Allusions to evolution: Edifying evolutionary biology rather than economic theory

The „selection arguments‟ advanced by Alchian (1950) and Friedman (1953) were clearly meant to boost confidence in neoclassical economics. But whereas Friedman didn‟t show the slightest reservation, Alchian warned economists “not to push their luck too far” in relying on the argument. Alchian‟s warning spurred some economists (such as Nelson and Winter) to engage with evolutionary theorizing in a more profound way, if only to find out under which sort of circumstances the “constrained maximization” framework of neoclassical economics is able to predict the outcomes of evolutionary processes. But this is not the path that subsequent generations of the Chicago School of Economics took. Friedman‟s reassuring reliance on the argument won the day. Instead of opening up economics to evolutionary theorizing, the second generation (with Tullock, Becker and Hirshleifer as important exponents) pleaded mainly for the reverse opening up of evolutionary biology to the “constrained maximization” framework of economic theory. To be sure there were suggestions that evolutionary biology (sociobiology, in particular) can enrich economic theory, especially by identifying what basic preferences people have. But the few attempts made in this direction once again amounted to demonstrations of the usefulness of “constrained maximization” in evolutionary biology. 1 I want to thank Eric L. Charnov for providing helpful information (in private correspondence) about the history of optimality models in evolutionary biology (and in behavioral ecology in particular).