ORB Visualization
Some definitions
Lamarckism: a theory of organic evolution asserting that environmental
changes cause structural changes, in animals and plants, that are transmitted
to offspring.
Darwinism: a theory of the origin and perpetuation of new
species of animals and plants that offsprings of a given organism vary, that
natural selection favors the survival of some of these variations over others,
that new species have arisen and may continue to arise by these processes, and
that widely divergent groups of plants and animals have arisen form the same
ancestors.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary tenth edition
Innovation is initially a private experience of one person, which gets expressed. The replication of the expression can lead to an adoption of that innovation or a variation. If the innovation adoption is very close to what a Darwinian theory implies regarding biological evolution then the emergence of innovations are somewhat random in nature and the utility function governing the adoption of innovation is a utility function based on a selection of the fittest innovations.
However, if there is any sort of predetermination of what innovations will be adopted, then the governing theory might be closer to a pure Lamarckian theory.
As part of the environment in which innovations are expressed are patent and copyright law, governmental funding, and business practice. One has to take seriously the impact that patent and copyright law, government funding and business practice has on the selection process.
Darwinian processes of variation
and selection can be observed at work amongst commercial firms, social customs,
laws, scientific theories, etc. For
examples, evolutionary economics focuses on industrial firms, treating them as
social institutions driven by market forces to adapt to changing technological
regimes.
Page 9 Technology Innovation
as an Evolutionary Process
Edited by John Ziman,
Cambridge University Press 2000
One key to unwrapping Ziman’s comment has to do with the nature of variation and selection.
Is the variation blind, as in biological-genetic mutations, or is there some set of structures that is being imposed by some set of constraints. Is the selection “merely” of the fittest in some single-minded sense, or are there many measures of fitness?
The second key has to do with the unit propagated and the mechanism that replicates. In biological terms these two facets are related to a genotype and phenotype.
For innovation adoption, one may consider the genotype as the un-expressed innovation and the phenotype as the fully adopted technology.
The model requires an understanding of both stratification and paradox. Stratification is due to both time scale and organizational processes that create gaps between a system’s endophysics and a system environment (the system exophysics). These organizational gaps are seen directly in nature in many forms, and are discussed in extensive scientific literatures, including physics, chemistry, biology, social science, and ecological science.
The controversy starts when one considered conservation laws and laws governing the exchange of conserved energy between one system and a second system. Here science has faces theoretical and observational issues that have not been fully resolved.
Paradox comes with stratification. Paradox is reflected most clearly in the Russell set of all sets paradox and in the Godel theorem in the foundational of mathematics and logic.
Somehow one must address both paradox and stratification (the problem of other systems) if one is to fully specify a model describing innovation and technology adoption.