Who holds the leash?

From: TJ Olney (market@cc.wwu.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 08 2000 - 20:41:07 GMT

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From: TJ Olney <market@cc.wwu.edu>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Who holds the leash?
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    I'd like to re-open the question of who holds the leash, if there is one,
    genes or memes, or perhaps something else?

    We have instances where within isolated populations, the memes that people
    have held have caused the genes demise, -- think ritual group suicides. The
    meme tends to die with those genes.

    Under what circumstances would the genetic wetware no longer be needed and
    the memes continue to replicate, vary, and thus evolve?

     I can concieve of logical scenarios where the killing off of significant
    numbers of humans is actually to the benefit of the genepool as a whole. In
    the "selfish" argument, the individual host for the meme or gene either
    passes on the pattern or does not. If a population of meme hosts survives as
    a species because of memes that have them cull or otherwise kill off gene
    hosts, does that mean that the meme is overriding the gene? Or could it be
    that the genetic blueprint includes, as it does with lemmings, saftey valves
    for the population?

    TJ Olney 

    -- 
-- TJ Olney  market@cc.wwu.edu  Not all those who wander are lost.
-- http://mp3.musicmatch.com/artists/artists.cgi?id=113&display=1

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