Background and reagan having playeplayed cowboys and thing enforcement at heart at that develop that develop Even Stronger as the years rolled by. The authors of mac baldrige. Thank you both. Do you want to watch this program again . Visible tv. Org to watch any of the programs you see you online. Type the author name or book title in the search bar at the top of the page and click the looking glass. You can share any of the videos on our website by clicking the facebook, twitter osha icons on the bottom right of the video box. Booktv since 1998, all the top nonfiction authors and books all available at booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everybody. Welcome to politics and prose and thank you so much for coming out fortunate accident. People get going id like to quickly talk about some housekeeping items. Im sure many of you have heard this before. If you turn off or silencer cell phones that would be greatly appreciated. For the q. And a pleasure member to step up to one of the microphones we have set up so we can all hear and partake in the conversation. We are being filled so take that as a great opportunity to make lasting memories. Lastly, after that it would be a great help if you could fold up chairs and leaned them against the nearest wall or bookshelf. With that out of the way my name is Michael Triebwasser come on the books over here with politics and prose at a map of the owners and staff, id like to welcome you all to tonights event. As im sure many of you know politics and prose has so much to offer concluding the book a Month Program. If you have start think about gifts for the Holiday Season or if you can wait until the last minute, book a Month Program is an excellent present for the avid reader in your life. You can cite them or yourselves up on our website at politicsprose. Com. Once a month to receive a book thats been collect carefully selected. You can check out the reviews about the program from previous subscribers. But ontbut on to the main event. Im excited to introduce matt ridley, a graduate of oxford was work of the site editor, washington correspondent and american editor with economist before becoming a self employed writer and businessmen. His previous books have sold over 2 million copies and has been translated into over 39 which is. If that was amazing it is also a member of the house of lords. His seventh the latest book the evolution of everything how new ideas emerge has been called an ingenious study. At times called a compelling argument, fast eddie work. The wall street journal called it his most best and important work today. The idea that he tackles in his book reminded me of the debate. Actually undermine the fears ago. He was a proponent that we are now in such firm control of everything from our bodies right into her jeans to her technology to nature itself that effectively had in any sort of influence that any underlying our outside processes might have come and i was quite astounded. I said thats quite a bit. I remember, we debated for quite a while. He was an excellent debater somewhat shy action when. My very first thought a few weeks or when i thought national i saw this book was coming out, i said i thought i wish i this book back in the. Lets get onto the good part. Please help me in welcoming matt ridley. [applause] thank you, michael, very much indeed. I did take part in a formal debate three or four nights ago in toronto on the question of whether humans is times like ahead or behind. Its on the web. I must debate. We just wiped the floor. Actually thats not really true. We started before the debate with 74 , 71 in our favor in which ended with 74 . We gained. Its the first time on a formal debate format of that kind. As michael said something my previous books have been about evolution. The evolution of sex, evolution of sort of virtue to my second book and have written about genomics and so been dancing around the topic of evolution for quite a time. Average income of the world, twothirds reduction in child mortality, onethird increase in life expectancy, where thats coming from and why its happening. I argued it was all about innovation and innovation comes from the meeting and mating of ideas. I began to get more interested in the idea that Human Society evolves. By evolves i mean changes inexorably, changes gradually, incrementally, and moves kind of under its own steam without really anybody being in charge. And produce outcomes that are quite complex, sophisticated but without having been planted. Thats what this book is trying to extort. Its a bit crusty. That is to say, i try and squeeze every aspect of Human Behavior and Human Society to fit my thesis. Sometimes i succeed, maybe not always but she be the judge of that. I think darwinian, Charles Darwins idea of Natural Selection is one of great ideas all times. Its still a difficult idea. A lot of people have difficulty with it particularly because at this point that it seems to produce a fit between form and function without anyone having a plan in mind. We look at the human its designed to foresee in some purposeful sense. Its purpose is to see and yet that purpose, that plan was never in anybodys mind before. Thats darwin argument. Without anyone having intended it to be forcing it has emerged as a thing for seeing. If thats the case for biological structures, if thats the case for human eyes and could that be the case were structural, social structures backs the we organize our society, the way our technology changes, could it be when we have welldesigned systems of politics or morality or culture or religion or Something Like that, but they have emerged in the same way . Theyve gotten a sophisticated and its a good fit between form and function but they had never been designed by anybody. So i think that there as far as i go. I make the argument in the book, and i got this phrase from a friend, but darwins idea is the specialty of evolution just as einstein had the special theory of relativity. As a general theory of evolution is that any Information System that is subject to