David Sloan Wilson

Evolution as a General Theoretical Framework for Economics and Public Policy

January 28, 2012

Academic Building A G008, 5:00 PM

Abstract

Economic and evolutionary thinking have been entwined throughout their histories, but evolutionary theory does not function as a general theoretical framework for economics and public policy, as it does for the biological sciences. In this lead article for a special issue of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, we first describe how evolution functions as a general theoretical framework in the biological sciences. Then we consider four reasons why evolution might not need to be consulted for human-related subjects such as economics and public policy. We conclude that these reasons can be valid in particular cases, but they fail for any sizeable human-related subject area. Hence evolution can and should become a general theoretical framework for economics and public policy. The other articles in the special issue help to substantiate this claim.

 

Biography

David Sloan Wilson uses evolutionary theory to explain all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, as he recounts for a general audience in Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin´s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives(Bantam 2007). He is a distinguished professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York. He publishes in anthropology, psychology, and philosophy journals in addition to his mainstream biological research. His academic books include 
Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (with Elliott Sober, Harvard 1998), Darwin´s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society(Chicago, 2002), and The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (co-edited with Jonathan Gottschall, Northwestern 2005). Wilson also directs EvoS, a campus-wide program that uses evolutionary theory as a common language for the unification of knowledge.