Recent Developments in Evolutionary Biology and Their Relevance for Evolutionary Economics

The paper gives attention to the question of whether the development of evolutionarytheories in biology over the last twenty years has any implications for evolutionaryeconomics. Though criticisms of Darwin and the modern synthesis have alwaysexisted, most of them have not been widely accepted or have been absorbed by themainstream. Recent findings in evolutionary biology have started to question againthe main principles of the modern synthesis. These findings suggest amongst othersthat the phenomena of co-operation, communication, and self-organization have beenunderestimated, and that selection is not the predominant factor of evolution, butonly one among many. Thus, in evolutionary economics, the question is whether thepopular variation-retention-selection principle is still up to date[...]