… is from pages 305-306 of Richard Dawkins’s remarkable 1987 book, The Blind Watchmaker (original emphasis):
The problem with mutation as the sole evolutionary force is simply stated: how on earth is mutation supposed to ‘know’ what will be good for the animal and what will not? Of all possible changes that might occur to an existing complex mechanism like an organ, the vast majority will make it worse. Only a tiny minority of changes will make it better. Anybody who wants to argue that mutation, without selection, is the driving force of evolution, must explain how it comes about that mutations tend to be for the better. By what mysterious, built-in wisdom does the body choose to mutate in the direction of getting better rather than worse?
DBx: Yes.
In one sense – in a direct sense – Dawkins’s book is about the evolutionary change through natural selection of biological creatures. But this book is also, and even more profoundly, a brilliant tract on the logic of the evolution of complex systems. It contains many deep lessons for students of the economy – not the least of which is this: In order to grow, a healthy economy requires both changes (“mutations”) and a reliable method of selecting which changes will be admitted and encouraged and which changes will be excluded or quickly eliminated.
Industrial policyists and other enthusiasts for government intervention into the economy are quite keen on dreaming up changes; however, they give far too little, or even no, thought to selection. Indeed, industrial policyists want their proposed changes imposed, not selected.
