Re: Whitehead on Deduction (fwd)

["Alan G. Isaac" <aisaac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"John M. Legge" wrote:

> I am not aware of any
> non-crank who disputes the genetic basis of biological evolution.

Hi John,

It all depends on the parsing of `genetic basis'.
See e.g. Gould's work.
(I'm assuming you grant him non-crank status.)
Also the discussions of that work by, e.g., Dennett.

Can the gene be the unit of selection?
(Sometimes this is taken to be the selfish gene hypothesis.)
Probably not.
See Mayr's _One Long Argument_.
That does not vitiate the core insights of selfish-gene
thinking, however.

But what is the relevance to pkt?
Are evolutionary metaphors of any use in
understanding, e.g., changes in economic
institutions? If so, does that lead us toward
some kind of Austrian optimism about the
functioning of certain kinds of institutions?
I say yes and no, respectively, to these
questions, but the answers are not obvious.
I think PK economics can profit from the
research on evolutionary economics, but
so far it is a pretty vague thought.
(As an example of something I liked,
see Vega-Redondo's 1997 Econometrica
article on the evolution of Walrasian behavior.
I also like the work on ``zero
intelligence'' agents---e.g., Gode and Sunders's
1993 JPE article.)

Cheers,
Alan