Can Darwinism Be "Generalized" and of What Use Would This Be?

Georgy S. Levit, Uwe Hossfeld and Ulrich Witt

Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography

Abstract: It has been suggested that, by generalizing Darwinian principles, a common foundation can be derived for all scientific disciplines dealing with evolutionary processes, especially for evolutionary economics. In this paper we show, however, that the principles of such a "Generalized Darwinism" are not those that in the development of evolutionary biology have been crucial for distinguishing Darwinian from non-Darwinian approaches and, hence, cannot be considered genuinely Darwinian. Moreover, we wonder how "Generalized Darwinism" can be made fruitful for evolutionary economics given that its principles are but an abstract hull that does not suffice to explain actual evolutionary processes in the economy. To that end specific hypotheses are required which neither follow from, nor are necessarily compatible with, the suggested abstract principles. Accordingly, we find little evidence in the literature for the claim that Generalized Darwinism can enhance the explanatory power of an evolutionary approach to economics.

Keywords: Darwinism; evolution; evolutionary economics; Generalized Darwinism; variation; selection; retention Length 17 pages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B25 B40 B52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Can Darwinism be “Generalized” and of what use would this be? (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esi:evopap:2010-07

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography Deutschhausstrasse 10, 35032 Marburg. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christoph Mengs ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).