I personally find it interesting when an Austrian economist rejects evolution claiming that natural self-organization is preposterous (I’m not claiming you’re doing this; I only quoted you because your post is the inspiration for this one). To me the two disciplines, while describing very different things, have a whole lot in common. And the more I learn about nature and how everything in it fits together, the more I find it hard to believe that it’s all the brainchild of some central planner in the sky. To me, intelligent design is preposterous for many of the same reasons as is the notion, implicit in statism, that civilization was built by central planners.
I agree and I also find it ironic that certain people (won’t mention names) affiliated with Austrian economics try to discredit sciences such as Evolutionary psychology, when it was actually statists and Marxists who were its biggest intellectual enemies. Evolutionary psychology has actually helped to refute theories of social corporation based on altruism, and it has reinforced a human nature that is based on the self-interest and voluntary corporation that is the basis for any market economy.
Does that include the origin of life debate? Because I find myself undecided on that issue. Certainly evolution and random selection exist and are active forces.
Believe it or not, it never was a conflict. The Roman Catholic Church has never had an official position on evolution, nor has it ever taught young earth creationism. Now the Church adheres somewhat (inconsistently) to a Creator-driven evolution while calling mankind a ‘special’ creation, while obviously rejecting atheistic evolution.
The origin of life is a form of evolution itself. And before that you have the evolution of planetary bodies and matter. All are forms of change but on different scales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_formation_and_evolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution
Scholar’s Curse: once you’ve mastered a specific field of study, you’re deluded into thinking you’ve mastered them all.
Praxeology is not even about man. It could be about robots or aliens or dolphins. It is only about actors, not biological man.
Praxeology revolves around teleological beings.
- Merlin writes “as far as I know the theist position is that, according to the Old Testament, God made people some 10’000 years ago, and nothing before existed. I find that view hard to reconcile with…anything I know. A theist accepting evolution as a process, albeit a designed process, would be seriously deviating form holy writ.”
This is misleading. The Bible is not considered by Christians as a literal account. Moreover this is not revisionism (The Bible was never considered to be a literal account by Christians). This point is made in a good documentary called Did Darwin Kill God? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so04TV09SKE). Fundamentalist Christians, who consider the world to be a few thousands years old, thus ruling out evolution, are seriously deviating from Christian teachings. There may be good biological reasons to be sceptical of some claims made by biologists, but no such reasons come from Christianity.
- Merlin writes: “I’d find the intellectual capabilities of a guy who rejects evolution seriously wanting.”
Most people would agree with you. I basically agree with you, but would prefer to clarify the position. I don’t know enough about evolutionary biology to really hold a position. Accordingly I question the intellectual capabilities of others who are similarly ignorant of biology yet challenge the established position. I suspect this is a reasonable position and most people would agree with it. I just think this is interesting to juxtapose this what with the widely held position: “I’d find the intellectual capabilities of a guy who rejects global warming seriously wanting.” Food for thought.
- Focusing on the initial topic: It is important to note at the outset that evolution and Darwinism have nothing to do with biology. Evolution just requires a couple of conditions: I think variation, mutation, selection and replication (there’s a good quote on this in a Geoffrey Hodgson paper, but I can’t remember it). Darwin applied evolutionary thinking to biology, but he borrowed from others who applied it to society and economy first. The general principle tends to be known as Universal Darwinism. It coheres quite nicely with Austrian economics. Consider Menger on money, Hayek on the spontaneous emergence of institutions more generally, Mises and Kirzner on the market process. In this way the Austrians understanding a lot of economic and social behaviour as a result of viewing the economy as an evolutionary process. There are also evolutionary economists (Geoffrey Hodgson is probably the most important) who try to apply evolutionary concepts more self-consciously. He takes Austrian economics seriously, though he has some reservations about methodology. There are perhaps a few others working at this boundary.
In conclusion I would advise Clayton that “biological facts” (there is a nod to behavioural economics here too) may have a bearing on some new contributions to economics, but they don’t have a bearing on praxeology. There is more to economics than praxeology, though perhaps not much more. The unfortunate fact is that whilst praxeology, or basic economic reasoning, or mundane economics tells us almost all we need to know about political economy, the way to succeed as an economist is to generally unearth new knowledge, rather than repeating the important, unlearned lessons of praxeology. Thus I think you might find it fruitful to take evolution seriously, so that you can weave a rich tapestry of Austrian economics and other approaches, or just to inform yourself enough to write a good critique. If you are interested have a look at http://www.geoffrey-hodgson.info/ which has good information and many papers. Also his book Economics and Evolution, which has chapters on Smith, Menger, Spencer and two on Hayek!
Also, theism/=/Christianity. Theism simply implies belief in some form of supernatural entity. You could be a Wiccan, a Hindu, a Devil-worshipper, a Shintoist, a Mahayana Buddhist or a believer in the Greek gods and you’d still be a theist.
Being a Hindu or a Buddhist doesn’t mean you have to believe in a supernatural entity. That would be lumping in all the people who take symbols metaphorically with the ones who take symbols factually.
That is an important point to be made. I myself believe that “theists” form “atheists” are hardly distinguishable in real life, and serious discussion has ever arisen between ‘simple’ theist and atheists.
But what criticism have been levied here has, I believe, been levied against the position held by organized religion, and beliefs that take such a concept as “God” much deeper, such as: he did this, and he said that. Such beliefs are inherently falsifiable (or provable) in real life, by scientific proof, and, as such must be categorized simply as “wrong scientific theories”.
At best you could relate it through “Evolutionary Psychology”, but that isn’t that strong…
Personally I think Economics and Evolution don’t really have much to do with each other. The evolutionary timescale is massive enough that it shouldn’t really come in conflict with economics.
I don’t think economics and evolution are linked though I’d be interested to know what these writers say about evolution.
do you have a link to Mises’ quotes on evolution?
same with Hoppe?