The Economics and Bioeconomics of Folk and Scientific Classification |
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Authors: | Email author" target="_blank">Michael?T?GhiselinEmail author Janet?T?Landa |
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Institution: | (1) Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, California Academy of Sciences, 875 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA;(2) Department of Economics, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ont, M3J 1P3, Canada |
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Abstract: | Synopsis This paper is the product of a collaboration between a biologist (Ghiselin 1997) who works on the philosophy of classification
and an economist (Landa 1981, 1994) who works on the ‘Economics of Identity’: how and why people classify people based on
identity in the context of a theory of ethnic trading networks. In developing the ‘bioeconomics’ (the synthesis of economics
with biology) of classification, we crossed a number of disciplinary boundaries—anthropology, economics, sociology, biology,
and cognitive psychology including evolutionary psychology’s ‘fast and frugal’ heuristics. Using a bioeconomics approach,
we argue that folk classifications—the classifications used by ordinary persons—have much in common with scientific classifications:
underlying both is the need for economy of information processing in the brain, for the efficient organization of knowledge,
and for efficiency of information acquisition and transmission of information to others. Both evolve as a result of trial
and error, but in science there is relatively more foresight, understanding, and planning. |
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Keywords: | categorization folk taxonomy identification economics of identity economics of classification institutions systematics taxonomy transaction costs new institutional economics ethnic trading networks social distance Homo classificus |
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