The evolution of everything

Science journalist Matt Ridley has just written a fascinating book entitled "The evolution of everything". This illuminating book addresses how everything in our world from genetic life to money, government and technology have evolved slowly over time, rather than having being created or designed. Ridley's style of writing is lucid and engaging and the book grabs the reader's attention right from the first page. The principal message of the book is the fact that many people still have a creationist mindset in regard to many different phenomena in our world. That is to say, many people think that things like culture, industry and education have been purposely designed in their present-form from the top-down, rather than have slowly arisen from the bottom-up. Nothing we observe has been intentionally designed to look the way it does. Instead, just has life has slowly emerged over millions of years via natural selection, everything else has likewise developed over long periods of time via a process of trial and error. The implications of this are profound. Ridley argues that people need to abandon the pseudoscientific creationist/design mentality and embrace the scientific evolutionary mindset. This is especially poignant in regard to the internet.
The internet has no centre and no hierarchy. There is no authority to whom everybody is answerable within the digital space. Rather, the internet is the result of a lengthy process of collaboration amongst millions of independent individuals globally. This is particularly visible in regard to the likes of crowd-sourcing and Wikipedia. Another spectacular example is Bitcoin. Blockchain technology is about to revolutionize the world, particularly the financial services. It would be foolish to assert that Bitcoin is the end-result of the internet. Rather, it is the beginning of something enormous. Ultimately, Blockchain technology could radically decentralize financial institutions and even governments, possibly even making banks and companies obsolete. What Bitcoin does very effectively, as many other digital technologies do, is render the middlemen obsolete. This has huge implications for the future of our planet, whatever profession we choose to pursue. "The evolution of everything" is a must read for anyone interested in gaining an insight in what the digital future holds.