support his lifestyle; that the key feature of trade is that it enables us to work for each other not just for ourselves; that there is nothing so anti-social (or impoverishing) as the pursuit of self sufficiency; and that authoritarian, top-down rule is not the source of order or progress."[42]

In an email exchange, Ridley responded to the environmental activist Mark Lynas' repeated charges of a right-wing agenda with the following reply:

On the topic of labels, you repeatedly call me a member of "the right". Again, on what grounds? I am not a reactionary in the sense of not wanting social change: I make this abundantly clear throughout my book. I am not a hierarchy lover in the sense of trusting the central authority of the state: quite the opposite. I am not a conservative who defends large monopolies, public or private: I celebrate the way competition causes creative destruction that benefits the consumer against the interest of entrenched producers. I do not preach what the rich want to hear — the rich want to hear the gospel of Monbiot, that technological change is bad, that the hoi polloi should stop clogging up airports, that expensive home-grown organic food is the way to go, that big business and big civil service should be in charge. So in what sense am I on the right? I am a social and economic liberal: I believe that economic liberty leads to greater opportunities for the poor to become less poor, which is why I am in favour of it. Market liberalism and social liberalism go hand in hand in my view.[43]

Ridley argues that the capacity of humans for change and social progress is underestimated, and denies what he sees as overly pessimistic views of global climate change[44] and Western birthrate decline.

Climate change scepticism

Ridley has long argued for a "lukewarm" view of climate change and against renewable energy policies that he considers damaging to the economy as well as the environment. In a report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2013 he wrote:

I have written about climate change and energy policy for more than 25 years. I have come to the conclusion that current energy and climate policy is probably more dangerous, both economically and ecologically, than climate change itself. This is not the same as arguing that climate has not changed or that mankind is not partly responsible. That the climate has changed because of man-made carbon dioxide I fully accept. What I do not accept is that the change is or will be damaging, or that current policy would prevent it.[45]

Ridley has consistently argued that the evidence suggests that carbon dioxide emissions are currently doing more good than harm, largely because of the CO2 fertilisation effect, which boosts crop growth and the growth of forests and wild vegetation, and that the best evidence suggests this will continue to be the case for many decades. In 2015 he wrote about a report by the independent scientist Indur Goklany as follows:

As Goklany demonstrates, the assessments used by policy makers have overestimated warming so far, underestimated the direct benefits of carbon dioxide, overestimated the harms from climate change, and underestimated the human capacity to adapt.[46]

In 2014, a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Ridley was sharply challenged by Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute. Sachs termed "absurd" Ridley's characterization of a paper in Science magazine by two scientists Xianyao Chen and Ka-Kit Tung. Sachs cited the data from the Science article to rebut Ridley's contentions, and stated that the "paper's conclusions are the very opposite of Ridley's".[47][48] Ridley replied that 'it is ludicrous, nasty and false to accuse me of lying or "totally misrepresenting the science..I have asked Mr. Sachs to withdraw the charges more than once now on Twitter. He has refused to do so ...."'[49]

Ridleys views on climate change have been criticised by Friends of the Earth because he has connections to the coal industry. He is the owner of land in the north east of England on which the Shotton Surface coal mine operates, and receives payments for the mine. In 2016 he was accused of lobbying for the coal industry.[50]

Shale gas and fracking

Ridley was one of the earliest commentators to spot the economic significance of shale gas. In his 2011 report, "The Shale Gas Shock", for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he wrote that:

shale gas will undoubtedly prove to be a significant new force in the world energy scene, with far-reaching consequences.[51]

Ridley is a forthright proponent of fracking.[52] However he has been found to have breached the Parliamentary Code of Conduct by the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards for failing to disclose in debates on the subject personal interests worth at least £50,000 in Weir Group,[53] which has been described as, 'the world's largest provider of special equipment used in the process' of fracking.[54]

Euroscepticism

Ridley is a Eurosceptic and advocated for the withdrawal (Brexit) of the UK from the European Union, during the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016.[55] He appeared in Brexit: The Movie, arguing for Britain to recapture the spirit of free trade said to be characteristic of its 19th-century industrial past.[56]

Honours, awards and titles

In 1996, he was a visiting professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.[13]

In 2010, his book The Rational Optimist (reviewed in Nature[57] ) was shortlisted for the 2011 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize.[58]

In 2011, the Manhattan Institute awarded Ridley their $50,000 Hayek Prize for his book, The Rational Optimist. In his acceptance speech, Ridley said: "As Hayek understood, it is human collaboration that is necessary for society to work... the key feature of trade is that it enables us to work for each other not just for ourselves; that attempts at self-sufficiency are the true form of selfishness as well as the quick road to poverty; and that authoritarian, top-down rule is not the source of order or progress."[59] In 2011, Ridley gave the Angus Millar Lecture on "scientific heresy" at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) .[60]

