Biologist David Sloan Wilson explains the origin of this series and how an email from an aspiring economist with an interest in the evolutionary worldview sparked the following advice from leading economic and evolutionary thinkers.

Economics departments typically follow a core assumption, often referred to as the utility-maximizing model. This model assumes that humans are rational actors and that they will spend their money wisely on available goods or services to improve their general position. However, as economist Geoffrey Hodgson points out, this assumption is highly flawed but it can be hard to find anyone in economics departments willing to acknowledge it.

Adam Smith’s metaphor of the “invisible hand” forms the core of modern economic thought. However, as economist Alan Kirman points out, a better metaphor for economics is that of a giant organism constantly reacting to and also modifying its own environment.

Traditional economics prioritizes the assumptions of rational choice. However, as Cornell University economist Robert Frank argues, behavioral economics would profit from adopting an even broader interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on the insights not just of economics and psychology, but also those of evolutionary biology.

If human economic behavior was rational, we would expect that people would prioritize a healthy environment. That this isn’t the case presents a problem for modern economic thought. This leads economist Lisi Krall to ask: How and why did humans become collectively configured around an economic system that places them at odds with the planetary boundaries of the earth?

There are many good reasons to become an economist. There are also many downsides but these can be overcome with careful, strategic planning about where to study, what subfields to specialize in, and where to work once your degree is in hand. Here, economist John Gowdy offers the good, the bad, and the ugly realities of the field.

If a scholar is out of step with her or his field, it is hard to change the field, and perhaps harder to change the scholar. Economist Terence Burnham explains the difficulties of bringing knowledge from one field — such as evolutionary biology — into another.

Economists are unlikely to adopt an evolutionary worldview unless considering evolution in the context of economics proves to yield new insights on and beyond those of the canonical interpretation. Economist Ulrich Witt highlights what insights evolutionary economics could offer to the field.

Academic fields can frequently become rigid in scope and need an outside intervention before there can be any substantial change. David Hirshleifer argues that there is often an extremely high payoff to ideas that are both right and neglected. In the long run, evolutionary thinking will not be denied its due place in economics. For rising scholars, this is an opportunity.

There is hope for changing the field of economics. Andreas Duus Pape writes that an evolutionary approach tells us we can increase the chances of our group’s survival through cooperation. The cooperative frame is a kind of code-switching for mainstream economics. This approach can also make economic work more rigorous, more careful, more precise, more useful to the field, and more persuasive to a larger audience.

In the academic discipline of economics, we are currently experiencing a tame analogue to the first throes of the scientific revolution. The punishment for heresy is not execution, but intellectual oblivion. Here, economic advisor to the G20, Dennis Snower, argues that evolution offers the tools for economics to take the next great leap.

Being a good student is hard. Being a good student that wants to break the mold is even harder. Donald Cox argues that academic diplomacy requires being attuned to the possibility that your colleagues might harbor misconceptions about evolutionary thinking. Even some of the best economists only have a hazy idea of how evolution works. Preparing yourself with the tools you need to inform them is key.

Mainstream economics treats humans as asocial animals. However, as Blair Fix argues, this asocial model is completely wrong. When looking at human evolution it is clear that we’re not just a social species, we are the most social of all mammals. Economics must therefore undergo a fundamental change in order to accurately explain human behavior.

Economics has failed us. A number of forces — climate change, collapsing ecosystems, savage wealth inequality, tech monopolies and their data-surveillance, the growing precarity of livelihoods – are challenging some foundational assumptions of standard economics. Activist and scholar David Bollier, therefore, argues that the key to transforming the field is to immerse yourself in disciplines and ways of life that lie outside of the prevailing economic paradigm and typical career paths.