Vlad Popescu
I often tend to use biological analogies either as a simple heuristic or an explanatory model in an analysis, or as a purely illustrative model in support of certain ideas by constructing argumentative structures. For instance, in an attempt to understand how the mechanism of import-export operations at the level of an economy works, I have associated this bidirectional mechanism with the sodium-potassium pump found in the plasma membrane of almost every human cell. But can such analogies actually be used in economics? Can we deal with complex phenomena in economics through such a reductionist approach as biological analogies or, conversely, biological metaphors are a consequence of the complementarity between economics and biology, designed to give rise to a new more complex field, such as evolutionary economics? Nevertheless, one thing is certain: there are reasons for the scepticism towards biological analogies, and the heuristic value of evolutionary biology for economics is still a matter for debate. More