In 2012, Ridley became the 5th Viscount Ridley and Baron Wensleydale on the death of his father.[1] He is also the 9th Baronet Ridley.[61] In 2013, he was elected as hereditary peer in the House of Lords as a member of the Conservative Party.[62]

In 2013, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[63] and won the Julian L. Simon award in March 2012.[64] In 2014 he won the free enterprise award from the Institute of Economic Affairs.[65]

His nomination to become a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) reads:

“ Dr Mathew Ridely has made major contributions to public engagement with the biological sciences. He was one the founders and the first chairman of the Centre for Life in Newcastle which combines research, commercial application, schools education, ethical debate and a pioneering interactive life-science exhibition, The Centre has attracted over half a million visitors since it opened in 2000 and has given more than 30,000 school children a taste of biology in “Lifelab”, its school-age teaching lab. It has recently achieved a landmark with the creation of the first embryonic stem cell line. Ridely is well known for his popular books and extensive writings about biological sciences. His book “Genome: the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters” had sold over half a million copies and his “Nature via Nuture: genes, experience and what make us human” recasts the nature-nuture debate and argues that nurture works through genes as much as nature does. He is a profound influence on biomedical science and society.[3] ”

Styles of address

  1. ↑ Although The Viscount Ridley is the 9th Ridley Baronet of Blagdon, by custom the post-nominal of Bt is omitted, since Peers of the Realm do not list subsidiary hereditary titles.

Arms

Personal life

When his father died in 2012, Ridley succeeded him as the 5th Viscount Ridley, having taken over the running of the family estate of Blagdon Hall, near Cramlington, Northumberland, some years before.

In 1989, Ridley married Anya Hurlbert, a Professor of Neuroscience at Newcastle University. He lives in northern England; he has a son and a daughter.[1][12]

