Michael Shermer: Evolutionary Economics and the Google Theory of Peace
The author of the new book The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics talks about Darwin, free markets, his "Google theory of peace"--and why it's tough to covince conservatives about evolution and left-wingers about capitalism.
Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, a columnist for Scientific American, and most recently the author of The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics.
Shermer's new book–which The Washington Post says "has earned the right to our attention"–seeks to explain "how evolution shaped the modern economy and why people are so irrational about money."
Shermer, who lives and works in Southern California and is the author of previous books such as Why Darwin Matters and The Borderlands of Science, sat down with reason.tv to talk about the intersection between evolution and capitalism, trust in a globalized world, his "Google theory of peace," and his ideological journey toward libertarianism.
And why it's extremely tough to convince left-wingers who believe in evolution that capitalism is a good thing and conservatives who believe in free markets that evolution is real.
Discuss this story online at reason's Hit & Run blog.