
The Evolution of Everything
How New Ideas Emerge
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Narrated by:
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Steven Crossley
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By:
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Matt Ridley
About this listen
The New York Times best-selling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating, brilliant argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world.
The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch - the endless fascination human beings have with design rather than evolution, with direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley's wide-ranging, highly opinionated opus demolishes conventional assumptions that major scientific and social imperatives are dictated by those on high, whether in government, business, academia, or morality. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. Patterns emerge, trends evolve. Just as skeins of geese form Vs in the sky without meaning to and termites build mud cathedrals without architects, so brains take shape without brain makers, learning can happen without teaching, and morality changes without a plan.
Although we neglect, defy, and ignore them, bottom-up trends shape the world. The growth of technology, the sanitation-driven health revolution, the quadrupling of farm yields so that more land can be released for nature - these were largely emergent phenomena, as were the Internet, the mobile phone revolution, and the rise of Asia. Ridley demolishes the arguments for design and effectively makes the case for evolution in the universe, morality, genes, the economy, culture, technology, the mind, personality, population, education, history, government, God, money, and the future.
As compelling as it is controversial, authoritative as it is ambitious, Ridley's stunning perspective will revolutionize the way we think about our world and how it works.
©2015 Matt Ridley (P)2015 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Great Story- Awful Narrator
- By Diana Dunn on 07-12-12
By: Geraldine Brooks
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Where Good Ideas Come From
- The Natural History of Innovation
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Eric Singer
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.
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Ambitious
- By Roy on 12-08-10
By: Steven Johnson
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G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
- By: Beverly Gage
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 36 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.
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Amazing!
- By Jessica Armas on 12-06-22
By: Beverly Gage
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Noise
- A Flaw in Human Judgment
- By: Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the co-author of Nudge, and the author of You Are About to Make a Terrible Mistake! comes Noise, a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments, and how to control both noise and cognitive bias.
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Disappointing
- By Z28 on 05-31-21
By: Daniel Kahneman, and others
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Build
- An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
- By: Tony Fadell
- Narrated by: Tony Fadell, Roger Wayne
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia.
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Best guide for start up founders, ever!!!
- By Curly Beard on 05-28-22
By: Tony Fadell
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Dominion
- How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Tom Holland, Mark Meadows
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion - an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus - was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history.
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Only the forward is narrated by Holland.
- By Honora on 06-16-20
By: Tom Holland
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Power
- Why Some People Have It—and Others Don't
- By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Some people have it, and others don’t. Jeffrey Pfeffer explores why in Power. One of the greatest minds in management theory and author or co-author of thirteen books, including the seminal business-school text Managing With Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer shows listeners how to succeed and wield power in the real world.
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A mediocre book
- By Shayan Fazeli on 02-16-23
By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
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The Sovereign Individual
- Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
- By: James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface, William Rees-Mogg
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.
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Unfortunately distopian for mosty of humanity
- By Phil on 09-29-20
By: James Dale Davidson, and others
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Nudge: The Final Edition
- Improving Decisions About Money, Health, and the Environment
- By: Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the original publication of Nudge more than a decade ago, the title has entered the vocabulary of businesspeople, policy makers, engaged citizens, and consumers everywhere. The book has given rise to more than 200 "nudge units" in governments around the world and countless groups of behavioral scientists in every part of the economy. It has taught us how to use thoughtful "choice architecture" - a concept the authors invented - to help us make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society.
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Doesn’t include a Pdf of the images the book calls out
- By John O'Connell on 08-03-21
By: Richard H. Thaler, and others
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The Beginning of Infinity
- Explanations That Transform the World
- By: David Deutsch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
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A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe.
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Worthwhile if you have the patience
- By Scott Feuless on 08-12-19
By: David Deutsch
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The Bluest Eye
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the story of 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
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Amazing
- By psiegler on 07-25-18
By: Toni Morrison
Sometimes uses a broad brush
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Everyone should read this
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Eye opening experience
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Worth every minute.
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Changed how I see the world
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Recommend it!
Another great book from Matt Ridley
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Excellent content, decent presentation
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Strong start, disappointing finish
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Everyone should read this
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Just awesome is all...
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