Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA20499 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 3 Jun 2000 20:31:23 +0100 Message-ID: <39391646.9E8DD36D@mediaone.net> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 15:29:26 +0100 From: Chuck <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: [COMPLEX-M] "Intelligent Design" lobbyCongressagainst Darwinism References: <4.3.1.0.20000603131644.022db2d0@popmail.mcs.net> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------C16CB8D47C00503EE7C0288B" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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For what it's worth, I think you are probably correct in your
assessment. I find your reasoning wonderfully clever, but your premises
implausible given what we already know from a giant chunk of behavioral
research over the last 50 years. So I, too, would assume we'd have quite
an extended discussion. And since you already have quite an audience
predisposed to your beliefs, it's quite reasonable that you could make
the calculation that you wouldn't get much out of it.
At any rate, good luck. Your cleverness should get you a long way!
Aaron Lynch wrote:
> At 10:22 PM 6/2/00 +0100, Chuck wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>
>> I am not aware of any correlation between evangelical Christianity
>> and family size. I actually doubt there is one. After all, the
>> American family size is below replacement level, and fully 1/3 of
>> all Americans claim to be born again Christians. So just because the
>> religion is growing in size, that doesn't mean that it is
>> responsible for more fertility.
>
>
> Chuck,
>
> Different sects have different fertility rates.
>
> See for example "Counting Flocks and Lost Sheep: Trends in Religious
> Preference Since World War II" By Tom W. Smith National Opinion
> Research Center, University of Chicago, GSS Social Change Report No.
> 26 February, 1988 Revised January, 1991.
>
> A quote from that paper reads: "the general pattern is that more
> fundamentalist denominations tend to have higher fertility than
> moderate-to-liberal denominations." Now fundamentalism does not
> correspond exactly to evangelical Christianity, but this does
> illustrate a correlation between variety of faith and fertility rate
> that is consistent with the broad statement I made above.
>
>
>> Your reasoning on this issues recalls for me my own arguments
>> against your point of view back in the late 1960s. The term meme did
>> not exist, of course, but a great deal of power was given to the
>> sheer force of ideas - which memics today would call memes. Back
>> then Margaret Mead proposed at the annual conference of the American
>> Anthopological Association that the number of birth control memes
>> should be increased so that it becomes a craze that people will
>> follow. I publically opposed her at the time, insisting that
>> fertility rates were responses to particular economic contexts and
>> would not respond to memic campaigns. She refused after that to ever
>> speak to me again. I had the last laugh, though. Some NGOs tried her
>> advice -- and wasted a lot of money. The third world is now reducing
>> its population growth rates simply because they are moving into
>> cities and their medical care is improving. As we say in the US
>> since the Bush presidential campaign, "It's the economy, stupid." :)
>> (that is, he failed to understand that he had to talk about economic
>> issues to win)
>>
>> > Among the consequences are interference with the teaching of
>> > evolution theory. Decreased availability of abortion and
>> > contraception is has also apparently started to happen, especially
>> > for the poor. The widespread reading of the Book of Revelation has
>> > also led to dark paranoia about other countries and international
>> > organizations such as the United Nations. Such factors may threaten
>> > the prospects for peace and international cooperation. ...."
>>
>> All of this is a bit of a reach, don't you think? As for ascribing
>> anything to religion by itself, the Irish have an apt aying:
>> "Religion doesn't kill people; people do."
>>
>> > Religion and Science Revisited
>> > Numerous thinkers have suggested that modern scientific knowledge
>> > would push all religion toward extinction. Yet old religions
>> > continue to defy such forecasts. Moreover, new and vigorous
>> > religious movements continually form. Many once thought that the
>> > theory of evolution by natural selection would spell the end of
>> > religious myths. Yet the very phenomenon of evolution by natural
>> > selection easily propels religions past the minor challenges raised
>> > by scientific ideas. Even evolutionism loses popular ground to
>> > divine creationism in modern times.
>>
>> I have written extensively lin this listserv as to why. You are
>> making the same mistake that Dawkins makes by assuming that religion
>> is just about the truth of material reality - like it's **really**
>> about whether or not God exists. This view of religion verges on
>> mere anti-religious propoganda. (For the record, I am atheist).
>
>
> <snip>
>
> My involvement in this line of research did not result from reading
> Dawkins, and I do not treat religion as if it were "really" about
> whether or not God exists. My main connection to Dawkins is that
> Hofstadter convinced me to use Dawkins's term "meme" about 10 years
> after I started work on evolutionary epidemiology of ideas. People who
> happen to use the term "meme" cannot all be seen simply as "followers
> of Dawkins."
>
> Besides not having the time to translate all of my work into
> population studies terminology, I also do not have time to offer
> listserver discussion as a substitute for reading beyond page 3 of my
> book, or for reading my more technical papers. Part of the utility of
> publishing things is to avoid having to re-express and re-explain the
> same material over and over to each new person who writes either
> privately or on the listserver. I don't read everything that comes
> over the list server either. The only reason I even have time to stay
> subscribed is that my mail program automatically routes everything
> from memetics@mmu.ac.uk into its own separate file.
>
> You started by asking a reasonable question about the Amish, and I
> answered that question. However, my answer has led to a proliferation
> of new objections. Experience has taught me that if I answer such
> proliferating objections, I just get a new generation of further
> proliferating objections without limit. What emerges is a volume of
> vociferosity with people fleeing in terror, and nothing accomplished.
> My delay in answering your question about the Amish resulted from
> circumstances that caused me to fall behind on correspondence.
> However, now that the pattern of proliferating objections is emerging,
> I will have to deliberately refrain from answering new objections.
> Anyone interested in seeing how or if I answer various objections
> raised can read my book and my more technical papers. Many objections
> have already been addressed in one way or another in my existing work,
> but I certainly cannot claim to have answered all possible objections
> in advance.
>
> I fully expect that if you cannot read my work without seeing
> everything compared to or expressed in terms of population studies and
> various other social sciences as you may prefer, then you will stop at
> every third page or every other page of everything I have written.
> That, however, only means that your comments on my work can only be
> based on a very limited reading of my work. You are, of course, still
> free to express disagreements with me based on just 3 pages of my book
> or based on however much of my work that you choose to read.
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
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