I don't agree, but that is OK too.

Certainly labels have meaning, but there is usually content in a labeled set that is subject to more than one classification. Breaking the content out into a finer granularity can reveal information.

Jan

Labels have meaning like socialism, irrationalism, genetics, etc. Okay you do not care that it is an offshoot of Hayek.

In very rare instances there are so-called simultaneous inventions. But in most cases these so-called simultaneous inventions show a complete lack of understanding of the technical aspects of the inventions. For instance, there are a number of nonsensical statements that there were multiple simultaneous inventors of the airplane. The Wright brothers were the first to create control surfaces for heavy than air vehicles. There were no simultaneous inventions.

Ridley does not describe reality. If Ridley was right then inventions would be spread uniformly throughout the world. If Ridley was right then wiccans would be as like to invent an MRI as those trained in engineering and science. Ridley is a fraud and a liar.

Thank you for continuing to disagree with me on this point, and for providing the above links to your comments on Ridley's books/articles. (I will reread your commentary again later, when I can muse on it a bit more.) You have brought into focus a philosophical issue that I have been toying with in my own mind.

It is clear to me now that I do not put much weight in labels and that saying 'so-and-so' is a '[label]' is not meaningful to me. So I do not care if Ridley's ideas are offshoots of Hayek; all I care about is if Ridley is correct about a cascade of inventions resulting from a technological threshold. It does not even matter to me much if I 'like' the conclusion (I am emotionally fond of the heroic inventor). All that matters to me is if he accurately portrays an aspect of reality - and I think he does. I have looked up shared Nobel prizes and simultaneous inventions and I think that, while the heroic inventor exists, there is definitely a tech-threshold to take into account with respect to most inventions.

I am in favor of an inventor having ownership of his invention, but I am not in favor of that ownership being unilateral if it excludes someone who independently developed the same thing at about the same time. (This language is very vague, I realize - what is 'about the same time', for example.) This situation actually exists in countries other than the US.

Jan

A very disappointing article. Please see my comment at the end of the source article.

You can disagree all you want - he clearly has lied. Facts are Facts. I pointed them out in my article

He has explicitly stated that all scientists and engineers are frauds when get patents or are awarded Nobel prizes. There is nothing to disagree with..

His ideas are offshoots of Hayek - that is just straight forward logic.

I disagree: I find his articles like a breath of fresh reason in the appalling news and editorials of our day.

Jan

Ridley is a fraud, see http://hallingblog.com/2010/07/22/the... and http://hallingblog.com/2015/12/01/lib...

Ridely has not only lied about basic facts he has stolen his basic ideas from Hayek without giving him credit to my knowledge. He does not explain or have an analogy for "genetic changes" He certainly does not think it is inventions - he does not make the connection between genetic changes and inventions.. He thinks all scientists and inventors are frauds.

Ultimately Ridley is one of those collectivist libertarian/Austrians who reject reason.

I was hoping that you would find some synergistic hooks in Ridley's work, since the idea that 'survival of the fittest' in biology is only a small subset of a broader physical principle of massive innovation and subsequent depletion, with just the most fit elements surviving, seemed to be something that would be consonant with what you are saying.

I was thinking about this a bit last night (one of those imaginary conversations) and realized that, in addition to genetics, my real world experience with business, with management within a business, and with my knowledge of how the immune system works all fits this model of 'many innovations' -> 'few surviving elements'.

I agree with your last statement, though I would probably phrase it in the opposite sequence.

Jan

At Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble (online).

Here is the link on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Source-Economic...

You might be interested, one writer to a much better writer...I've invented another word for intellectual...(which is more compartmentalized) instead, I've been using: intralectual (which would mean a more integrated form of intelect)

I understand the use of creationism but in relation to however we came to be...it was intentional that we have ethics, the ability to be rational and innovate is built into our DNA.
The consequences of how everything came to be gave us that information and that ability in every cell in our bodies and brains. The connection to the mind came much later and it was integral in the industrial revolution.

Great article.
The left will never accept capitalism on any terms...not even your/Rand brilliantly relating it to nature...the left is anti-nature, anti life, anti reality.

Now I understand the confusion I caused when interjecting "Ethics" into a discussion of new technologies. Objectivist have a different understanding of that relationship.

I apologize for the need to remind me. Well done.

If it's ready, where can I get it?

