The Open Border 233
problem are modeled. Since, however, our current knowledge of nature’s strategies is
incomplete, this search for accuracy within ED may also increase our knowledge of bio-
logical mechanisms. This largely tacit accuracy aim^8 therefore explains the convergence
of interests that is manifested in the conference proceedings and journals referred to at the
start of this section; regarding the conceptual transfer as metaphorical cannot do justice
to this phenomenon.
Finally, the conceptual transfer in ED is to some extent open-ended. Suppose the current
transfer does not resolve the scalability problem in ED. Then if biologists would arrive at
a better understanding of genetic and embryogenic mechanisms, perhaps using additional
concepts we may safely predict that ED researchers will adopt these concepts in their quest
for innovative circuitry designs. Thus we have a reason to assume that conceptual transfer
from biology to ED might continue in the future. Still, I have not found any electrical
engineer who claims that the selectionist framework might, at some time, completely
replace the intentionalist framework as a description of design processes: transfer is open-
ended but it does not amount to a conceptual invasion.
13.3 Second Case: Evolutionary Archaeology
Archaeology involves both the excavation and interpretation of the material remains of
earlier civilizations. For the latter goal, a wide variety of methods have been and currently
are in use, ranging from the hermeneutic methods of structuralist and postmodernist
archaeology to the positivism of processualist archaeology.^9 One relatively recent addition
to this spectrum is evolutionary archaeology (EA). Musings about extending the theory
of evolution to archaeology and anthropology probably precede Darwin, and have led to
many different models and theories. Some of the better-known and controversial theories
in this vein may be sociobiology, Dawkins’s (1982) speculations about the extended phe-
notype, and Boyd and Richerson’s (1988, 2005) dual-inheritance model of cultural evolu-
tion. EA may be continuous with or even dependent on some of these various approaches
but I shall not consider this connection here. Whatever the dependence, EA has more
specifi c goals and methods.^10
13.3.1 Aim and Approach
Proponents of EA emphasize that their work is based on an explicit, even stipulative, dis-
tinction between so-called stylistic and functional attributes of artifacts, proposed by
Robert Dunnell in the 1970s. The guiding idea behind this dichotomy is that whereas
functional features quickly gain and then maintain prominence in the archaeological
record, stylistic features are more variable; they become popular, stay in fashion for a
while, and are then replaced by other styles. Thus styles are useful for constructing histori-
cal traditions within the archaeological record.^11