The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge -- Matt Ridley

<p><strong>"Mr. Ridley's best and most important work to date...there is something profoundly democratic and egalitarian--even anti-elitist--in this bottom-up approach: Everyone can have a role in bringing about change." --<em>Wall Street Journal</em></strong></p><p><strong>The <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>The Rational Optimist </em>and <em>Genome </em>returns with a fascinating argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world</strong></p><p>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, and it largely happens by trial and error--a 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.</p><p>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. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. 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 pedophilia--all once wi