The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge

by Matt Ridley

Consider what must happen every second in your body to keep the show on the road. You have maybe ten trillion cells, not counting the bacteria that make up a large part of your body. Each of those cells is at any one time transcribing several thousand genes, a procedure that involves several hundred proteins coming together in a specific way and catalysing tens of chemical reactions for each of millions of base pairs. Each of those transcripts generates a protein molecule, thousands of amino acids long, which it does by entering a ribosome, a machine with tens of moving parts, capable of catalysing a flurry of chemical reactions. The proteins themselves then fan out within and without cells to speed reactions, transport goods, transmit signals and prop up structures. Millions of trillions of these immensely complicated events are occurring every second in your body to keep you alive, very few of which go wrong. It’s like the world economy in miniature, only even more complex.