Darwinian evolutionary theory and the social sciences

Laws in Darwinian Evolutionary Theory

In the present article the recent works to formulate laws in Darwinian evolutionary dynamics are discussed. Although there is a strong consensus that general laws in biology may exist, opinions opposing such suggestion are abundant. Based on recent progress in both mathematics and biology, another attempt to address this issue is made in the present article. Specifically, three laws which form ...

Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences

The Darwinian Destiny of An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

The three core Darwinian principles of variety, inheritance and selection are found in Nelson and Winter’s Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982). Is the application of these core Darwinian principles purely analogical, or does it also relate to ontological communalities between social and biological evolution? Why do Nelson and Winter describe their theory as “Lamarckian” despite this s...

Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences

approaches are now being connected to the real data flows of contemporary urban governance. This chapter is where the determination of robust chaotic processes begins to seem a real possibility.

Systems Theory, Knowledge, and the Social Sciences

It is not too much of an overstatement, I think, to suggest that systems theory has not lived up to the great promise it has long been supposed to hold for the social sciences. Considering the magnitude of the claims, of course, disappointment was probably inevitable. Systems theory has been hailed by some as a way of unifying the methodology of all sciences. Others have intimated that this app...