Systemic Processes of Evolutionary Knowledge Organization in Pharmaceuticals

Abstract

This paper explores how a systemic evolutionary view, which argues that evolution is a knowledge generating process, and conceptually or mathematically related perspectives can contribute to an integrated perspective on the evolution of information organization by linking perspectives from biology and the social sciences. The paper uses the illustrative example of punctuation patterns in pharmaceutical innovations as a starting point for discussing a number of theoretical models and perspectives with respect to their suitability for such an integrated perspective. These models, if sufficiently correct representations of the characteristics of and tools for research into evolutionary development processes should play a role in explaining the molecular make-up of human organisms. Thus they also must find a reflection in the history and characteristics of pharmaceutical research as well as the more general characteristics of knowledge processes. The implied circularity of scientific concepts used for analysis and processes operating in the evolution of biological organisms and of knowledge indicates the relativity and reflexitivity of knowledge which is seen as expression of evolutionary processes of knowledge growth in the social domain being 'eigenprocesses' of evolutionary development from inanimate matter to the social domain.

Keywords: social, evolution, information, models, innovation, pharmaceuticals, historyated

JEL Classification: O3, N0, C0