From: Steven Thiele (sthiele@metz.une.edu.au)
Date: Wed 04 Feb 2004 - 22:42:02 GMT
At 01:49 PM 4/02/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>Bruce recognizes the importance of case studies and requests one definitive
>example. He also insists that we narrow the field by identifying where,
>specifically, the memetics model applies. I fully agree. I think the chief
>reason for the failure of memetics to be widely accepted as a science is its
>attempt to reduce all of culture to a memetic struggle for survival (and the
>corresponding illusion that this can render the study of culture into a
>"hard" science).
Yes, and the reason for this reduction is simple. It is supported by those
who believe that all of biology is a genetic struggle for survival. So as
soon as memes are proposed as analagous to genes, the automatic belief is
that 'all of culture is a memetic struggle for survival'. Since the first
belief if dubious, the second is even more so.
The idea that memetics is more scientific than social science is baseless -
neither are scientifically oriented.
Steven Thiele
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