A tale of two classics

摘要

One of the most influential works in the field of economics is Milton Friedman's 1953 essay, The Methodology of Positive Economics, in which he argues that people behave as if the assumptions of neoclassical economic theory are correct, even when they are not. One of the most influential works in the field of evolutionary biology is Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin's 1979 paper "The spandrels of San Marcos and the Panglossian paradigm", which argues against excessive reliance on the concept of adaptation (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, vol 205, p 581).