The Evolution of Everything ; How New Ideas Emerge

New York: Harper (an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers), 2015. First U. S. Edition [stated], First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Peter Walton (Author photograph). [6], 360, [2] pages. Minor soiling at the bottom of several early pages. Inscribed on the fep. Inscription reads Robert Best wishes Matt Ridley. Contents include: Prologue--The General Theory of Evolution; The Evolution of the Universe; The Evolution of Morality; The Evolution of Life; The Evolution of Genes; The Evolution of Culture; The Evolution of Economy; The Evolution of Technology; The Evolution of the Mind; The Evolution of Personality; The Evolution of Education; The Evolution of Population; The Evolution of Leadership; The Evolution of Government; The Evolution of Religion; The Evolution of Money; The Evolution of the Internet; and Epilogue: The Evolution of the Future. Sources and Further Reading. Also contains Index. Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, DL, FRSL, FMedSci (born 7 February 1958), is a British journalist and businessman. He is best known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics. 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). He publishes a blog and has been a regular contributor to The Times newspaper. Ridley is a libertarian, and a staunch supporter of Brexit. He inherited the viscountcy in February 2012 and was a Conservative hereditary peer from February 2013, with an elected seat in the House of Lords, until his retirement in December 2021. The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating, brilliant argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world. The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch, the endless fascination human beings have for design rather than evolution, for direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes from science, economics, history, politics and philosophy, Matt Ridley's wide-ranging, opus demolishes conventional assumptions that major scientific and social imperatives are dictated by those on high, whether in government, business, academia, or morality. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. Patterns emerge, trends evolve. Just as skeins of geese form Vs in the sky without meaning to, and termites build mud cathedrals without architects, so brains take shape without brain-makers, learning can happen without teaching and morality changes without a plan. Although we neglect, defy and ignore them, bottom-up trends shape the world. The growth of technology, the sanitation-driven health revolution, the quadrupling of farm yields so that more land can be released for nature, these were largely emergent phenomena, as were the Internet, the mobile phone revolution, and the rise of Asia. Ridley demolishes the arguments for design and effectively makes the case for evolution in the universe, morality, genes, the economy, culture, technology, the mind, personality, population, education, history, government, God, money, and the future. As compelling as it is controversial, authoritative as it is ambitious, Ridley's stunning perspective will revolutionize the way we think about our world and how it works.