RATIONALITY, EVOLUTION, AND ACQUISITIVENESS

The first part of this paper discusses Alchian's classic 1950 article ''Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory'' and argues against the notion that it is easy to eliminate rationality from economic behavio r by appealing to evolution as a substitute. The second section discus ses rationality and develops a specific meaning for this term that dis tinguishes it from the axioms of choice found in economic theory. In t he final section, I use this definition and link rationality to a beha vioral propensity almost unique to the human species-acquisitiveness, concluding from this linkage that acquisitiveness can speed up the evo lution of intelligence.