Revisiting Thorstein Veblen's “Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?”:
Abstract
Evolutionary Psychology www.epjournal.net – 2009. 7(1): 1-5 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Original Article Revisiting Thorstein Veblen’s “Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?” A Review of Michael Shermer, The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics. Times Books, New York, 2008, 308 pp., US$26.00, ISBN 978-0-8050-7832-9 (hardcover) Gad Saad, Marketing Department, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G 1M8. Email: gadsaad@jmsb.concordia.ca Michael Shermer has much to be proud of. He founded the Skeptics Society, which seeks to challenge supernatural and pseudoscientific dogma. He has written a host of successful trade books including How We Believe, Why People Believe Weird Things, The Science of Good and Evil, The Borderlands of Science, Denying History, and Why Darwin Matters. As such, he has been instrumental in popularizing the scientific method as a means of confronting a wide range of quackery. Of relevance to the current readership, he has also been instrumental in diffusing Darwinian theory to the masses. With those lofty accomplishments in mind, I regret having to report that The Mind of the Market is one of his weaker contributions. I begin with some of the book’s positive points. First, the social sciences