Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA03480 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 15 Jun 2000 12:31:17 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458C3@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 12:29:27 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I suppose one memetic argument would be that once the scientific method
emerged as a successful and useful strategy for finding out about and thus
altering our environment, memes either had to adapt to it or die out.
What we've seen is both the resilience of certain kinds of memes
(principally religious ones), and their adaptability. So, for example, we
see believers aping scientific terminology etc. in creation "science" and
intelligent design believers, and even their trying to use one science
against another (e.g. the 2nd law of thermodynamics prevents natural
selection from occuring, according to them). They have developed a kind of
memetic camouflage, in much the same way that animals develop camouflage,
and for the same purposes.
We've also seen "scientific" methods being utilised in other fields as well,
one in particular is documentary. When the documentary movement was founded
there was a great belief amongst its pioneers (people like John Grierson)
that documentary was a scientific medium, reflecting values expressed in the
19th century towards the invention of photography and then the film camera,
as being akin to the telescope or microscope- new scientific tools. So
science has become a dominant framework within which very non-scientific
memes have emerged/adapted to/hide within.
The media through which science is communicated has become very important in
this, of course. The days of the 17th/18th century letter writing and elite
journals circulating between some of the most important thinkers of the age
(in Europe anyway) has largely been supplanted by mass mediated
communication aimed at the larger population, such that the science most
people encounter is being shaped not by the scientific method but by the
methods of journalists and documentarists. In this environment con science
can arguably profit more readily. I remember seeing a documentary a while
back about over-unity machines, those that their inventors claim can produce
more energy than is put into them. I've also written about how
documentaries on pseudo-science (such as alien abductions) demonstrate that
documentary is far from scientific in its methods, but this doesn't stop
such programmes being made.
Vincent
[p.s. I didn't like to name names in the recent dispute, especially since
one of them has now apparently gone off in a huff!]
> ----------
> From: Aaron Lynch
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 8:45 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades
>
> I must have missed the posts in which years spent in the academy were used
>
> to assert that one person knows more than another. In my view, talent and
> hard work combined tend to produce expertise, but even that is only a
> statistical connection. An academy is not essential as the place for doing
>
> the work, as Darwin clearly showed. And hard work plus talent still do not
>
> guarantee infallibility. Einstien's reaction to quantum mechanics is often
>
> taken as evidence of that. Meanwhile, a whole range of theories may be
> modified by such developments as superstring or membrane theory.
>
> So I guess I am shifting the purpose for discussing Einstein. My thought
> experiment raises the question of when, whether, how, and for how long the
>
> scientific method ("the Method" as Wade put it) might be subverted. Is the
>
> Method infinitely robust, or is it only as good as the society in which it
>
> is used, or somewhere in between? A proliferation of cons and facades
> might
> be just one of the ways the Method can be subverted, too. As I argued
> earlier, cultural natural selection might be working against the teaching
> of evolution in USA schools, and affecting the actions of Congress.
>
> Our weakness for simplification might also work against the Method. One
> might, as Wade said, use the ability to explain something to a 9 year old
> child as a test for whether you really know something. However, I do not
> see reality as having been so conveniently tailored to fit the limitations
>
> of the human brain, regardless of one's age. Even if we all use the Baby
> Einstein (tm) learning system, the 9 year old might still have problems
> with general relativity, for instance. And why stay with 9 year old
> humans,
> and not go to 9 year old chimpanzees?
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
> At 12:49 PM 6/14/00 +0100, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> >Didn't Einstein, for example, reject the idea of black holes even though
> his
> >theory predicted them?
> >
> >In one sense, the value of great scientists is that they are simply
> slightly
> >less wrong than everyone else, which means everyone benefits in being
> ever
> >so slighty closer to being right, but of course it doesn't mean that they
> >are infallible.
> >
> >The main reason I brought up Einstein was that one particular argument
> had
> >descended into the 'a' spent n years in the academy and 'b' is a college
> >drop out so 'a' must know better. My point was that nobody at the time
> of
> >Einstein's graduation thought he was smart enough to give him a
> university
> >job, but it didn't stop him becoming one of the most important physicists
> >ever.
> >
> >Vincent
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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