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Generalized Darwinism and Evolutionary Economics: From Ontology to Theory

  • Thematic Issue Article: How Evolutionary is Evolutionary Economics?
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Abstract

Despite growing interest in evolutionary economics since the 1980s, a unified theoretical approach has so far been lacking. Methodological and ontological discussions within evolutionary economics have attempted to understand and help rectify this failure, but have revealed in turn further differences of perspective. One aim of this article is to show how different approaches relate to different levels of abstraction. A second purpose is to show that generalized Darwinism is some way from the most abstract level, and illustrates how it may be used to move towards more specific theoretical applications. Nevertheless, there is a long way to go before these become more evident.

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Notes

  1. This essay makes use of some material from Hodgson and Knudsen (2010a, b).

  2. At an even higher level of abstraction, evolutionary approaches become indistinguishable–they can be described as processes of adaptive change involving systematic change in the distribution of some population property.

  3. Witt (2004, p. 131) also stresses the “continuity hypothesis” according to which natural evolution has “shaped the ground, and still defines the constraints, for man-made, or cultural, evolution.” But this leaves open the question of how severe those constraints are. In such general terms it would find few critics.

  4. At higher levels of abstraction our account has parallels with that of Godfrey-Smith (2009). But our purposes are slightly different. While Godfrey-Smith is concerned with the highest level of abstraction in population systems, we are also concerned (see below) with particular mechanisms, which are not strictly universal, concerning how complexity is generated in these systems.

  5. Information here is defined very broadly, in the Shannon–Weaver sense of conditional dispositions or coding that can be transmitted to other entities and cause a response. That is, the transmission of information can be analyzed as an instance of general probability theory (Khinchin 1957).

  6. The gene was elusive to Darwin, but he anticipated its function. Throughout Origin and other writings, Darwin describes how inherited modifications are preserved in “instincts” and “germ cells.” “Germ” is mentioned in Darwin’s Notebook B and E, and instincts are mentioned in almost all his notebooks. In his theory of “pangenesis,” Darwin (1868) conjectured that information is preserved and inherited via “gemmules” given off by cells in the bloodstream.

  7. The genotype–phenotype terminology was introduced in 1911 by the Danish biologist Wilhelm Johannsen. He also coined the term “gene” in 1909, intending it to serve the same purpose as Darwin’s “pangen” (Keller and Lloyd 1992).

  8. The problems concerning its biological application are sufficiently severe to lead a minority of philosophers of biology to drop these concepts (Griesemer 1994, 1999; Griffiths and Gray 1994, 1997; Wimsatt 1999). We criticize some of their arguments in Hodgson and Knudsen (2010a, b).

  9. Nelson and Nelson (2003, p. 1646) and Nelson (2007) have expressed doubts regarding the replicator-interactor distinction in the social domain. Previously, by contrast, Nelson and Winter (1982, pp. 134–136, 160–161) described organizational routines as genes. Dosi and Nelson (1994, p. 155) foreshadowed the development of generalized Darwinism and identified four principal building blocks of any evolutionary theory: “(i) a fundamental unit of selection (the genes); (ii) a mechanism linking the genotypic level with the entities (the phenotypes) which actually undergo environmental selection, (iii) some processes of interaction, yielding the selection dynamics; and, finally, (iv) some mechanisms generating variations in the population.”

  10. See Morison (1966, pp. 17–44) for a striking illustration of routines in a military context.

  11. Like “routine” and “habit,” “custom” suffers from some ambiguity in general parlance, referring both to the observed behaviors and to the dispositions that give rise to such behaviors. If custom were behavior then the characteristic would logically disappear when the behavior ceased. Yet just as we retain habits, and organizations retain routines, then groups retain customs, even when they are not exercised: they do not have to be re-created anew after every period of inactivity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Business School, University of Hertfordshire, De Havilland Campus, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK

    Geoffrey M. Hodgson

  2. Strategic Organization Design Unit (SOD), Department of Marketing & Management, University of Southern Denmark, Odense Campus, Odense, Denmark

    Thorbjørn Knudsen

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  1. Geoffrey M. Hodgson
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  2. Thorbjørn Knudsen
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Correspondence to Geoffrey M. Hodgson.

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Hodgson, G.M., Knudsen, T. Generalized Darwinism and Evolutionary Economics: From Ontology to Theory. Biol Theory 6, 326–337 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-012-0043-5

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