A Bird's Nest Is an Expression of Instinct

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Every bird around the world, of a particular species, makes a certain kind of nest. They've innovated this technique for incubating their eggs. And how on earth do you set up a brain to do that? By the way, does that explain why we human beings had million years of technology before we had anything that seems to resemble innovation? We had these stone tools that did not show any sign of changing for thousands of generations. An so maybe they were expressions of instinct, in the same way that a a bird's nest is an expression of its instinct.

What's the difference between invention and innovation? Could it be that innovation--the process of making a breakthrough invention available, affordable, and reliable--is actually the hard part? In this week's EconTalk episode, author Matt Ridley talks about his book How Innovation Works with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Ridley argues that we give too much credit to inventors and not enough to innovators--those who refine and improve an invention to make it valuable to users. Along the way, he emphasizes the power of trial and error and the importance of permissionless innovation.