When ideas have sex

At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It’s not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.

2 Comments leave a comment below

  1. There was an article in New Scientist, last year, about how technology doesn’t go through the same parent-child heredity that living things do. Instead, each idea is mishmashed with others, and that creates new types of technology that can be combined to form the newest tech in a long spiral of ingenuity.

    It’s no surprise that our rate of invention is accelerating so rapidly.

  2. After watching this video, I am grinning from ear to ear. Our rate of innovation has never captured my attention, I just expect it to keep going forward. Taking a look at this furthered my understanding of it . . . this is going to be a great decade.