From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2002 - 04:13:08 GMT
On Monday, October 28, 2002, at 05:53 , AaronLynch@aol.com wrote:
> People can easily regard use of the word "meme" as an attempt to grab
> some of that aura [of achievement] without first having
> established a highly advanced and useful science. This is a problem
> that did not exist for the word "gene" when it was introduced.
Aaron provides the nutshell of the problem of definitional posturing
regarding the meme, as the very mechanism or result of the mechanism are
both still conjectures. We just don't have evidence of cultural
evolution, in the way Mendel did, or Crick and Watson. We have patterns
of change which may or may not have an evolutionary mechanism, but could
just as well be emergent artifacts of human social existence.
The evolution of culture is a pink unicorn, too.
To a life without memes!
After all- if birds got 'em, I don't want 'em!
(The fact more is- I don't _need_ 'em- I'm more than happy to feel
related to birds, or spiders, or anything else that crawls, slithers,
flies....)
However, memetic theory, and the hypothesis of mechanisms of cultural
evolution (or at least the analyzing of what has changed and how in
cultures over the years, putting aside the question of whether it's
actually evolutionary, or just ancillary to social behaviors), does seem
to have some meat to it, perhaps tasting like chicken, or crow.
But really, in all my trips to museums, I always come away feeling that
nothing has changed except the things we work with and the places we
work. The processes are all the same and remain.
- Wade
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