From: Ray Recchia (rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com)
Date: Fri 23 May 2003 - 14:06:31 GMT
-----Original Message-----
From: "Wade T. Smith" <wade.t.smith@verizon.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 09:00:11 -0400
Subject: Re: animals
>
> On Thursday, May 22, 2003, at 04:53 PM, Ray wrote:
>
> > clearly primatologists
> > have been using a common mental model as a basis for significant
> > insights
> > into ape social interaction and it would likely be available for
> > similar
> > insights in ape memetics.
>
> See the work of Mark Hauser here at Harvard for some excellent work on
> primate social behaviors.
>
> He does not call them memetic behaviors, and, indeed, rejects the
> memetic hypothesis for animal social behavior.
>
> The performance model is not a model of social behavior, by the way, it
> is a model of cultural evolution. It is not applicable to any animal,
> at this point, except homo sapiens.
>
> - Wade
>
I've read Hauser. He's very good but he isn't a primatologist. I think
that his research is actually in the area of neurology. But most
primatologists don't like memes either. Mainly they have a problem with
differences in methods for variation. Those differences are more extreme
in humans where they involve logical alteration instead of accidental
changes in behavior.
Could you offer a reaons for insisting on that performance based memes
would only apply to humans? Numerous individuals on this list have
repeatedly shown that there are non-geneticly transmitted behaviors in
animals. In primates I believe there are examples of intentional
demonstration if you were thinking along those lines.
Ray Recchia
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