In the light of evolution VIII: Darwinian thinking in the social sciences

Abstract

Darwinian thinking in the social sciences was inaugurated by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (8, 9). Despite various misappropriations of the Darwinian label, true Darwinian thinking continued in the social sciences. However, with the advent of evolutionary game theory (10) there has been an explosion of Darwinian analysis in the social sciences. And it has led to reciprocal contributions from the social sciences and mathematics to biology. The theory of games had been created (11) as a theory of interaction among rational agents with a (tacit) presumption of common knowledge of rationality. Evolutionary game theory broadened the scope of game theory by removing the rationality assumption, and replacing it with an adaptive dynamics of differential reproduction. Social scientists soon saw that a whole array of other broadly adaptive dynamics of imitation, social learning, inductive reasoning with best response, and so forth, were relevant and could be analyzed with similar tools (12). Box 1. In the light of evolution. In 1973, Dobzhansky (37) penned a short commentary titled, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Most scientists agree that evolution provides the unifying framework for interpreting biological phenomena that otherwise can often seem unrelated and perhaps unintelligible. Given the central position of evolutionary thought in biology, it is sadly ironic that evolutionary perspectives outside the sciences have often been neglected, misunderstood, or purposefully misrepresented. Biodiversity—the genetic variety of life—is an exuberant product of the evolutionary past, a vast human-supportive resource (aesthetic, intellectual, and material) of the present, and a rich legacy to cherish and preserve for the future. Two challenges, as well as opportunities, for 21st-century science are to gain deeper insights into the evolutionary processes that foster biotic diversity and to translate that understanding into workable solutions for … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: fjayala{at}uci.edu, bskyrms{at}uci.edu, or javise{at}uci.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

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