From: Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 10 Mar 2004 - 17:03:51 GMT
The opposite of "no influence whatsoever" would be _total_ control,
which I quite deliberately didn't say at all (whence creativity?).
What EPers need (to have a field at all) is genetically encoded
behavioural programs, _evolved_ (therefore _genetic_) to suit the
purposes of our ancient ancestors, and persisting because the time scale
has been too short to alter them (again reaffirming the hardcore genetic
nature of their argumentation) -- if the behaviours that emerge are just
the result of general design (for instance, all right-handers use
scissors a certain way because it's bloody hard not to frankly) then EP
is essentially vacuous. [N.B. I know hunter-gatherers didn't have scissors.]
I would add that I find research on midbrain-related behaviours (some
face stuff etc.) to be pretty uncontentious, and if EP were to confine
itself to this sort of thing, and its implications, I would find it just
as easy to swallow. Consider the infamous Dawkins argument that genes
producing strong skin pigmentation makes you more likely to be less
academically able, because that gene expresses its product in a body
that is in an environment where skin pigmentation can affect social
outcomes. So no I would not say that genes have no behavioural
consequences, but I have been waiting for a long time now for the EP
community to pull back to the much more defensible position that nearly
all of human behaviour is either wildly epigenetic, or memetic (using my
co-opted definition).
Cheers, Chris.
Richard Brodie wrote:
> Chris Taylor wrote:
>
>
>>My blanket loathing of all things EP (sorry) stems from
>>the fact that if these complex behavioural suites are under
>>genetic control, then more fundamental stuff like sexuality
>>(and a string of nasty dysfunctional behaviours) *surely must
>>be*, which (apart from having been squarely squashed through
>>proper research) opens a rather ugly can of fascists.
>
>
> I think it's the word "control" that's getting you in trouble here. It's a
> rather extreme position to assert that genetic adaptations through the
> millennia have no influence whatsoever on psychology. I don't see the
> usefulness of such a position.
>
> Richard Brodie
> www.memecentral.com
>
>
> ===============================================================
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>
>
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk) MIAPE Project -- psidev.sf.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =============================================================== 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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