On that point, it also disproves multiculturalism. If there is ONE (or a very small finite number, like 2 or 3, not 10 or 20) of successful options, then one MUST choose wisely, or expect to go off a cliff.

Hear hear

Well done. Interesting and very informative analysis. It is consistent with my contention that while money is an invention the principals of economics are discoveries. They are as fundamental as the scientific discoveries of thermodynamics and Newtonian dynamics. Ignoring them is as dangerous as stepping off the roof of a twenty story building because you don't think the law of gravity applies to you.

Jan,

Matt Ridley is pushing a version of Hayek's cultural revolution. This is not the same thing at all. Ridely does not think any one person accomplishes anything, it is all a collective effort. Like Hayek he does not think reason is efficacious and he thinks trade not invention is the key to human progress.

Other species do not generally change their environment. They have one tool in their tool box. That is not the same thing as humans do.

All successful genetic changes increase the population for a while. That is what happened in the agricultural revolution.

Thanks for the input

db
I appreciate your work and goal but need to point out some tidying up on your footnotes.
1. DNA does not determine what a cell does or how to do it. And Rand is not a source. Cells are not goal orientated. Just balance concentrations and do their thermodynamics . DNA codes for production of proteins based on information from the cell. The cellular processes allocate them. A classic example is a study showing a video of a cell forcing its way through intercellular space so narrow it leaves its nucleus with the DNA behind while it keeps on trucking.
3. You miss quote the article. Its vertebrates not mammals and the paper is about the scaling law of neuron density and how humans fit the law. The paper doesn't mention an important fact that hominid pelvic size openings control skull size. Brain density then has to make up for constrained volume. SO our high density of neurons makes us use more energy but its the price we pay for knowledge. Remember the human brain was intact long before speech.
Keep up the good work.

Well done sir. And fine thinking besides. Thank you.

Good article, db. I would like to contribute a few comments on some of your points, so that you may consider questions that could come up as part of a presentation.

1. Dobrien is correct about the Easter Island example, and since this has been in the news recently, this may no longer want to be the example you wish to use.
2. Much was made (when I was a child) about the 'man does not evolve because he changes his environment' assertion. To the best of my knowledge, this is incorrect. The small genetic scope of the current human population is entirely due to the bottleneck we went through about 20-40K years ago - humans are currently mutating at the same or higher rate than other species (higher because of population density - whole discussion in itself).
3. Matt Ridley is among those who feel that biological evolution is just a 'case' in the general 'evolution of things' and that a pattern of innovation-and-subsequent-reduction is the rule rather than the exception in the physical world. This is a fascinating idea which other bright people have developed and which is very worth mentioning. 'Natural selection' also takes place amongst inventions/innovations, for example.
4. Other species, such as beavers, also change their environment to increase the available niches for their species. This is not unique to humans; humans are just very good at it.
5. Agriculture and dairy products could both be argued to have 'escaped the Malthusian trap' because they significantly increase the number of humans per unit area - for a time. What really does the trick, though, is to decrease the death rate of children and babies. When this happens, the birth rate spontaneously dives and humans are no longer out-reproducing their environment. (Singapore has a below-replacement birth rate; they are offering tax incentives for couples to have two or more children because their birth rate is so low.) So theoretically our species could have lowered the birth rate at the Secondary Animal Products point and still been at a Neolithic level of development. It was because we did not have the medical knowledge (the tech is really pretty basic) to do so that kept the birth rate high and forced us to innovate.

I very much liked your points about the (non) volition of plants, the fixed/marginal cost of a brain, and the non-sustainability of sustainability. Very nicely done.

Thank you for presenting this article to us.

Jan

Yes, it is sort of the second half of my book Source of Economic Growth, explained in a slightly different manner. The first half of the book is a history of economic thought on the Source of Economic Growth and my answer to that question.

Yes I felt a little uncomfortable looking for examples. I think the Dark Ages is the best example. However there are always some extenuating circumstances, such as changes in the climate (Greenland Norse). Hopefully with this information some anthropologist can find better examples.

I certainly agree .I just wanted to clarify the discussion about the Rapa Nui. They have been much subject of many false claims as referenced above in addition to to false charge of canibalism.They were devastated by disease and then to basically finished off by slave raiders from South America.
Keep the technology advancing, with 7 to 8 million added to the world population every month we will be needing the innovations.Go farmers, go fertilizer, go irrigation, go innovators,go rain ,go sun you all rock.