RE: back to basics

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 29 May 2003 - 00:53:11 GMT

  • Next message: Scott Chase: "RE: Watches & Necklaces"

    >From: joedees@bellsouth.net
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >Subject: RE: back to basics
    >Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 17:29:45 -0500
    >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > >From: joedees@bellsouth.net
    > > >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > > >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > > >Subject: RE: back to basics
    > > >Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:00:32 -0500
    > > >
    > > > > Lawry wrote:
    > > > >
    > > > > <<We have, of course,
    > > > > agreed earlier that memetic engineering is not possible.>>
    > > > >
    > > > > Huh?
    > > > >
    > > >What are successful advertizing or political campaigns?
    > > >
    > > They are successful advertizing or political campaigns respectively.
    > >
    > > Advertizing and political campaigns have been around for quite a while
    > > longer than memetics. I wonder whether advertizers (or marketing
    > > majors) and politicians (or political science majors) could learn much
    > > more from memetics or so-called "memetic engineering" than trivial
    > > gee-whiz redifinition of what they've been doing for years or if
    > > memeticists could learn from these fields how the real world actually
    > > works, beyond sterile theorizing based on dubious biological analogy.
    > >
    > > After what Dace posted on memetics not being up to par with social
    > > psychology and cognitive psychology, I would wonder the same for these
    > > fields too. A trivial redifinition of memory (ie- the meme as a
    > > subclass of memory) may not add much to the repertoire of memory
    > > research than a "Gee-whiz, that's nice. Next!"
    > >
    >Memetic transfer existed before the discipline of memetics appeared,
    >just as evolution and genetics operated in the world prior to the human
    >creation of fields of study for these mechanisms.
    >
    Nobody would ever accuse you of putting the cart before the horse now would they?

    Evolution and genetics have shown themselves to be worthy endeavors that have superceded much of the biological theorizing which preceded their advent upon the scientific stage. Yes, the subject matter these disciplines study (eg- alleles and shifts in allelic frequencies in a population over generational time) have played a crucial role in biological phenomena long before our own species evolved as one of many results.

    Yet, memetics on the other hand doesnt have quite the same head of steam (at least not yet anyway) and to assume your conclusion this early in the ballgame shows just how uncritical a follower you really are.

    Could you convince a significant proportion of professional social and cognitive psychologists that memetics has anything substantial to offer them in terms of their disciplines? The same goes for marketing and political science professionals.

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