Matt Ridley

The Evolution of Everything (eBook, ePUB)

How New Ideas Emerge

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world.

Human society evolves. Change in technology, language, morality, and society is incremental, inexorable, gradual, and spontaneous. It follows a narrative, going from one stage to the next; it creeps rather than jumps; it has its own spontaneous momentum rather than being driven from outside; it has no goal or end in mind; and it largely happens by trial and errora version of natural selection. 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.

Drawing on fascinating evidence from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley demolishes conventional assumptions that the great events and trends of our day are dictated by those on high, whether in government, business, academia, or organized religion. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. Just as skeins of geese form Vs in the sky without meaning to and ter-mites build mud cathedrals without architects, so brains take shape without brain-makers, learning happens without teaching, and morality changes for no reason other than the prevailing fashion. Although we neglect, defy, and ignore them, bottom-up trends shape the world. The Industrial Revolution, cell phones, the rise of Asia, and the Internet were never planned; they happened. Languages emerged and evolved by a form of natural selection, as did common law. Torture, racism, slavery, and pedophiliaall once widely regarded as acceptableare now seen as immoral despite the decline of religion in recent decades. In this wide-ranging and erudite book, Ridley brilliantly makes the case for evolution, rather than design, as the force that has shaped much of our culture, our technology, our minds, and that even now is shaping our future.

As compelling as it is controversial, as authoritative as it is ambitious, Ridley's deeply thought-provoking book will change the way we think about the world and how it works.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: HarperCollins
• Seitenzahl: 368
• Erscheinungstermin: 27. Oktober 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780062296023
• Artikelnr.: 42916064

Autorenporträt

Matt Ridley's booksincluding The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything, How Innovation Works, and most recently, Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid-19 (with Alina Chan)have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages, and won several awards. He sat in the House of Lords from 2013 and 2021, and was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, and was a columnist for the Times. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Northumberland.

Rezensionen

'He argues we live in a bottom-up world...a compelling argument and in this fascinating work, an evolution from Ridley's other books, such as The Rational Optimist of The Origins of Virtue, he takes it to all realms of knowledge and how new ideas emerge... Ridley has amassed such a weight of fascinating evidence and anecdote that the pages fly by' Ed Conway, The Times

'Intriguing and artfully argued' Ian Critchly, The Sunday Times

'This is a book of remarkable scope (when Ridley says everything, he isn't exaggerating), clearly written by a polymath who reads whatever is interesting, old and new. What's more, it does not have the feel of a book written on commission so much as one that has been slowly assembling its own emergent thesis over time, tentatively testing and sometimes rejecting ideas along the way. As so often in nature, something wonderful has thereby come about' Literary Review

'The book displays his wide and deep knowledge of many different fields. It is fast paced and elegantly written. Few readers will come away without fresh information and a challenge to their preconceptions' Prospect

'Readable, provocative and infuriating' New Statesman

Praise for Matt Ridley:

'What a superb writer he is, and he seems to get better and better.' Richard Dawkins, author of 'The Selfish Gene'

Praise for 'The Rational Optimist':

'A triumphant blast on the vuvuzela of common sense' Boris Johnson

'A glorious defence of our species... a devastating rebuke to humanity's self-haters' Sunday Times

'No other book has argued with such brilliance against the automatic pessimism that prevails' Ian McEwan

'His theory is, in a way, the glorious offspring that would result if Charles Darwin's ideas were mated with those of Adam Smith' The Economist

'As awork of bold historical positivity it is to be welcomed. At every point cheerfulness keeps breaking through' The Times