Rukmani and her family were driving to a temple in Tamil Nadu, India, in May 2018, when they stopped to ask for directions from an elderly local lady. It seemed a safe enough thing to do. The family hadn’t realised that almost every local with access to WhatsApp had...
Other Writing
Articles from the New York Times, Forbes, Wired and beyond – any piece that isn’t one of my columns.
What the poet, playboy and prophet of bubbles can still teach us
One winter morning in early 1637, a sailor presented himself at the counting-house of a wealthy Dutch merchant and was offered a hearty breakfast of fine red herring. The sailor noticed an onion lying on the counter. “Thinking it, no doubt, very much out of its place...
What We Owe The Future – A review
The moral philosopher Jonathan Glover tells a story about attending a conference of ethicists in Poland. The itinerary included a visit to Auschwitz. On the coach ride there, the academics earnestly discussed topics such as whether it could ever be morally justifiable...
A history and defence of opinion polling
Strength In Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them. By G. Elliott Morris. W.W. Norton; 224 pages; $28.95 and £21.99 In the 1920s, George Gallup sought to expand the circulation of his student newspaper. To gain readers’ attention, he published a misogynistic...
We must pay the cost of carbon if we are to cut it
Shouldn’t we be doing more to respond to the climate emergency? It’s a natural question to ask. But, perhaps, we should turn the question around, and ask: why haven’t we solved the climate change problem already? Economics suggests a ready answer: externalities....
The stripper, the Congressman, and why we undervalue statistical bedrock
At 2am on October 9th, 1974, police in the picturesque tidal basin area of Washington DC spotted a speeding car, weaving around, headlights off. They pulled it over, and out jumped a flamboyantly dressed woman, yelling in both English and Spanish. She promptly threw...
How to Truth with Statistics
“The crooks already know these tricks; honest men must learn them in self-defense.” – so wrote nerd legend Darrell Huff, in his million-selling “How To Lie With Statistics” (1954). It’s a delightful little work, full of deceptive graphics, spurious correlations,...
Shortage nation: why the UK is braced for a grim Christmas
As I was finishing the first draft of this story, the lights went off. The power to my house had failed. We checked the fuse box, found some bike lights to serve as torches, and my teenage daughter helped her little brother with his candlelit homework. My wife and I...
Espionage, assassination, and the modern factory
Piedmont, in North West Italy, is celebrated for its fine wine. But when a young Englishman, John Lombe, travelled there in the early eighteenth century, he wasn’t going to savour a glass of Barolo. His purpose was industrial espionage. Lombe wished to figure out how...