Spring Break
Economics: The interplay of evolution and intelligent design
Roger McCain
Issue date: 10/17/08 Section: Ed-Op
I find it hard to fit myself into the recent controversy between "intelligent design" and evolution. As a deist, I'm persuaded that there must have been some "intelligent design" at the beginning, at the "big bang," with the constants of physics fine-tuned so that the resulting universe would teem with life and evolution. So I believe in both evolution and intelligent design - why the controversy?
But this column is not about religion. It is about economics. And, however evolution fits or doesn't fit into your worldview, the economic process is, in a broad sense, evolutionary. Many of our insights on this come from the great Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter was a committed anti-Marxist, but his ideas could not have existed without those of Marx, and his most prominent student, Paul Sweezy, was the most important American Marxist economist of the 20th century.
For Schumpeter, the key figure in economic evolution is the "entrepreneur," that is, the businessman-innovator, who tries new approaches without precedent in the economy. Some of these innovations will fail. Of course, innovators are likely to be creative and intelligent people who will do their best to anticipate and avoid failure, but Schumpeter observes that it is impossible for them to foresee everything, so every innovation is somewhat a stab in the dark. The market determines which innovations will succeed, and which will fail, and nobody can know that in advance. Indeed, some of the wildest innovations are the most important - as when Texas Instruments decided to try to make money on a useless idea from Bell Labs, called the transistor. The failures are the price society pays for those few brilliant successes. As for the failures, they have to die, be liquidated and left behind. It is in this sense that economics is evolutionary: the unfit innovations do not survive.
But intelligent design also plays a part in economics. What we know as "the gold standard" is a good example. After the Napoleonic Wars, the British economy and monetary system were devastated, and the British government called in a talented gentleman amateur economist named David Ricardo to design a new monetary system. The system he designed was a paper money system in which the issue of paper money would be limited by holdings of gold bullion - "the gold standard." Britain continued to use that system for more than a century.
But this column is not about religion. It is about economics. And, however evolution fits or doesn't fit into your worldview, the economic process is, in a broad sense, evolutionary. Many of our insights on this come from the great Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter was a committed anti-Marxist, but his ideas could not have existed without those of Marx, and his most prominent student, Paul Sweezy, was the most important American Marxist economist of the 20th century.
For Schumpeter, the key figure in economic evolution is the "entrepreneur," that is, the businessman-innovator, who tries new approaches without precedent in the economy. Some of these innovations will fail. Of course, innovators are likely to be creative and intelligent people who will do their best to anticipate and avoid failure, but Schumpeter observes that it is impossible for them to foresee everything, so every innovation is somewhat a stab in the dark. The market determines which innovations will succeed, and which will fail, and nobody can know that in advance. Indeed, some of the wildest innovations are the most important - as when Texas Instruments decided to try to make money on a useless idea from Bell Labs, called the transistor. The failures are the price society pays for those few brilliant successes. As for the failures, they have to die, be liquidated and left behind. It is in this sense that economics is evolutionary: the unfit innovations do not survive.
But intelligent design also plays a part in economics. What we know as "the gold standard" is a good example. After the Napoleonic Wars, the British economy and monetary system were devastated, and the British government called in a talented gentleman amateur economist named David Ricardo to design a new monetary system. The system he designed was a paper money system in which the issue of paper money would be limited by holdings of gold bullion - "the gold standard." Britain continued to use that system for more than a century.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 3
Dr. A.E. Edgeworth
posted 10/18/08 @ 10:42 AM EST
In response to what has been said about the "big Bang." The "big bang" is a scientific impossibility. The current theory of evolution has a multitude of scientific flaws, just the "big bang" violates two known laws of science, the first law of thermodynamics and the law of cause and affect. (Continued…)
Lynne D.
posted 10/20/08 @ 9:37 AM EST
There is no beginning or end of time or matter. If a 'big bang' phenomena was the start of our current universe, there was certainly something before it. (Continued…)
Post a Comment