Economic Evolution and Selection: Old Controversies and New Approaches

Many of the early debates about economic methodology, marginalism versus discontinuous change, stasis versus turbulence, co‐operation versus competition, were at base questions of general scientific methodology. During the past 20 years or so there has been a virtual revolution in the field of evolutionary biology. This revolution has had a profound impact on the philosophy of science; an impact which is beginning to be felt in the field of economics. The purpose of this article is to analyse some past controversies in economic methodology in the light of recent developments in evolutionary biology.