From: Jeremy Bradley (jeremyb@nor.com.au)
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2002 - 21:16:23 GMT
At 03:37 PM 30/10/02 -0000, you wrote:
> <Placing the cultural unit of transmission solely in performance
>would
>> allow quantitative analysis. Putting it anywhere else only allows
>> conjecture.>
>>
> Yes, a definite nail on the head comment.
>
> There for me lies the key to behaviours and/or artefacts as the
>units of cultural transmission- there are things out there we can study
>empirically. Studying the dissemination of ideas or beliefs is much more
>ephemeral as all you can do is look for external features- i.e. behaviours
>and artefacts that you suppose indicate the presence of particular
>ideas/beliefs.
>
> Besides when people have examined the spread of particular religious
>faiths, for example, what they're really doing is looking at patterns of
>discrete behaviours and artefacts that are assumed to represent a fixed set
>of ideas/beliefs. I think Aunger makes this point, that you can't truly
>have memes without their embodiment in practices and artefacts.
>
> That doesn't mean that it's entirely inappropriate or unreasonable
>to place memes elsewhere, just that it's more open to conjecture, and thus a
>lack of rigour and accuracy in terms of empirical analysis. And if (a big
>if I know) it works in the behaviour/artefact understanding, why
>problematise it?
>
> Vincent
>
There are apparently a lot of conjectures, deductions and speculations in
your empirical research methods. Why can't the 'hard' sciences realise that
culture needs to be examined qualitatively and be done with it?
Jeremy
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