From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue 08 Jul 2003 - 04:10:42 GMT
>From: pete <da1999p@netscape.net>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Silent memes
>Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2003 09:43:05 -0700
>
>
>hkhenson@rogers.com wrote:
>
>>I have recently been skimming through Scientific Americans I missed
>>reading in the past few years. The Dec. 2001 issue had an article "How we
>>came to be Humans" by Ian Tattersall. I found something related to recent
>>discussion on this list. Here is a paragraph:
>>
>> "This inevitably brings up the question about the Neanderthals that
>>everyone wants answered: Could they talk? Many people, especially looking
>>at the spectacularly beautiful stone tools that the Neanderthals made with
>>such skill, find it hard to believe that they couldn't. How, other than
>>through the use of language, could such remarkable skills have been passed
>>down over the generations? Well, not long ago a group of Japanese
>>researchers made a preliminary stab at addressing this problem. They
>>divided a group of undergraduates in two and taught one half how to make a
>>typical Neanderthal stone tool by using elaborate verbal explanations
>>along with practical demonstrations. The other half they taught by silent
>>example alone. One thing this experiment dramatically revealed was just
>>how tough it is to make stone tools; some of the undergraduates never
>>became proficient. But more remarkable still was that the two groups
>>showed essentially no difference either in the speed at which they
>>acquired toolmaking skills or in the efficiency with which they did so.
>>Apparently learning by silent example is just fine for passing along even
>>sophisticated stone tool-making techniques."
>>
>>Keith Henson
>>
>>
>>===============================================================
>>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
>>
>
>Keith,
>
>that article sounds interesting but i am hesitant to note that this is the
>way business is being done across this country especially in restaurants.
>Immegrants come to work, mostly illegal and not speaking English and they
>are taught to use dishwashers, lawnmowers, and forklifts.
>
>
To a degree you may be ccorrect n that the immigrants and those hiring them
may not speak the same language. Even if the immigrants don't know English
at all, you might want to know if those doing the hiring may know the
immigrant's native tongue or perhaps have a bilingual intermediary.
This stipulation aside your point remains and there could be nonverbal means
of communicating when tasks are learned.
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===============================================================
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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