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Jonathan is working on an exciting new book about the evolution of ideas, which was published on the 9th of August this year!

On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves)

Why do some ideas spread, while others die-off? Does human culture have its very own “survival of the fittest”? And if so, does that explain why our species is so different from the rest of life on Earth? In this droll journey through the American West, Jonnie Hughes finds out by adopting the role of a cultural Charles Darwin. In place of the Galapagos Archipelago, Hughes visits the “mind-islands” of Native American tribes. Instead of finches, he searches for signs of natural selection among the tepees, and in doing so reveals a new way of viewing our world.In the Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins established not only that genes tricked us into helping them reproduce, but that ideas could do the same thing. In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett suggested that the selfishness of our culture may explain how and why human beings evolved. Now, a delightfully unpretentious science writer and TV producer, Jonnie Hughes, has decided to test these wild notions in an eminently approachable way. Following Darwin’s lead, he ventures out to observe, first hand, the natural history of ideas – the laws of variation, inheritance and selection operating within the cultural landscape. The choice of sandwiches in a mall, the shape of cowboy hats, the evolution of barn roofs, the wording of jokes, and, of course, the differences between the tepees of different tribes, all provide insights into the ways in which cultural evolution takes place.

With a knack for finding the humor in the quirks of the American landscape, Hughes takes us on a Bill Bryson like tour of the Midwest—from the Mall of America in Minneapolis to what he calls the maul of America, Custer’s last stand, stopping at roadsides, discoursing on the evolution of a myriad beloved American cultural institutions. He’s a wonderfully funny stranger in a strange land, but he always uses his observations to explain this grand idea—that we may not be as in charge of our cultural evolution as we think.

Jonnie Hughes is a science writer and filmmaker with over twelve years experience in communicating science to a broader public on radio, television, and in print. He is a regular contributor to Geographic Magazine, BBC Wildlife Magazine, The Guardian, and The Times, and his films have won him a BBC Radio One Award for factual radio and an American Genesis Award for Best Popular Television Documentary. He lives in the South West of England.