Why evolution is a theory about stability: constraint, causation,
and ecology in technological change
Research Policy, 31 (8-9):
1241-1256 (2002/12)Abstract
Evolution, like history, is ordinarily thought to be about change
in time. Yet a surprising variety of “evolutionary” models across
multiple domains are at least as much about stability, or at least
secular stasis, as they are about change. Our narrative forms, as
well as our likely evolutionarily produced disposition to attend
to difference rather than to stasis, reflexively bias our perception
of evolution itself. A sample technological narrative, and a constructed
anti-narrative, together with an examination of the structure of
engineering design processes (derived from Walter Vincenti), and
some insights from actor-network theory, point to the complex causal
interconnections between stable and innovative elements in technological
change.
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