Abstract
On the basis of the technical definition of selection developed by George Price (1995), we describe two forms of selection that commonly occur at the social level, subset selection and generative selection. Both forms of selection are abstract and general, and therefore also incomplete; both leave aside the question of explaining the selection criterion and why entities possess stable traits. However, an important difference between the two kinds of selection is that generative selection can accommodate an explanation of how new variation is created, while subset selection cannot. An evolutionary process involving repeated cycles of generative selection can, in principle, continue indefinitely because imperfect replication generates new variation along the way, whereas subset selection reduces variation and eventually grinds to a halt. Even if the two kinds of selection are very different, they share a number of features. First, neither subset selection nor generative selection implies improvement: neither kind of selection necessarily leads to efficiency or implies systematic outcomes. Second, both subset selection and generative selection can lead to extremely rapid effects in a social population. Third, in the social domain, both generative selection and subset selection involve choice and preference in some way: neither form of selection necessarily excludes intentionality. In concluding the article, we single out a challenge for future research in identifying the role of various units of culture in selection processes and the multiple levels at which social selection processes take place.
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Notes
Nevertheless, we chose the term ‘generative selection’, rather than ‘Darwinian selection’, because both forms of selection are present in Darwin’s work.
When a selection outcome overall does reflect such a discrete decision, this is sometimes described as ‘artificial selection’. However, contrary to Commons (1934) and many others, artificial selection is not opposed to Darwinian selection (Hodgson 2002). On the contrary, Darwin (1859) used the concept of artificial selection to illustrate natural selection. Commons was also mistaken in his suggestion that if selection is not artificial then it necessarily excludes choice and will. His critique of Veblen in this respect was thus misguided.
Landa et al. (1999) report from empirical observation that wolverines actually tend to kill less agile reindeer and sheep.
The definitions of selection, replication and interaction employed here do not in principle exclude the ‘Lamarckian’ possibility of the inheritance of acquired characters. Indeed, Darwin himself believed such ‘Lamarckian’ inheritance existed. We critically appraise the applicability of the ‘Lamarckian’ label to socio-economic evolution elsewhere (Hodgson and Knudsen forthcoming).
The distinction between selection of and selection for is developed by Sober (1984) and others. Note that it involves a distinction between phenotype (of) and genotype (for), but this distinction is not itself expressed within the Price definition of selection.
There are two broad additional sources of new variation, drift and environmental changes. Drift is differential replication without environmental interaction. When drift occurs, there is generation of new variation that can fuel subsequent selection processes. Environmental changes can also introduce new variation in a number of ways. For example, environmental changes can alter replicators (e.g. radioactive radiation causing mutations) or influence replication processes so new variation is introduced (e.g. by altering ecological niches).
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Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Guido Bünstorf, Werner Callebaut, Christian Cordes, Peter Corning, J. Stanley Metcalfe, Janet Landa, Joel Mokyr, Richard R. Nelson, Peter Richerson, Jack Vromen, Ulrich Witt, and other participants of the workshop on “Evolutionary Concepts in Economics and Biology” arranged by the Evolutionary Economics Group, at the Max Planck Institute, Jena, 2–4 December 2004.
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Appendix
Appendix
1.1 Price’s (1995) Definition of Selection
According to Price (1995), selection is the act or process of producing a corresponding set. Given a set P containing ω i amounts of I distinct elements p i , which have the properties x i , Price (1995) defines a corresponding set as follows:
We will say that a set P′ is a corresponding set to a set P if there exists a one-to-one correspondence such that, for each member p i of P, there is a corresponding member \(p^{\prime }_{i}\) of P′ which (if not empty) is composed partly or wholly of the same material as p i , or has been derived directly from p i , or contains one or more replicas of p i or some part of p i or has some other special close relation to p i . (Price 1995: 392).
Using this definition of a corresponding set, Price (1995: 392) defines selection as: ‘Selection on a set P in relation to a property x is the act or process of producing a corresponding set P′ in a way such that the amounts \(\omega ^{\prime }_{i}\) (or some function of them such as the ratios \({\omega ^{\prime }_{i} } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{\omega ^{\prime }_{i} } {\omega _{i} }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\omega _{i} }\)) are non-randomly related to the corresponding x i values.’
The terminology introduced by Price (1995) yields a useful statistical definition of selection. Let P be a set containing ω i amounts of I distinct elements which have the properties x i . A transformation P → P′ (possibly the identity transformation) results in a second set P′. The set P′ contains \(\omega ^{\prime }_{i}\) amounts of I distinct elements with properties \(x^{\prime }_{i}\). The transformation P → P′ is termed a selection process that gives rise to the effect X → X′ in a population property X related to property x of the individual set members. This effect X → X′ can be calculated as the change in the average value (Price 1995; Frank 1997):
where e i is the fitness of element i in the set P and e is average fitness of the set P. Selection is present whenever Cov(e i , x i ) differs significantly from zero. By contrast, a transmission effect is present whenever E(e i Δx i ) differs significantly from zero. In social populations, a transmission effect can be referred to as an individual-level exploration or innovation effect. A selection or a transmission effect refers to a change in the first moment of the trait distribution, i.e., selection is a change in the average trait according to the population in question. The Price Equation thus provides a useful solution to the definition and empirical verification of possible selection effects in a population of interest. As the reader can verify, it is straightforward to recursively expand the above expression to include multiple hierarchical layers of selection (use the expectation term for expansion). A further (not too challenging) issue concerns the expansion of the Price Equation to encompass selection on higher moments than the first.
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Hodgson, G.M., Knudsen, T. The nature and units of social selection. J Evol Econ 16, 477–489 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-006-0024-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-006-0024-6