The Evolution of Everything summary

It was the ideas of philosophers and poets such as Epicurus and Lucretius and, later, Enlightenment thinkers like David Hume, which gave rise to the question: “If God is the designer of humans and the world, who designed the designer?”

However, it was Charles Darwin who eliminated creationism from biology and replaced it with a theory of evolution through natural selection. Darwin came up with his theory of biological evolution after his sailing expedition to the Galápagos Islands, where he collected various animals and plants, and meticulously observed and reflected on his findings.

Although we associate it with biology and genetics, evolution’s reach is much longer than this. Evolution is inevitable in any system where information is transmitted with a degree of randomness, such as the genetic information in our DNA that we pass on to our children or the cultural information we impart to them when we raise them.

In other words, evolution applies to human culture, too. The best example can be seen in the evolution of language. Actually, there is a strong parallel between the evolution of DNA and the evolution of language. Both are systems capable of combining a small number of basic building blocks to form virtually infinite permutations.

Most religions teach that morality is prescribed by God. For instance, the Judeo-Christian God had Moses climb Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments to pass on to his people. In Islam, it was Muhammad who received the word of God and imparted this to his people.

However, God isn’t necessary for morality. Rather, morality evolves through social interaction in which people seek out ways to communicate successfully and happily.

Did you know that twins raised apart have very similar personalities? This is a fascinating discovery, because until the 1990s, psychologists widely assumed that personality depended only on a child’s upbringing.

Even today, our idea of personality development is shaped by the creationist belief that culture creates a child’s personality when, in actuality it evolves from within. Consider the following example: toy shops are split into girls’ and boys’ aisles where parents are encouraged to buy trucks for boys and dolls for girls. This angers people who believe that behavioral differences between the sexes are culturally forced upon children. But while it’s true that culture evolves, this doesn’t necessarily mean that personality evolves along with culture, or that culture creates personality.

In its first edition, the Encyclopédie – the encyclopedia of the French Enlightenment published between 1751 and 1772 – contained nearly no entries on people. Why? The authors wanted to remind readers that innovation evolves on its own, rather than being created by a handful of powerful people.

These days, though, leaders are viewed as the creators of innovation. But really, innovation can flourish without top-down creation. Take leadership in business. Hugely influential CEOs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are granted nearly godlike powers for their innovation and success. So much so that, when Steve Jobs died in 2011, many people assumed that Apple would simply go under without him.

Most of us take for granted that the internet belongs to nobody in particular. It is neither controlled by monopolizing companies nor governments. So when it comes to money, which today is created and issued solely by governments through central banks, why do so many of us assume that it’s always been a government monopoly? In fact, money was once free to develop much in the way the internet does today.

Money gradually emerged among traders, and wasn’t always controlled by rulers. Take Sweden, which established a free banking system in the nineteenth century. During this time, several banks – the central bank among them – competed to issue their own banknotes. This system worked remarkably well and not a single bill-issuing bank went out of business.