Abstract
I thank Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen for their thought-provoking response to my latest generalization of Darwinism, and welcome their proposal to cooperate, after many years of our independent searches. I agree with them that our searches contain more similarities than both they and I had previously seen, but consider our remaining differences—especially in the terms employed and in the definitions of the terms we both employ, including “information,” “instructions,” “programs,” and “Lamarckism”—more important than they do. Their response also exaggerates or distorts some of my arguments. All this needs to be clarified before our cooperation can start.
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Notes
H&K themselves admit, in the conclusion of their reply, that their GD needs some not yet built middle-range theory to show its relevance and utility. So, as long as such a theory is not built, the anti-GD argument by Levit et al. (2011), which strives to show that no generalization of Darwinism can be of any use to any evolutionary economists, cannot be easily dismissed. Yet the argument is in fact weak, as it only applies to the particular generalization of Darwinism by H&K, and not necessarily to others, especially not, I dare to claim, to mine. The notions of “agents” and “instructions,” on which my evo-devo GD is built, have clear economic interpretations, and, as noted, the entire building proceeds from concrete economics problems “bottom-up.” In addition, this GD is also clearly connected to several established economic fields, to which it offers new interesting ways of communicating with each other (cf. Pelikan 2011: 363–364). I am only puzzled why Levit et al. have ignored it: did not have access to it in time, or did they avoid it on purpose, not to have to admit that their anti-GD argument does not work against it?
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Pelikan, P. Agreeing on generalized Darwinism: a response to Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen. J Evol Econ 22, 1–8 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-011-0260-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-011-0260-2