There are some rather more intriguing applications of evolutionary theory. I know that I’m not the first to discuss this, but what really struck me was the evolutionary nature of technology and economy. Science has its own form of mutation and natural selection. New hypothesis typically arise from people believing that they know more than the rest of us (acting as a form of mutation). Then others will test that hypothesis until they break it, or it becomes an accepted theory in the current body of belief (acting as a form of natural selection). The same can be said of innovation and the market. Individuals or corporations create innovations (mutations), and then the market decides whether those individuals or corporations will succeed (natural selection).

Let’s assume that we will have similar phenomena in technological evolution as we see in biological evolutions. What types of things might we expect to happen? Well, per Dawkins, there are some interesting trends that we would expect.

The first is that we should see forms of convergent evolution. Biologically this typically happens within two different regions of the world, where two species evolve to develop the same characteristics independently of each other. Dawkins here discusses a fascinating tidbit involving two unrelated types of fish that each evolved to use electromagnetic fields as a type of radar if you will in order to navigate muddy waters. This means that starting from different origins, we should expect to see technologies look more and more similar in order to serve a specific niche. Remind anyone of competing software with similar feature sets?

Another interesting phenomenon of biological evolution is that of the arms race; whereby two different species which compete with one another will each be favored on the basis outdo their competitor. In the end they reach a competitive stalemate, as each advance in one is met with an advance in the other. Once escalation begins, each side is encouraged to continue the escalation or run the risk of being extinct, and the same happens in business. In fact, Dawkins himself points out an example of the cigarette industry urging a ban on TV advertising. Only by colluding and preventing any of them from gaining a competitive advantage, could they all reap the benefits.

While I’m not trying to make the oft cited, but riduculous comparison between pharmaceutical manufacturers and cigarette manufacturers in terms of their products, I do find it interesting that the industry as a whole lobbied for direct to consumer advertising. It would seem that this too is an arms race, that no one company can back down from assuming that their drugs aren’t single source for their therapeutic class until economic concerns force them to curb their spending (which Dawkins also states occurs for animals as well, they can only spend so much on speed for example before some other important trait is neglected).