Matt Ridley: Evolution

Matt Ridley is economist. Explore interesting quotes on evolution.

Matt Ridley: 130 quotes0 likes

“Evolution does not lead to Utopia. It leads to a land in which what is best for a man may be worst for another man, or what is best for a woman may be worst for a man.”

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 6

“He (Thomas Ray) had discovered that the notion of a host-parasite arms race is one of the most basic and unavoidable consequences of evolution.”

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 3

“…then the study of human nature must have profound implications for the study of history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and politics. Each of those disciplines is an attempt to understand human behaviour, and if the underlying universals of human behaviour are product of evolution, then it is vitally important to understand what the evolutionary pressures were.”

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 1. Human Nature

“In history, and in evolution, progress is always a futile, Sisyphean struggle to stay in the same relative place by getting ever better at things. Cars move through the congested streets of London no faster than horse-drawn carriages.”

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 1. Human Nature

“Evolution is more about reproduction of the fittest than survival of the fittest; every creature on earth is the product of a series of historical battles between parasites and hosts, between genes and other genes, between members of the same species, between members of one gender in competitions for members of the other gender.”

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 5

“If you still thought evolution was about the good of the species, stop thinking so right now.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter X and Y “Conflict” (p. 113)

“Human beings are of course unique. They have, perched between their ears, the most complicated biological machine on the planet. But complexity is not everything, and it is not the goal of evolution. Every species on the planet is unique. Uniqueness is a commodity in oversupply.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 2 “Species” (p. 25)

“The pope notwithstanding, the human species is by no means the pinnacle of evolution. Evolution has no pinnacle and there is no such thing as evolutionary progress.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 2 “Species” (p. 24)