Advancement by selective death rates

It is not coincidence that progress in science, the free market, social progress and evolution itself are all linked by a selective death rate. This touches on the underlying mechanics that drive not only biology but also human systems like science, economics, and society

At its core, ‘selective death rate’ refers to the process where less fit, less adapted, or less competitive entities, whether genes, ideas, businesses, or social norms), decline or disappear over time, allowing better-adapted ones to thrive. There is a mechanism that ties these domains together.

In biological evolution - Darwinian mutation and selection - organisms with traits that improve survival and reproduction leave more offspring. Those that are less fit die off or fail to reproduce. That is the ‘selective death rate.’ Over time, populations evolve as advantageous traits accumulate.

In Science, ideas and theories compete based on observation and predictive power. Theories that fail experimental tests are ‘killed off’ (discarded), which is a selective death of inferior ideas as they give way to better ones. Progress occurs as weaker explanations are eliminated and stronger ones survive and are refined.

Karl Popper famously called falsifiability the key to scientific survival. He thought that while we could not verify theories, we could ‘falsify’ those that failed experimental tests. In my ‘Trial and Error and the Idea of Progress’ I took the view that we could no more prove theories to be false than we could prove them to be true. We do not prove theories that fail experimental test to be false. We discard them because they do not advance us towards our goal of predicting what we shall observe. We retain those that pass tests, and discard those that do not.

There is economic selection in the free market as companies, products, and business models compete. The less efficient, less popular, or poorly managed businesses fail as customers opt for those that better satisfy their requirements. Successful firms grow and dominate, while new challengers can overtake old incumbents. Joseph Schumpeter called this process ‘creative destruction,’ which is basically economic natural selection - a selective death rate.

In the social sphere there is an argument that cultural evolution takes place. Norms, values, and institutions compete over time. Outdated, unjust, or ineffective social structures such as feudalism, torture and slavery are superseded, and their ‘death’ allows for more sympathetic institutions such as democracy and respect for human rights to emerge.

Social movements advance arguments that win favour and cause oppressive systems to decline selectively. Memetics, the study of how ideas spread and die, frames this as cultural evolution parallel to biological evolution.

There is a unifying theme in all these systems. It is that variation arises via mutations, new theories, new products, or new social ideas. Selection pressures apply through nature, experiments, consumers, and populations. Selective death removes the less fit options, and the system adapts and evolves toward more optimal forms.

In sum, selective death is the engine that drives adaptation across natural, intellectual, economic, and social domains. It is the price of progress, as painful as it sometimes is. Systems improve because failure is not only allowed, but necessary, to weed out the less capable ideas and practices, and allow more optimal ones to supplant them.

Madsen Pirie