Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA19799 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 21 Jun 2000 17:47:52 +0100 Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000621100449.03683100@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 11:44:53 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.0.20000616165753.01df8c40@popmail.mcs.net> References: <20000616191617.AAA9640@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.7] > Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=====================_347923825==_.ALT" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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At 09:28 AM 6/18/00 -0500, Aaron Lynch wrote:
>The more specific ideas of Machiavellian memes, Machiavellian
>intelligence, and adversative propagation be seen as suggesting that
>devious self-promotion and attention deflection are simply the brilliant
>things to do. Here again, the problem is that consequences are not viewed
>in a long enough term to see how the scientific community will react when
>expected work is deflected from view and devious methods become palpable.
>The relative lack or absence of curtains in science causes more problems
>for Machiavellian or adversative methods in science than in, say,
>business, politics, and personal affairs. Making matters worse is that
>early moves toward Machiavellian and adversative self-promotion may have
>created an environment in which newcomers seeking to establish their
>careers may feel a competitive pressure to be as Machiavellian or
>adversative those who went before. Certain cons and facades have
>apparently been indeed imitated in recent years, which gives critics even
>more ability to characterize our entire field as a sham.
At 12:57 PM 6/16/00 -0500, Aaron Lynch wrote:
>On thinking about this further, it occurs to me that there may be still
>other ways that "bad attitudes" might affect memetics and related fields
>more than physics, for instance. Memetics provides a means of regarding
>neighborly love, kindness, honesty, etc. as being the result of infectious
>memes that are parasitic to their hosts. This can lead, perhaps
>unconsciously, to a view that neighborly love, kindness, honesty etc. are
>foolish, and that the wiser attitude is the "bad attitude." For those who
>already sport a "bad attitude," memetics might hold a disproportionate
>allure due to its ability to provide a rationalization that neighborly
>love, kindness, honesty, etc. are foolish.
I should be clear here that I am talking about how ideas can increase the
proclivity to cons and facades. This is not the same thing as blaming
people for cons and facades. Some of the ideas in the above paragraphs are
ideas that I myself have discussed. For instance, adversative propagation
is a mechanism discussed in my book Thought Contagion, and my book also
discusses how neighborly love ideas serve their own propagation in
Christianity. I suspect that people familiar with these analyses may be
more likely to conclude that adversative propagation is inevitable and
hence a wise thing to engineer deliberately. They may also be more likely
to conclude that neighborly love memes are parasitic to their hosts,
leading to lower levels of neighborly love attitudes and lower levels of
behaviors that one might associate with neighborly love. In other words,
some of the thoughts that I myself have disseminated may contribute to a
higher prevalence of "bad attitudes" in memetics than in other fields. I am
not, however, attempting to blame myself for discussing these subjects, nor
to blame others for discussing related subjects.
At 11:35 PM 6/19/00 -0500, Aaron Lynch wrote:
>Wade,
>I might add that the number of experiments (and other empirical studies)
>being conducted is directly proportional to the reputation the science has
>among research grant makers. If there is one thing that grant makers in
>general and research grant makers in particular want from their recipients
>it is both the appearance and reality of integrity. Most grant makers do
>not want to invest millions of dollars of research money if they sense
>that cons and facades are present: they simply do not want to take any
>more risk of being swindled than they have to. There are many other
>aspects to integrity than simply the number of experiments under way.
>Falsifications of credentials and data, along with other cons and facades
>certainly count against the reality and appearance of integrity. In
>something of a vicious cycle, these can then exacerbate a scarcity of
>empirical research funding, which in turn also undermines the forces
>working for integrity and the image of integrity projected to research
>grant makers.
Here, I am again not blaming specific people. Rather, certain ideas about
competitive idea transmission, etc. may lead to more cons and facades
happening in memetics than in other fields. Remove any one or any several
players, and different people would have been likely to have followed the
same paths from thinking about competitive idea transmission, selfish
memes, and various other memetic topics to thinking about how to apply
these ideas to the problem of self-promotion.
Given that cons and facades have led to a Barnum-like atmosphere associated
with memetics, regardless of how memes themselves may have helped produce
the situation, it does not necessarily apply to all of cultural evolution.
I have spoken a number of times Pete Richerson, for instance, and learned
that he still does not like to use the word meme. I suppose if he had,
grantmakers might have seen his work as too closely associated with a
Barnum-like atmosphere, and not funded it or not funded it as much.
Avoiding the word "meme" may thus be a successful way to avoid undue doubts
about an honest researcher's integrity.
Avoiding the word "meme" may also help by not giving the impression that
one is already properly funded. Grantmakers who have the impression that
memetics already has functioning research institutions and dedicated
university facilities might not see it as producing results commensurate
with the level of institutional support, or they might not see the field as
being in any greater need of funding than cultural evolution work done
without the word "meme." For these reasons, the number of grants made for
research that is explicitly described as memetic in the grant proposal or
grant award would count as evidence for or against the possibility that a
reputation for a Barnum-like atmosphere has harmed funding in memetics.
However, grants for cultural evolution research that is not described as
memetic in the grant proposal or grant award do not count for or against
this hypothesized funding suppression.
While negative impressions of memetics as a field may enter implicitly into
a grantmaker's deliberations about funding decisions, I would not expect it
to be spelled out in any explicit or public way. For instance, I would not
expect a declined proposal to ever indicate that the investigator was
judged by the company he or she keeps, and that the company was found to
produce too many cons and facades. Grantmakers making decisions may,
however, do their background investigations of memetics and simply find
more hype and deception than they want to have associated with their
grantmaking work or institution. Most do not want anyone to ever think that
they or their institution may have been duped out of money by a con or facade.
I should point out, however, that just because a field has achieved a
reputation for lack of integrity or a Barnum-like atmosphere does not mean
that research grants will never be awarded. Just this past week, newscasts
in the USA carried a report of an "alternative therapy" cancer doctor who
received a major research grant--I think it was from the National
Institutes of Health. Investigative journalists on ABC 20/20 found that his
work was rife with quackery. Grantmakers are not infallible, for one thing.
And we should also expect occasional brave grantmakers willing to put some
claims that they find highly controversial claims to the test. But I think
that in sciences, a reputation for too much hype and too little integrity
tend to work against the total amount budgeted to a line of research.
--Aaron Lynch
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