Darwin's Conjecture

The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic Evolution

Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Thorbjørn Knudsen

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780226005782, 9780226346908
• eBook ISBN: 9780226346922
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Of paramount importance to the natural sciences, the principles of Darwinism, which involve variation, inheritance, and selection, are increasingly of interest to social scientists as well. But no one has provided a truly rigorous account of how the principles apply to the evolution of human society—until now.

In Darwin's Conjecture, Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen reveal how the British naturalist's core concepts apply to a wide range of phenomena, including business practices, legal systems, technology, and even science itself. They also critique some prominent objections to applying Darwin to social science, arguing that ultimately Darwinism functions as a general theoretical framework for stimulating further inquiry. Social scientists who adopt a Darwinian approach, they contend, can then use it to frame and help develop new explanatory theories and predictive models.

This truly pathbreaking workat long last makes the powerful conceptual tools of Darwin available to the social sciences and will be welcomed by scholars and students from a range of disciplines.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: The Challenge of Darwinism for the Social Sciences
• 2. Generalizing Darwinism
• 3. Rivals and Rebuttals
• 4. The Lamarckian Confusion
• 5. The Principle of Selection and Its Application to Social Evolution
• 6. Information, Complexity, and Generative Replication
• 7. From Group Selection to Organizational Interactors
• 8. Major Information Transitions in Social Evolution
• 9. Conclusions and Agenda for Future Research
• Glossary
• References
• Index