Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright

As time has gone by, the “angry man” has been able to commit bigger and bigger destruction on mankind. This has also been true for individuals like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Increasingly, we have had a bigger dislike for these people, just as we have for modern terrorists.

The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy (disorder) always increases. So when order seems to arise out of nothing, such as life, it’s at the expense of disorder somewhere else. As we use ordered things like food, we turn them in to disorder as human waste. As we use structured energy to create structured matter, the energy loses much of its structure. Information is what allows life to defy the spirt, though not the letter, of the second law of thermodynamics.

While natural selection seems to be solely based on zero-sum competition, it’s clear that without a lot of non-zero-sum cooperation, biology would never have given us the evolution we have. It may have started with multiple genes sharing a chromosome that successfully reproduced. Then came free-living mitochondria joining nucleated cells to provide energy. We also see bats that provide blood to bat friends who had a bloodless night. It’s clear that without a lot of non-zero-sum behavior, biological evolution wouldn’t look like it does today.

Robert uses the fact that things like eyes and other sensory organs have been invented multiple times as part of biological evolution to support the idea that biological evolution is driven towards more complex organisms. While others see evolution as a series of random acts, it’s the process of natural selection that makes those random acts seem less random. The drive toward complexity is mirrored by the fact that chiefdoms and civilizations were also invented multiple times.

Culture is the transmission of information from one individual to another by non-genetic means. There are two ways this happens. The first is learning by imitation. The second is active teaching. The basic equipment needed for a species to hop on the co-evolutionary escalator are learning either by imitation or being taught, the use of tools, grasping abilities (opposable thumbs), symbolic communication (language), and a rich social existence featuring hierarchy and reciprocal altruism. Humans certainly have won this game of BINGO, but if we hadn’t, Robert thinks that another species would do so in time.

The big question here is: do biological and cultural evolution have a purpose. Are humans a single organism or are we one big brain like the ants in a colony often appear to be?

Robert can’t see were God fits into the picture he has painted here, however, he does see more evidence for divinity than one might expect. The big question that most people have difficulty with when it comes to God is: if God is all powerful, loving, and kind, why do so many bad things happen to good people. The evolutionary trend has been towards more complexity and altruism, but we still have the capability to destroy ourselves. (Doug: When science explains everything it can, everything else must be taken as a matter of faith.)

Robert is the author of Three Scientists and Their Gods and The Moral Animal, which was named by The New York Times Book Review as one of the twelve best books of the year. He is a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism. He has published in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Time and Slate. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and two daughters. His website bloggingheads.tv contains a lot of free information.You can subscribe to his paid work by clicking here. Follow him on twitter @NonzeroPods.