You need to understand how human beings bring together their brains and enable their ideas to combine and recombine, to meet and, indeed, to mate. In other words, you need to understand how ideas have sex.

Source: "When Ideas Have Sex." TEDGlobal 2010. Jul. 2010. Conference Presentation. Additional Information: This quote is from "Rational Optimist" Matt Ridley's 2010 TED Talk about how human beings communicate and combine their intelligence to form good ideas. In his Talk, Ridley asks, "How did we become the only species that becomes more prosperous as it becomes more populous?" Ridley says you need to understand "how ideas have sex" in order to answer this question. Watch the full TED Talk here: Matt Ridley - When Ideas Have Sex

“When Ideas Have Sex.” TEDGlobal 2010. Jul. 2010. Conference Presentation.