Notes

GEORGE BASALLA - THE EVOLUTION OF TECHNOLOGY

In his book The Evolution of Technology, historian of technology George Basalla presents an evolutionary theory of technological change that aims to explain technological innovation, including the emergence of novel artifacts, and the process by which society makes a selection between available artifacts (Basalla, 1988). Basalla considers his notion of technological evolution to be an “analogy” or “metaphor”. He claims “Metaphors and analogies are at the heart of all extended analytical or critical thought.” (1988, 3). Basalla holds that metaphors and analogies can be helpful in constructing novel scientific analyses and explanations.

Basalla argues that the proper object of analysis of a theory of technological change is the artifact, since artifacts are normally the outcome of innovative technological activity. He then likens artifact types to species and individual artifacts of a particular type to members of a species (1988, 137). Artifacts are hence to be likened to phenotypes. He claims that variation within artifact types clearly exists: there are many different kinds of hammers, steam engines, or automobiles. There is also a kind of inheritance between artifacts, Basalla claims. That is, artifacts may be followed by subsequent generations of the same artifact, or similar artifacts. The main difference here is that artifacts do not reproduce; they are reproduced by human makers. However, Basalla holds the resulting process of reproduction to be similar to the process of inheritance.

Basalla also claims that selective pressures operate on artifacts, and that some are selected to be used and reproduced, whereas others are discarded. He believes that this process of selection can be analyzed with reference of traits of artifacts that make a better or poorer fit to conditions in their environment. He argues that four kinds of factors are involved in the selection of artifacts: economic, military, social, and cultural. These factors do not operate on artifacts directly, but on humans who select artifacts. Their actions are determined by “economic constraints, military demands, ideological pressures, political manipulation, and the power of cultural values, fashions, and fads.” (139). It can hence be said that artifacts have a differential fitness relative to such constraints. Basalla holds that the mechanism by which new variants of artifacts are created is not the mechanism of mutation and recombination. It is usually a mechanism involving conscious human choices. Likewise, the selection of artifacts is not a blind process, as it also involves human choice. Basalla claims that the selection of artifacts is similar to artificial selection, the selection of phenotypes in animal and plant breeding, and less similar to natural selection. As he claims, “Variant artifacts do not arise from the chance recombination of certain crucial constituent parts but are the result of a conscious process in which human taste and judgment are exercised in the pursuit of some biological, technological, psychological, social, economic, or cultural goal.” (1988, 136). It must be admitted that human choices are constrained by economic, military, social, and cultural factors over which human beings do not have complete control. Even so, Basalla holds that the involvement of conscious, goal-directed choices by human beings introduces a disanalogy between technological and biological evolution.

Another disanalogy exists, Basalla holds, regarding the notion of species and interbreeding. Artifact types can be combined quite easily to produce new types, meaning that artifact types can interbreed easily, whereas different biological species usually do not interbreed (1988, 137).

A final disanalogy between Basalla’s theory and the theory of evolution is that there is no unit of reproduction similar to the gene in Basalla’s theory; it is artifacts, or phenotypes, rather than genes, and genotypes, that are reproduced.

To sum up, Basalla’s theory of the evolution of technological artifacts exploits a number of similarities between biological and technological evolution while also admitting to a number of dissimilarities. Basalla appears to claim that analogous versions of the principles of variation, inheritance, and differential fitness apply to technological evolution, while the principles of genetic reproduction, mutation and recombination, and blindness do not apply. In his theory, technological innovation is hence weakly but not strongly analogous to biological evolution. Inheritance in artifacts is construed as the tendency of successive generations of artifacts to resemble previous generations. Variation and selection are not blind but involve conscious human agents making purposeful choices: choices regarding the creation of novelty and regarding the selection of artifacts.