recombination and selection will produce evolutionary change. That it happens everywhere and anywhere. The crucial ingredient of an evolutionary system is trial and error, that thats a different word for Natural Selection but you dont come up with one solution. You come up with lots of solutions to problems and then you pick the best one. I think thats a vital ingredient of human culture is a we do of trial and error. If you look at the design for earlier points in the first 20 years after the airplane was invented you find theres an enormous number of different designs being tried. Tail plane in a different place in a different shape with a propeller in the front or the back, a number of wings, et cetera. It isnt the case we go from one site to the next. We do lots of trials and then we select one from each. If im right that spontaneous order, complexity can emerge in this weight in Human Society without anyone being in charge, perhaps we are all making a bit of a creationist mistake when we look at Human Society. That is to say that creation is the mistake in biology is to see order and assume it was a designer, and intelligent design argument. Are we all of the intelligence design of the Human Society . To we look at it and assume so has to be in charge and assume someone has to decide it . When, in fact, we can let the solution to our problems emerge. Theres a wonderful phrase, the skyhook to describe this issue. I skyhook is a hook you a catch to the sky in order to build a building from the top down. Would be immensely convenient if one could do that. The phrase originated in a newspaper from the First World War of autopilot who was in an airplane who was told to stay up to because we dont need you for the moment. The ripple id this machine has not faded with skyhook. According to the dictionary thats the origin of the word. Its an imaginary device. It doesnt exist. That taking i come back to throughout the book are quite often when a look at an aspect of Human Society we think it is team designed from the top and what effect it has been designed from the bottom up. Let me give you a couple examples to get you thinking about the kinds of things and thinking about. Music. We can decide soandso invented a new genre of music but if you look at the history of music you chose very clear that modification. You can see gods clearly show that sent to modification. They start off as tibor to upset and always squabbling with each other in the bronze age and the gradually become disembodied neville the spirit of singular nature as they are today. You can trace this progress of Something Like a god. Governments in. Governments start out back in the stone age as a sort of protection racket. Monopoly on violence. I will impose peace in your society you let me have the monopoly on violence. You can see this happening come use example of prison gangs today as an example of how a monopoly on violence within certain aspects of the present life is emerging, as if it was a form of typical government. Edifact its quite common for terrorist movements to turn themselves into governments when they get a monopoly on violence, things like the mafia. Cities change as they grow. They have protectable features about how they grow, about what kind of things they did as they grow, what kind of relation, ratios between different measurements in cities. Very, very predictable. You write rules about how cities grow. Thats not because o of his imposing the rules. Its because that sort of in the natural order of things, becomes inevitable at a certain point. These are things that are the result of human action but not of human design. This microphone is a result of human action and human design. The weather outside is neither but in between theres a category of things that adam ferguson, a scottish blosser put it, or the result of human action but not of human design. We dont have a word for it. I call them fergusons because of adam ferguson. Think about the english language. The english language is manmade. A result of human action but its a the result of human design. Ridiculous to say anyone plan the english language, anyone invented it. Or indeed anyone is in charge of it. There is the chief executive, no central committee, thank goodness. It would probably be but very messy affected. You can see the history of the english language buried within the fossils of it. The k. At the beginning of the word knife is a fossil, living fossil of a different form of language. Its very much something that evolves. I reach back 2000 years to get inspiration for the origin of this idea. It was through its teeth and greenblatts wonderful book that i started to understand this extraordinary palm written around the time of caesar and cicerone, on the nature of things. Apparently he died midstanza because it comes to the rather abrupt ending. It talks of how the world is made up of atoms. Nose. No, no gods, no essences. Even living things are made from the same kind of vitriol is not living things. Its just recombined in different ways. Which we now know to be an incredibly accurate atomic description of the world. He says by recombined image of the ways one can produce different forms and he gives a figure close to getting the whole idea of evolution by Natural Selection. This poll was suppressed by the Christian Church for many centuries until we discover and working 17 and a library in germany and it became an enormous influence on many other great thinkers of the renaissance and enlightenment. To put it all together and come up with coherent example of something emerging through human action but not through human design is adam smith. In 1759, he writes exactly a century before darwin which has a subversive idea, around is something we worked out between ourselves by calibrating our behavior against the reaction of others. From the reactions of others we learn what is right and what is wrong. What you can get away with and what you cant. Hes essentially saying that morality isnt something decided by priests and headed down to us to get something weve negotiated