Orgel’s second law is “evolution is smarter than you.” By this, he meant that our inability to explain how this or that feature came about only shows our lack of imagination or understanding. It does not serve as good evidence against the appearance of that feature. But there is another interpretation one can take from this – certain evolutionary traits that may seem inefficient or counterproductive may actually serve as effective adaptations to the constraints under which those traits evolved.
To see an example of this in action, consider this humorous lecture given by Douglas Adams about the mating culture of the kapo, a flightless parrot native to New Zealand. He goes into detail about how every aspect of the kapo mating culture seems to work against actually producing offspring:
He describes the overall process as “incredibly long and advertised, incredibly complex and almost completely ineffective.” The first problem is “that the mating of the male kakapo repels the female,” which seems to be a poor start. He then explains how the mating call of the kakapo consists of a deep, pounding bass sound. This creates another problem, says Adams. He makes an analogy with a home speaker system, which consists of two small speakers that “give you your own sound and you have to place them carefully in the room, because they will define the stereo image.” But it also has a subwoofer to produce bass sounds, “and you can put that anywhere in the room you like. You can put it behind the sofa if you want, because another aspect of the sound of the bass – and remember, we are talking about the mating of the male kakapo – is that you can’t tell where it is coming from.” Summarizing this whole situation, we are informed that in the female part of the head, “if it is outside, it is probably not there, and he thinks he likes the sound of thunder, which he may not like, and he thinks he can find her, which he may not, then he will agree to marry only if the Pōhutukawa tree bears fruit.”
Now, one might read this mating process and think that evolution dropped the ball here. How on earth could it be a good thing for kakapos to evolve such a dysfunctional mating habit? But there is an answer.
In New Zealand, the kakapo had no natural predators, and therefore did not face a check on its population. As a result, if the kakapo breed like normal rabbits, they could end up overrunning the island they live on, harming their long-term survival. The kakapo’s incredibly ineffective mating habits have actually turned out to be an effective way to maintain population levels without hunting or other external pressures. And this complicated mating process still led to an island full of kakapo – if they could mate More in fact, they would hurt their chances of survival. As an institution of giving gifts between people, what at first seems ineffective when viewed in static terms turns out to be very effective, once one has a deeper understanding. Development – social practices, customs, and institutions that seem “absurd” or socially dangerous may be like the kakapo mating ritual – a seemingly ineffective practice that is a successful adaptation.
Unfortunately, this habit that was once an asset is now dangerous, because the conditions that the kakapo is facing now are very different from the conditions in which this mating ritual arose. Predators have been introduced to the island, and kakapos have no instinct to run away from predators, or humans. Because of this, this once abundant animal is now critically endangered but reproduction depends on this intact mating culture – which does not bode well for recovery prospects.
So am I rambling, or do I have a complete point? Yes I do, that is [dear EconLog editor, please insert a point here. 😉 ] But that point aside, we should take this as an opportunity to reflect on what Hayek said about the difference between law and law, and why we cannot “get rid of law altogether.”
FA Hayek was as staunch a defender of the value of progressive order as one could find. But in Laws and Orderfirst volume of Law, Law, and Freedom, Hayek also says that there are times when “old law needs to be reformed by law.” One such situation comes when “the autonomic growth process may lead to an impasse where it can’t pull itself out on its own or at least it won’t fix itself fast enough.” Thinking about the current state of the kakapo made me think back to Hayek’s words. (Yes, I somehow drew a connection between the mating habits of flightless parrots and Hayek’s sociological work. That’s how my mind works – I don’t understand it myself, but here we are.) Evolution is very slow. for the kakapo to develop a new mating habit in its completely new environment. Similarly, cultural and institutional evolution may be too slow to adapt to changes in our social environment, leading to situations where legislation may be needed.
However, it seems important to keep i extremely high bar for this idea. First, it is very difficult to know objectively whether a welfare institution is dysfunctional or dangerous, or it may be dysfunctional in a way that you do not understand. Second, even if we know that the welfare institution is wrong, it is often not clear what the solution would be, and people have a strong bias to think that they understand more than they do. And we need strong reasons to think that the overall benefits will be very large, because the top-down conversion of advanced orders incurs significant transaction costs. Richard Hooker put it best:
When people suddenly see things discarded, dismissed, and rejected by that long tradition that was made in matters of second nature, they are surprised, and begin to question whether there is good or bad in nature, rather than simply calling it whatever people choose to call it. at any time…Therefore, whenever we change any law, in the eyes of the people it will not help but disrupt and weaken the power to make all laws work.
The hook then ends,
If the new laws are of little benefit, we must conclude that tolerating a minor injury is better than attempting a dangerous remedy.
How often do we find ourselves in situations where we have to try to fix it? I’m not sure. But the answer is not “never.” Unfortunately, while Hayek describes several different situations in which, in theory, the law can serve as a useful corrective to the law of adults, I do not see him citing specific, concrete examples of this in practice.
But I would also like to hear from readers. How often has the maintenance of advanced facilities been profitable? And what is the greatest danger? Is it possible that we might overestimate our ability to make such remedies effectively, and end up doing more harm than good by constantly trying to test a system we don’t understand? Or that a strong reluctance to try such remedies will leave us in the same situation as the kakapo, clinging to habits that were once helpful but are now harmful?
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