Constructivist and Ecological Rationality #2

My first post gave the essences of the two concepts. In the next paragraph Smith describes their relationship.

"Again, individuals and groups invent products, ideas, policies, and such, but whether they endure or are copied is subject to forces of selection and filtering that are well beyond the control of the initiators. Every business decision is someone’s constructivist idea of a best or appropriate action, but whether that decision is ecologically fit is up to socioeconomic forces far beyond the originator. Ecological rationality, however, always has an empirical, evolutionary, and/or historical basis; constructivist rationality need have little, and where its specific abstract propositions lead to some form of implementation, it must survive tests of acceptability, fitness, and/or modification”  (p. 25).

"Reason is good at providing variation, but poor at selection; that is, construcivism is a powerful engine for generating variation, but it is too far narrowly limited and inflexible in its ability to comprehend and apply all the relevant facts in order to serve the process of selection, which is better left to to ecological processes that implicitly weights more versus less important influences" (p. 38).

Constructivist ideas are also used for political action, advocacy and influence. Smith doesn’t say a lot about that on or near page 25, except Hayek criticizing some constructivist ideas of John Stuart Mill. It seems he will later in connection with U.S. airline deregulation (1978-yy) and the California energy crises (2000-01). Hayek strongly criticized constructivist ideas in politics, and Smith is an admirer of Hayek.

As an aside, the middle paragraph reminded me why there is beta testing and other forms of testing for computer programs (link).