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Darwinian selection explains complexity in the economy, technology, and the arts (spectator.co.uk)
10 points by robg on Jan 18, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



A beautiful quote:

"Just as natural selection’s constructive capacity did not prevent mass extinctions, one of which, 251 million years ago, eradicated over 96 per cent of marine species, so the market’s ability to build order cannot prevent crashes"

Then again, should it?


Nice, but a lot of what's described came from later work by Lyapunov, Onsager, and Prigogine.


"Dirigisme has a place, of course, in the regulation and operation if not the design of institutions. A school cannot work without a teacher, a firm without a manager, or an army without a general — just as a body is directed by a brain in its everyday operations. But hubristic human beings tend to exaggerate the degree to which they are in charge of, rather than at the mercy of, organisations." So...if we reverse his analogy and go back to life, is he saying there is some kind of 'manager of life,' like a god or something?




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