A review by colleen_parks
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley

1.0

I didn’t finish this one because it just wasn’t worth it. The point of the book is that things evolve. Ideas don’t come out of the blue (e.g., Darwin’s evolution and Einstein’s relativity came out of prior work), laws evolve, morality evolves both developmentally and at a societal level, etc. At one point he explains that modern marriage customs evolved and that a committee didn’t sit down and decide how it would be. Really, was this a question for anyone? He presents the obvious and fleshes it out with a bit of history by summarizing other people’s work (Adam Smith, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, etc.). Overall, thumbs down.