The evolution of everything
Creationism assumes that every living form on the earth was created as it is seen now by God. Darwin’s theory of evolution is a scientifically proven concept that states all life forms evolved from a single cell. Matt Ridley, a British science writer, attempts to explain how the universe, life, genes, the mind, personality, education, population, leadership, government, the internet, economy, money, technology, culture, religion, language, and morality evolved in his ambitious and thought-provoking book, ‘The Evolution of Everything’. In times of specialisation, it is refreshing to know that one person took much pains to explain all aspects of society scientifically in one book.
The theory of evolution suggests that everything in society is constantly changing. All changes are gradual, incremental, inexorable, spontaneous, and happen by trial and error. He asserts that much of the human world is the result of human action, but not of human design, and emerges from interactions of millions, not from the plan of a few. He presents interesting evidence to suggest that the Industrial Revolution, the internet, and mobile phones were not planned but rather emerged spontaneously.
On the origin of life, Ridley states that on Earth, where water is liquid, carbon can polymerize and solar systems last for billions of years; then, life emerged as a carbon-based system with water-soluble proteins in fluid-filled cells. Life adapted to the laws of physics, and not vice versa. On the evolution of the mind, he proposes that the self is a consequence, not a cause of thought. The study of the brain has found no pearl, no organ or structure that houses the self or consciousness—and never will. The self “emerges out of the orchestra of different brain processes like a symphony.”
On morality, he says that morality owes little to teaching and nothing to reason, but rather evolves through a sort of reciprocal exchange within each person’s mind as they grow from childhood, and within society. Morality, therefore, emerged as a consequence of certain aspects of human nature in response to social conditions. He gives examples of the acceptance of homosexuality in present society. He observes that with the rise of the welfare state in the West, monogamy and the family system began to break down. Man’s role as breadwinner was replaced by the welfare state, and as women also started earning, they became independent. It is thought that monogamy lost its relevance. Men also realised that they no longer need to remain to see their children safely into adulthood. Thus, single-parent families became common in the West. Marriage is not redesigned; it evolves.
Ridley opines that parents have no long-term effect on the development of their child’s personality. He says that differences in personality are formed roughly half by the direct and indirect effects of genes, and roughly half by something else, which does not include the home environment at all. Children get their personalities mostly from within themselves.
Ridley unequivocally states that until the late eighteenth century, much wealth creation had been achieved through plunder in one form or another, and there was nothing remotely resembling a free-market government in power anywhere in the world. He asserts that there is no suchthing as a perfect market, an equilibrium, or an end state. The beauty of commerce is that it constantly creates new problems due to innovations and the testing of new solutions. The economy is also evolving. He rightly points out that a country becomes a knowledge economy after initially achieving success in agriculture and then in manufacturing, as seen in the cases of Japan, China, and India.
He observes that the history of government over the past few centuries shows that when the state steps in to provide something to the underprivileged, things instead of improving, often get worse because the state has socialised the cost and privatised the reward. Market failure is a favourite phrase; government failure is not.
Regarding the evolution of inventions in technology, he remarks that inventions occur to different people simultaneously, forming an endless chain of parallel instances. Moore’s Law states that the processing power of computers doubles approximately every two years. Cooper’s Law finds that the number of possible simultaneous wireless communications has doubled every thirty months since 1985. When we leave people free to exchange ideas and back hunches, innovations will follow—so too will scientific insight.There are many outrageous propositions by Ridley, albeit with some logical reasoning, such as the idea that the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution occurred as accidental by-products of other events, and that the American Revolution was won by the malaria parasite. He considers Marxism a religious doctrine in the sense that when it was refuted by events, its adherents simply explained away the misfit, repeatedly reinterpreting both the theory and the evidence.