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Natural science, social science and optimality
1991
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of one of science's most pervasive and flexible metaprinciples; optimality is used to explain utility maximization in economics, least effort principles in physics, entropy in chemistry, and survival of the fittest in biology. Fermat's principle of least time involves both teleological and causal considerations, two distinct modes of explanation resting on poorly understood psychological primitives. The rationality heuristic in economics provides
doi:10.1017/s0140525x00066267
fatcat:gxlnp5za4jbkraihxmvzs6dm3a