Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA27399 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 25 Feb 2002 01:26:12 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Systematics and Memetics:Towards a Memetic Species Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:20:46 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F172s8JynCR34XtFT0D0001604f@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Feb 2002 01:20:46.0967 (UTC) FILETIME=[A7213870:01C1BD9A] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Systematics and Memetics:Towards a Memetic Species
>Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 10:53:19 +1100
>
>
>On Monday, February 25, 2002, at 04:57 AM, rmey4892 wrote:
>
>>I am an undergraduate, Marine Biology major from the University of Rhode
>>Island who has recently come across the theory (or theories) of memetics
>>while
>>learning the basics of Neo-Darwinian theory. My readings of Richard
>>Dawkins
>>"Selfish Gene" as well as Daniel Dennetts "Darwins Dangerous Idea"
>>occurred
>>simultaneously with my course in Systematics, and has led me to again
>>pose the
>>question that Darwin seems to have never answered: What is a species?
>>
>>
>Thanks for this, but you have overlooked some recent work onb the subject.
> The issue of species seems to be undergoing a revival lately. Here are
>the most recent books:
>
>Claridge, M. F., H. A. Dawah, et al. (1997). Species: the units of
>biodiversity. London; New York, Chapman & Hall.
>
>Ereshefsky, M. (2000). The poverty of Linnaean hierarchy: a philosophical
>study of biological taxonomy. Cambridge, U.K.; New York, Cambridge
>University Press,.
>
>Ghiselin, M. T. (1997). Metaphysics and the origin of species. Albany,
>State University of New York Press.
>
>Hey, J. (2001). Genes, concepts and species: the evolutionary and
>cognitive causes of the species problem. New York, Oxford University Press.
>
>Howard, D. J. and S. H. Berlocher (1998). Endless forms: species and
>speciation. New York, Oxford University Press.
>
>Paterson, H. E. H. (1993). Evolution and the recognition concept of
>species: collected writings. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
>
>Wheeler, Q. D. and R. Meier, Eds. (2000). Species concepts and
>phylogenetic theory: a debate. New York, Columbia University Press.
>
>Wilson, M. R., H. A. Dawah, et al. (1997). Species: the units of
>biodiversity. London; New York, Chapman & Hall.
>
>Wilson, R. A. (1999). Species: new interdisciplinary essays. Cambridge,
>Mass., MIT Press.
>
>(and that's just the books! There are hundreds of papers around)
>
>The major competitor concepts to the BSC are the Evolutionary Species
>Concept, three kinds of Phylogenetic Species Concepts - the Monophyletic,
>the Hennigian and the Autapomorphic, and the Genealogical Concepts. There
>are, in Mayden's recent overview in the Claridge et al volume, 25
>different concepts, and since then at least four new ones have come to
>light. I'm proposing Yet Another Concept in my thesis, which I call the
>Synapomorphic Species Concept, although it is really a pluralistic
>grouping of concepts.
>
>Now I got into this topic because I wanted to figure out what the memetic
>equivalents are to species. My best answer is that they are traditions -
>relatively isolated groups of concepts that are passed on as a type (where
>a type is a modal distribution - what Eigen calls a "quasispecies"). Some
>of them are "reproductively isolated", but, like many biological species,
>some are distinguishable on other grounds. Also, like biological species
>(not biospecies sensu BSC), there is a considerable amount of lateral, or
>horizontal, transfer between traditions.
>
>Examples of traditions in this sense - a research programme in science, a
>language, a political movement, an artistic style, a fashion scene, and so
>forth. They are defined by being, for whatever reason, cohesive over time.
>
>Finally, a comment that is a bit revolutionary - species is, in the
>linnaean system, an absolute rank, which means that all and every species
>is commensurate in that convention. But on the account I am taking,
>species is *not* commensurate across all kinds of living things - a
>bacterial species, a fungal species, and an amniote species can all be
>different kinds of things. Likewise in culture - there is no requirement
>for all traditions to have the same generality or to be commensurate with
>traditions of other varieties. There are just taxa...
>--
>
>
When are you gonna finish the memetic version of Haeckel's _Stammbaum der
Menschen_? Would the New Kids on the Block or Menudo serve as the surrogate
Gastraea of the modern boy bands? Urbilge?
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