Re: PM Chrétien on memetic change

From: Chris Taylor (Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk)
Date: Thu 19 Jun 2003 - 09:33:04 GMT

  • Next message: Chris Taylor: "Re: Origin of memes"

    Social Darwinism. Darwin and Haeckel, then it got a bit nazty for a while, then we thought of a new name for eugenics (genetic
    'counselling'), and finally, as an eventual consequence (and through sleight of hand from sociology to 'psychology') we have the Chomsky-Pinker-Cronin cronies.

    What kills me about that whole period more or less from the publication of origin (although it was already going - check out 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' by an Edinburgh publisher called Robert Chambers - he published anonymously out of fear for the safety of his children "I have eleven reasons", and of course Lamarck and a few others) was the way both (to simplify a little) sides were perfectly happy to raid the same material to support diametrically opposed views: Natural selection - a spur to better yourself, or a dampener because the situation has evolved to an ESS (the rich man at his table etc.). Funny as hell all that.

    Cheers, Chris.

    Scott Chase wrote:
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >> From: "Wade T. Smith" <wade.t.smith@verizon.net>
    >> Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >> Subject: PM Chrétien on memetic change
    >> Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 11:47:54 -0400
    >>
    >> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/18/politics/
    >> 18MEMO.html?pagewanted=print&position=
    >>
    >> "You have to look at history as an evolution of society," Prime
    >> Minister Jean Chrétien told reporters after a meeting of his cabinet.
    >>
    >>
    > Sounds Hegelian or Marxian to me. Didn't Hegel and Marx search for
    > progressive laws of history whereby societies evolve involving either a
    > dialectic or thesis and antitheis yielding synthesis or the dialectical
    > materialism of class struggle?
    >
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    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    > 

    -- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
  http://pedro.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
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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