From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Mon 09 Dec 2002 - 20:42:57 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wade Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
> On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 12:04 PM, Grant Callaghan wrote:
>
> > I think we have to define memetic evolution as Lamarkian for
> > two reasons: 1) the "seed" of an idea is broadcast to everyone
> > withing seeing or hearing distance rather than selectively
> > passed to just one individual, which these days means everyone
> > watching TV, going to school, reading the same book or reading
> > this list, etc., etc. and 2) the meme which is picked up by
> > various members of the public does not produce a faithful
> > reproduction of the meme that was spread in the broadcast.
> > There is too much variation for it to be a Darwinian type
> > reproduction and evolution.
>
> Each performance is goal-oriented (aka lamarckian) (the
> performance itself, as far as the performer is concerned, is
> only a goal, but the performance itself is only half of the
> equation of culture), yes, but, each replication may only have
> the goal of replication itself, so, while lamarckianism might be
> a fair analyzation of some individuals' memetic processes, I
> don't think cultural evolution itself demands lamarckian
> mechanisms, at all.
>
> And, evolutionary mechanisms are not presumed to be individual's
> mechanisms, are they, regardless of the agency within evolution
> of individuals?
And that is just to beat, the presumption that evolution is NOT
individualistic biased !
Kenneth
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