Mark Vellend on Everything Evolves

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast | 27 September 2025 | 1h 05m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify

Interview with Mark Vellend about his book Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More Than We Think, from Proteins to Politics. Describes how all observable phenomena in the universe can be understood through two sciences: the first is physics; the second is the science of evolvable systems. Discusses how this Second Science unifies biology and culture and how evolution gives rise to everything from viruses and giraffes to nation-states, technology, and us. Discusses how the idea of evolution had precedents in areas such as language and economics long before it was made famous by Darwin, and how only by freeing ourselves of the notion that the study of evolution must start with biology can we appreciate the true breadth of evolutionary processes.