In the 1870s, there are 23 people in that decade alone who deserve independent credit for coming up with the idea of the incandescent light bulb. There's a sort of complete dispensability of scientists and inventors that really surprises me when you think about it. So I'm very much coming down on the anti-great man theory side of history.
Matt Ridley talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his latest book, The Evolution of Everything. Ridley applies the lens of emergent order to a wide variety of phenomena including culture, morality, religion, commerce, innovation, and consciousness.