How evolution touches everything from tech to music

Introduction. In his book The Evolution of Everything, Matt Ridley analyses culture, human nature, technology, and much more using evolutionary science. Top insights from the book 👇

The evolution of morality. People think of morals and laws as inventions. Using the example of the common law, Ridley argues morality instead evolves, directed by "nobody and everybody." Very much like organisms, morality evolves through "replication, variation and selection."

The evolution of language. Like life itself, language continuously evolves. Like stronger life forms, crisp words proliferate. Like maladaptive organisms, confusing words that don't serve a purpose go extinct.

An interesting fact: the further you move from equator to the poles, the less diverse animal life gets. The same is true of languages. For reasons not entirely clear, both biological and linguistic diversity thrives around the equator.

The evolution of music. Humans and chimps have a common ancestor, so do musical instruments like piano and harp. There are "hybridisation events" in species development - and in music too. Ridley writes: "African traditional music mates with blues to produce jazz."

Why marriage evolved: "Societies that chose ‘normative monogamy’, or an insistence upon sex within exclusive marriage, tended to tame their young men, improve social cohesion, balance the sex ratio, reduce the crime rate, and encourage men to work rather than fight."

How technology evolves. Crabs independently evolved 5 times. Similarly, a lot of inventors often come up with the same idea independently. This is "convergent evolution." Poincare & Einstein had similar ideas about relativity, Newton & Leibniz created the calculus independently.

The evolution of attraction. Men find younger women attractive, and women find "strong, confident, mature and ambitious men attractive." This is evolution talking - men like younger women for their "reproductive fertility," women like high-status men for their resources.

Creationism vs Evolution in the economy. Socialist planned economies try to create growth through design but growth can only evolve through free markets. Economies, like evolution, works best when left undirected.

Bottom line. Matt Ridley shows that all aspects of life and society can be better understood when seen through the evolutionary lens. From sexual attraction to technology, from music to the economy, evolutionary pressures shape everything.