Evolution has halted, leading geneticist Professor Steve Jones of University College London announced on Tuesday, to general sounds of disappointment from the rest of humanity.
Apparently, we’re about as evolved as we are ever likely to be. As The Guardian’s Tim Dowling put it – 'no wings, no scissorhands, no third hypno-eye'. It’s all a little bit sad.
Anyway, while Professor Jones is probably correct, there is, of course, a chance he might not be. Experts have a long history of being brilliantly wrong. Think back to the story of the Sinclair C5, the much-hyped electric car which fizzled out in 1985.
Economically, it’s similar. Go back, oh, about 14 months, and consider the economic climate back then: house prices were on their way up, inflation was on its way down, and experts were convinced we’d done away with the boom and bust economy. Financial evolution had, essentially, halted.
But how wrong they were. The economy has come on the brink of collapsing in a spectacular hail of wrongness: House prices are plummeting, inflation is practically exploding, and businesses owners everywhere are sitting, shaking their heads, asking how experts could be so fantastically wrong.
The economy will have to evolve, and with it, businesses. In a speech last Tuesday, Intel chairman Dr Craig Barrett said it is up to businesses to use the recession to evolve. “Businesses never save their way out of a recession,” he said. “You invest your way out.”
It’s up to businesses now to invest, and evolve, their way out of one of the worst financial crises in recent times. And in the end, only the strongest will survive.
