In his latest book, The Evolution of Everything, Matt Ridley argues that social engineering policies, whether initiated by governments or some other organization, are unlikely to reach whatever dedicated goal they have because ultimately it is the action of humans that change society and not the ideas of a select group of people.
In front of a packed crowd at the Cato Institute on Wednesday, Ridley riveted the audience by describing how the evolution of human society and technological innovation is the result of our collective human action, not human design.
Ridley cited a number of historical instances of the failures of social engineering, such as China’s one-child policy. In the ten years prior to China’s one-child policy there was a greater decrease in the population than in the ten years during which the one-child policy was in place.
Another example is the English language. The rules in the language were not designed by some English language authority, but rather evolved and emerged from a constant interaction amongst humans adding and subtracting from the language they are using to communicate. He did not mention that the French language is far more controlled, with the Academie Française in charge of approving new words.
Ridley’s main focus in his new work is technological innovation. Innovation in general, whether technological or cultural, is merely a combination and recombination of existing things. It is through unplanned recombination efforts that we see our greatest innovations.
The most prominent example of technological innovation through human action is the Internet, according to Ridley. Instead of being meticulously planned by the government, the Internet arose from ordinary people using networks to pass information and ideas and eventually grew into what it is today. Most of the protocols that are now used on the Internet were developed on peer-to-peer networks and eventually became standard.
Ridley compared this natural technological evolution to the evolution that takes place in human genes. The evolution that takes place naturally in human genes without any design or designer is the same form as the technological evolution we see in the world. Just as there is no designer in human evolution, there is no designer in technological and societal evolution.
With this understanding of evolution in place, Ridley is optimistic about the direction technology and society are headed. He believes that technology will continue to advance and create higher living standards for the majority of people and our cultural norms will continue to adapt in a positive way.
However, there is some cause for concern amongst Ridley’s optimism. He argues that there are too many people in the world that refuse to recognize that evolution is what changes our society. Without evidence, people cling to the idea that a planned society and economy is what is needed, not an organic one. Society emerges, he argues, from a vast amount of human interaction and ingenuity, not from someone ruling over them and telling them what to do.
The key aspect to all innovation and evolution, according to Ridley, is trial and error. It is the feedback from our behavior in the trial and error process that allows society to realize right from wrong in cultural rules and technological advancements. This trial and error process, as Ridley meticulously argued, can most effectively be done through the organic interactions in a society.
Ridley encouraged the audience to be skeptical of top-down approaches that are advocated by government and special interest groups. Instead, everyone should be focused on the bottom-up approaches that have resulted in the explosion of technological innovation the world has seen recently. It is through the bottom-up approach that America and the rest of the world will experience the most prosperous technological evolution.
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