In 1980, his sister Rose married the British Conservative Party politician Owen Paterson, who was the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs until July 2014.[66] During this time Ridley was described as 'in many ways Paterson's personal think tank'.[67]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 RIDLEY, 5th Viscount. Who's Who. 2007 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. (subscription required)
  2. ↑ "Northumberland Lord-Lieutenant". Northumberland County Council. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  3. 1 2 3 Anon (2004). "Dr Matthew Ridley FMedSci". acmedsci.ac.uk. London: Academy of Medical Sciences. Archived from the original on 2016-07-15.
  4. 1 2 Ridley, Matthew White (1983). Mating system of the pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 52225811.
  5. ↑ "Ex-Northern Rock chairman Ridley joins Lords". BBC News. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  6. ↑ "Viscount Ridley: Spoken material by date". Parliamentary Business. 2013.
  7. 1 2 Fisher, S. E.; Ridley, M. (2013). "Culture, Genes, and the Human Revolution". Science. 340 (6135): 929–930. doi:10.1126/science.1236171. PMID 23704558.
  8. ↑ "World's top thought leaders". Real Clear Science. 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 "Northern Rock chairman quits after criticism from lawmakers". International Herald Tribune. 19 October 2007. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
  10. ↑ Matthew White Ridley – website ThePeerage.com
  11. ↑ Debrett's People of Today 2007, p. 1406,
  12. 1 2 Ridley, Matt. "Matt Ridley's C.V.". Archived from the original on 6 July 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2007.
  13. 1 2 "Matt Ridley - Biography". CSH Oral History Collection. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 2012. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
  14. ↑ The Times 19 September 2007 Northern Rock chairman gives chief full backing
  15. ↑ Pfanner, Eric (15 September 2007). "Credit Crisis Hits Lender in Britain". New York Times. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
  16. ↑ "Mind and Matter column". Online.wsj.com. Retrieved 6 December 2012.
  17. 1 2 "Matt Ridley". Times Journalist. The Times. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
  18. ↑ "Professor Victor Halberstadt, Professor Of Economics from London;". Director list. Director stats. n.d. Retrieved 3 August 2016. Coworker Doctor Matthew White Ridley-Writer/Businessman July 1, 2000 to June 6, 2008
  19. ↑ "staff". International Centre for Life. n.d. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  20. ↑ "The Ditchley Foundation: The Governors". Archived from the original on 26 September 2006.
  21. ↑ "Fisheries: managing international common resources". The Ditchley Foundation:. 11–13 February 2000.
  22. ↑ "Matt Ridley FRSL FMedSci: Science writer, Chairman of the International Centre for Life, Newcastle-upon-Thames, and Patron of the BHA". British Humanist Association. Retrieved 2015-10-31.
  23. ↑ "Northumberlandia". Northumberlandia.
  24. ↑ "Northumberlandia: What it's all about". Matt Ridley.
  25. ↑ "Northumberlandia's no angel, but she's my Lady of the North". The Times. 2013.
  26. ↑ Sharp, Aaron (11 December 2013). "Stunning shots of Northumberlandia show why it beat Mexico and Malaysia to win global landscape award". The Mail Online. London.
  27. ↑ "Northumberlandia named 'Miss World' in global competition". The Journal. 2013.
  28. ↑ "Bill Clinton's World". Foreign Policy. December 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
  29. ↑ The Samuel Johnson Prize http://www.thesamueljohnsonprize.co.uk/sjnav/books/2
  30. ↑ "Getting better all the time". The Economist. 13 May 2010.
  31. ↑ "The 2011 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction". Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  32. ↑ "When ideas have sex". TedGlobal. 2010.
  33. ↑ "Matt Ridley observes "ideas having sex"". Wired Magazine. 2010-07-21.
  34. ↑ "Evolution of Everything Book by Matt Ridley".
  35. ↑ "What's your dangerous idea? Matt Ridley "Government is the problem not the solution"". The Edge. 1 January 2006. Retrieved 1 March 2008.
  36. ↑ Monbiot, George (23 October 2007). "Governments aren't perfect, but it's the libertarians who bleed us dry". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 23 October 2007.
  37. ↑ Monbiot, George (7 June 2010). "The Man Who Wants to Northern Rock the Planet". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2010.
  38. ↑ Ridley, Matt (7 June 2010). "Monbiot's errors". The Rational Optimist. Retrieved 7 June 2010.
  39. ↑ Monbiot, George (19 June 2010). "Ridleyed With Errors". George Monbiot. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
  40. ↑ Ridley, Matt (26 November 2010). "Africa Needs Growth, Not Pity and Big Plans". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  41. ↑ Gates, Bill (26 November 2010). "Africa Needs Aid, Not Flawed Theories". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  42. ↑ "Matt Ridley 2011 Hayek lecture". The Manhattan Institute.
  43. ↑ "Debate with Matt Ridley on ocean acidification". Mark Lynas.
  44. ↑ "Angus Millar Lecture 2011 – Scientific Heresy". thersa.org. 31 October 2011.
  45. ↑ "A Lukewarmer's Ten Tests" (PDF). GWPF Report. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  46. ↑ "The Benefits of Carbon Dioxide". The Rational Optimist. 20 October 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
  47. ↑ Sachs, Jeffrey, "The Wall Street Journal Parade of Climate Lies", Huffington Post, 09/06/2014. Sachs' article links to Ridley's "Whatever Happened to Global Warming?" (subscription required), Wall Street Journal, 4 September 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-07.
  48. ↑ Ridley, Matt (2014-09-07). "Whatever happened to global warming?". Matt Ridley Online. Retrieved 2014-09-14.
  49. ↑ "Jeffrey Sachs blows a gasket, and our contributor cleans up the intellectual mess", online.wsj.com , 9 Sept. 2014. Ridley quotes a tweet by Sachs: "Ridley climate ignorance in WSJ today is part of compulsive lying of Murdoch media gang. Ridley totally misrepresents the science," at Ridley's weblog
  50. ↑ Matt Ridley accused of lobbying UK government on behalf of coal industry. The Guardian, 15. July 2016. Retrieved 15. July 2016.
  51. ↑ "The Shale Gas Shock" (PDF). The Global Warming Policy Foundation. 4 May 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
  52. ↑ The five myths about fracking. Rational Optimist. 16 August 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  53. ↑ "The Conduct of Viscount Ridley". House of Lords Commissioner for Standards. 23 January 2014. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  54. ↑ "Fracking: Weir Group boss says Scotland 'well placed'". BBC News. 14 December 2012. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  55. ↑ Leigh, Chris (2016). "Matt Ridley: The Scientific Case for Brexit". scientistsforbritain.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-07-14.
  56. ↑ Brexit The Movie (full film) on YouTube
  57. ↑ Shermer, Michael (2010). "Science, freedom and trade". Nature. 465 (7296): 294–295. doi:10.1038/465294a.
  58. ↑ "BBC 2 - The Culture Show: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley".
  59. ↑ "Hayek Lecture 2011".
  60. ↑ "Angus Millar Lecture 2011".
  61. ↑ "Official Roll of the Baronetage". Standing Council of the Baronetage. Retrieved 3 February 2016. Sir Matthew White Ridley, 9th Baronet; 5th Viscount Ridley.
  62. ↑ Beamish, David (6 February 2013). "Conservative Hereditary Peers' By-election, February 2013: Result" (PDF). Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  63. ↑ "2012 Fellows" (PDF). The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
  64. ↑ "Past Winners". Julian L. Simon Memorial Award.
  65. ↑ "Matt Ridley wins IEA Free Enterprise Award". Institute of Economic Affairs. 2014-07-22.
  66. ↑ "Owen Paterson, his sceptic brother-in-law, and how Defra went cold on climate change".
  67. ↑ Owen Paterson more than meets the two criteria for a good Cabinet minister June 2013, The Conservative Home.

External links

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Matthew White Ridley		 Viscount Ridley
2012–present 		Incumbent
Baron Wensleydale
2012–present
Baronetage of Great Britain
Preceded by
Matthew White Ridley		 Baronet
(of Blagdon)
2012–present 		Incumbent
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