Clement Levallois

Collegio Carlo Alberto, Moncalieri

May 19, 2011

“ECONOMICS REFLECTED IN NATURE, NATURE REFLECTED IN ECONOMICS”

Against the house-of-mirrors view of interdisciplinarity

• “To put the sketch crudely, Malthus began his essay by comparing people to animals

in order to fix his conception of population pressing upon resources.

• “Darwin, as has often been noted, read Malthus and the political economists, and this

(by his own testimony) prompted him to see competition and the division of labor in

animal Nature.

• “Darwinism quite rapidly reprojected back upon society in the form of social

Darwinism. Mix two parts social Darwinism with a dash of simple Marshallian

microeconomics and you arrive at E. O. Wilson’s theory of sociobiology; opt instead for

two parts game theory and you get the new population ecology.” (Mirowski 1994, 15).  

• “The spiral never stops,” continues Mirowski.

Glimcher neuroeconomics

Lotka, physical biologySamuelson, neoclassic economics

Stanley Jevons, economics

ECONOMICS MEETING BIOLOGY

1. There are a few basic, classic ingredients which recombine endlessly.

2. The manner by which these ingredients combine is unimportant

3. Invariably, these combinations are conservative if not reactionary in essence or tone.

INSTEAD…

1. For each new episode, the ingredients are different and varied

2. The manner by which these ingredients combine is important

3. Why many of these combinations are conservative (or portrayed as such) is a matter to be investigated, not a settled fact.

1. NEW INGREDIENTS

• Example one: The variability of social Darwinism

Source: Hodgson 2004,Journal of the History of Sociology

• Example two: From the gene to the brain

2. THE RECIPE MATTERS

Dedicated re-search centers

Soc sci Psycho Nat sci0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Host institutions of practitioners (authors)in evolutionary economics and neuroeconomics

Evo ecoNeuroeco

3. A PERSISTENT CONSERVATIVE FLAVOR:YES BUT HOW?

1977 2007

The “iron cage” of science news reporting? (cf. Davidson 2009)

CONCLUSION• The traits of the eco – biolo relationship are evolving

• The variability of these traits should be acknowledged, not dismissed

• The persistence of some traits should be explained, not assumed

• Thank you!

SELECTED REFERENCES (1/2)• Boix Mansilla, Verónica. 2006. “Assessing expert interdisciplinary work at the frontier: an

empirical exploration.” Research Evaluation 15 (1) (April): 17-29.

• Daston, Lorraine, and Fernando Vidal, eds. 2004. The Moral Authority of Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Davidson, Roei. 2009. The iron cage transmitted: The role of the business press in homogenizing economic ideas and practices presented at the Workshop “History of Economics as Culture,” ENS de Cachan.

• Glimcher, Paul W. 2003. Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics. MIT Press.

• Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 2004. “Social Darwinism in Anglophone academic journals: A contribution to the history of the term.” Journal of Historical Sociology 17 (4) (December): 428-463.

SELECTED REFERENCES (2/2)• Levallois, Clement, Ale Smidts, and Paul Wouters. in preparation. Whose field is it?

Disciplinary interactions in neuroeconomics. Erasmus University Working Paper.

• Mirowski, Philip. 1994a. Doing What Comes Naturally: Four Metanarratives on What Metaphors Are for. In Natural Images in Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw, ed. Philip Mirowski. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.