among ourselves. Its very much at bottom of the of the world. He goes on there to make the same argument about the economy, that there is a system by which we all supply and demand products, goods and services among ourselves isnt unplanned, spontaneous system which produces really quite spontaneous order. And, therefore, for example, in a city Like Washington there are 10 million people, i dont know, you have to be fed everyday and nobody is in charge of feeding them and yet they get fed. It would be a disaster if some of was in charge of trying to feed them. As dataset put it in the wealth of nations the sovereign is completely discharged from a duty and in attempting to perform which you must always be exposed to the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient. The duty of superintendent the industry of private people rather than directing it by civil interest of society. I think theres quite a direct analogy between biological evolution and economic evolution, or social evolution. A tropical rain forest with every species having its own niche is like having a language of edward having its own use, and its grown organically to this great complexity. This idea is the complete opposite of social darwinism. One or two reviewers have not quite at that point. I want to make that point the social darwinism essentially set in order to help the progress of society we should help, assist biological evolution and we should do this by telling people whether they can or cant breathe by sterilizing them if necessary and even by killing the courses like to eugenics and the holocaust. Im saying no, no, no, we are not interested in biological evolution anymore. Thats a slow process of no significance for Human Society. What counts is to get competition going amongst ideas so bad ideas can die, so people dont have to. There is now a very sophisticated theory of cultural evolution developed which i touch on in the book, which essentially argues, use the thought of this was the main idea of Richard Dawkins that should have kind of particles of culture so they could compete with other particles of culture, just like your genes that can be with other genes. They argued instead of actually it doesnt matter if there are are not discrete units of culture. What counts is there is some degree of replication of ideas, the ideas get spread about. And some degree of error to produce communications under some degree of selection. You will inevitably and inexorably a rhythmically get an evolutionary results. Algorithmically. Its a bit antielitist. I can assure you, its a very powerless institution and in a very small cogs in a. Its not totally, still all a bit of hypocrisy but nevertheless im kind of doubt on the great man theory of history, for example, the great man theory of history is what really counts is named changing or women changing history, whereas in fact the opposite argument is that history changes man. History produces great men. The french revolution produced napoleon rather than the napoleonic wars. Great men argued about them. I think the 20th century proved him right. The people at the history by the scruff of the neck did so in the wrong direction. This leads me to particularly when think about the evolution of technology, which is very clearly something that shows this pattern of descent with modification and pedigrees and family tree and gradual change. It leaves me to say that perhaps we dont need a great theory of invention either. When you think about it, pretty well Everything Center or discover his dispensable. If they had fallen under both before they made the discovery some else wouldve come up with a. So edison came up with the light bulb in 1870s by 23 people came up with the idea of the incandescent lightbulb in that decade independently. In britain we give the credit to joseph swan. And russia they say someone else. Et cetera. Nobody is wrong that everybody is right. The idea was right, it was ready to be discovered. The component technologies of the lightbulb were all there. It just did one or two people to put them together. The same is true of the Search Engine which is one of the most useful inventions of my lifetime. We use it everyday. Im sure many of you do, google gets the credit but if you go and look for about 20 Search Engines on the market when google came into existence. We would not use the word google as a verb if the google had not exist but we were still have the concept. Charles darwin discovered evolution and then was shocked to get a letter with exactly the same idea, so he rushed into print or even einstein was the only meant to come up with special relativity by the to go back and read what people were saying and think at the time, its clear Henry Laurens wouldve gotten a very quickly if einstein had fallen under a trance instead. Indeed, theres a document what technology wants. We know six different defenders of the thermometer, three of the hypodermic needle, for of vaccination, five of the electric telegraph, three of logarithms, five of the steamboat, six of the electric railroad. Railroad. Those are just 19th century inventions. Does that mean we dont need scientists or inventors . Know, serving a. Somebodys got to make these discoveries. They are going to happen in the right place at the right time when the conditions are right but it does mean theres a sort, the technologies choosing its inventors run the other way around. Francis crick two i wrote a biography of this rather well. He said i rather think this by making the makeup dna made watson and crick. Theres some certain truth in it and because of the lovely smell of the paragraph where he says if watson had been killed by tennis ball, i know i would not have discovered it, but who would . Very obvious files its people who wouldve gotten within a year. So this evolutionary theory of technology is not meant to disrespect scientists or inventors but just to point out that there is an evolutionary agent, you cant cheat it. This comes up quite well i think in the law of gordon moore developed in the 1960s for describi