Darwinism In Economics

Since the 19 th century,some people began to introduce Darwinism's concept of “natural select” into the field of social science.This interdisciplinary application has generated debate between the reductionism and emergentism.After a long period of development,the evolutionary theory in economics has made remarkable progress in contemporary times.The first chapter of this paper makes a historical review of classical economics and the early thoughts of biological evolution.The second chapter focuses on Nelson and Winter's three core principles of Darwinism in 1980 s to explain the evolution of economics,and analyzes the unit of natural selection in the evolution of economics.The third chapter analyzes the rationality of the Darwinism in economics,and analyzes the key features of Darwinian thought in economics from two aspects of uncertainty and bounded rationality.Think about the inadequacies of this application from the doubt of metaphor theory.The fourth chapter points out the current difficulties faced by evolutionary thinking in economics.It mainly points out the problems encountered by evolutionary thoughts in the analysis of social sciences,from the aspects of biological reductionism,the application of evolutionary concepts,and the multiple and continuous of nature selection.Then it is discussed that the economic system is a complex system,its natural selection is multiplicity,and the unit of select is pluralism on the ontology.Therefore,it is feasible to introduce Darwinism into the evolutionary analysis of economics.However,considering the independence of the discipline itself,we should pay attention to the emergence characteristics between levels and pursue the analysis of the level of ontology,While highlighting the similarities between disciplines,but also to reflect the differences in its key details.In particular,we must consider the characteristics of economic entities that tend to cooperate in order to cope with and avoid environmental risks when they face the struggle for survival in the market competition.Then,evolutionary theory in economics should be a co-evolutionary theory that includes the essence of evolution theory,complex systems theory,and mutation theory.Through analysis and discussion of these chapters,we believe that the Darwinism theory is necessary for the evolution analysis of economics,but the characteristics of the discipline itself cannot be ignored in the application of the theory.The evolution of economics is the process of co-evolution.The combinatorial arguments of reductionism and emergentism triggered by the use of Darwinism in economics and the evolutionary model of economics can help to establish a complete description of the origin and development of evolutionary economics,it seeks answers to the pending epistemology and even methodological issues.