Today the author of the marvelous new book How Innovation Works, the journalist Matt, or as he is known in the House of Lords, the right

honorable the Viscount Ridley, a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford with a degree in zoology.

Matt wrote for a number of years at the economist spending some five years here in the United States.

He's the author of many books on science and technology, including his classic work,

the 2010 book The Rational Optimist. Since 2013, Viscount Ridley has sat as a conservative in the House of Lords.

Matt, thanks for making the time, and welcome to everyone to this special plague time edition of

Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson.

Peter, it's great to join you.

I'm locked down in Palo Alto in Europe in Northumberland.

Correct, I'm in Northumberland in the north of England and it's beautiful weather here.

I don't know about, it's kind of Palo Alto weather actually here.

It's a cloudless sky today.

And you and your family are well.

You've escaped this thing.

Everybody's well so far.

All right.

We'll come to the book in a moment,

but there's a kind of mandatory question for you.

This is Matt Ridley writing recently in the spectator.

Until this year I thought this kind of infectious pandemic could not happen today.

The defeat of infectious diseases as a cause of death has been so complete as to

seem invincible, plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid, measles, polio, whooping cough, and many

...