Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

In developing his theory of evolution, Darwin was inspired by two very different fields—geology and economics. In Principles of Geology, Charles Lyell argued in the 1830s that mountains, rivers, and canyons had been formed through a slow, evolutionary process that took place over eons as erosion, wind, and rain chipped away at the Earth. Lyell’s theory bucked conventional wisdom, which attributed these geological features solely to catastrophic or supernatural events like Noah’s flood.66 Darwin read Lyell’s book while sailing on the Beagle and applied the geological idea to biology. As rocket scientist David Murray explains, Darwin argued that organic material “evolves just as inorganic material does: with minute changes in each descendant that, over time, accumulate to form new biological appendages like eyes, hands, or wings.”67 Darwin also drew inspiration from the late-eighteenth-century economist Thomas Malthus. Malthus argued that humans tend to outgrow resources like food, creating a competition for survival. This competition, Darwin believed, drove the evolutionary process, leading the species best adapted to their environment to survive.