Evolutionary Economics as the Core of the Evolutionary Social Sciences

Klaus Solberg Söilen ()
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Klaus Solberg Söilen: Halmstad University

Chapter 10 in Applied Evolutionary Economics, 2025, pp 129-141 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter argues that evolutionary economics is best understood not as a niche subfield, but as the conceptual and methodological foundation for a broader paradigm: the Evolutionary Social Sciences. It highlights how core research principles—adaptation, variation, selection, and feedback—are shared across disciplines such as sociology, psychology, political science, anthropology, and economics, despite surface-level differences in language and method. The chapter critiques the increasing specialization and fragmentation of the social sciences, tracing it to a misplaced imitation of the natural sciences. It warns that this trend not only undermines explanatory power but also risks making the disciplines socially irrelevant. Using the three-layer framework introduced earlier in the book, the chapter shows how shared behavioral assumptions (Layer 1), integrative methods (Layer 2), and common mechanisms of change (Layer 3) can reconnect disciplines around a scientifically grounded understanding of real-world dynamics. It calls for a reinvention of social science on evolutionary terms—interdisciplinary, empirical, and fit for the complexity of the twenty-first-century challenges.

Keywords: Evolutionary social sciences; Adaptation; Coevolution; Research methodology; Institutional change; Behavioral foundations; Interdisciplinarity; Complexity; Systems thinking; Academic silos (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-03683-4_10

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