ABSTRACT
Economics scientific is a matter of some contention, as economics has held out claims to having or at least of aspiring to have the form and rigor of the natural or physical sciences. To some degree a change in nomenclature captures this tension, as the study of political economy, as the discipline was originally called, became the science of economics in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The countervailing view of economics as fundamentally a social science, emphasizing the role of institutions, human agency, historical experience, or the interactive nature of human behaviour in economic affairs, where the interpretation of events may itself influence the actions that follows, did not vanish. An exploration of the basis for a possible fit of economics with evolutionary biology requires a preliminary inquiry into the ways that economics might be seen as conforming to a structure, framework or set of expectations generally associated with scientific disciplines or as falling short in this regard.
