Economics & Biology: The whole is something besides the parts – a complementary approach to a bioeconomy

Abstract

This paper examines relations between economics and biology regarding the historical background of these disciplines. Though economics is a social science its emergence has strong links to the natural sciences, especially to physics. This methodological basis seems to be mostly forgotten in mainstream economics. Since this methodology is based on the same principles of universal natural laws, it should make the branches of economics and biology compatible. Merging biology and economics could have a strong impact on finding solutions to our modern world sustainability problems and avoiding the dangers of the entropic abyss. This is only possible if mainstream economics is more open to assimilate information from outside its own field. Unequivocally, the most straightforward impact of a collaboration of these disciplines would be a biobased economy, that would tackle many problems our resource intensive and unsustainable economic system is facing at the moment.