From: John Wilkins (wilkins@wehi.edu.au)
Date: Thu 28 Oct 2004 - 01:36:09 GMT
On 27/10/2004, at 7:52 PM, Paul wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk] On
> Behalf
> Of Keith Henson
> Sent: 27 October 2004 02:57
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Absolutist memes
>
>
>> The opposite can occur as we have seen in Northern Ireland (though the
>> reverse situation does not get as much press). In that case, a
>> switch to a
>> much lower birth rate a generation ago let economic growth exceed
>> population growth. Rational memes slowly prevailed and support for
>> the IRA
>> faded out. My claim here is that the psychological switch into and
>> out of
>> war mode evolved in the stone age to be dependent on the difficulty of
>> getting game and berries. Today the mode trigger maps (roughly) into
>> income per capita.
>
>> Because of the high birth rate in the Palestinian population (and
>> Islamic
>> populations in general), there is no resolution in sight. The most
>> likely
>> (grim) outcome is a spasm similar to what happened in Rwanda.
>
>> This is my sad prediction based on fundamental evolutionary psychology
>> principles.
>
> Very interesting theory, one that make sense giving your explanation.
> How fundamental are evolutionary psychology principles? I'm not being
> sarcastic, I just don't know that much about EP and from that I didn't
> think memetics and EP could co-exist, i.e., where compatible theories.
>
I don't see why - for if memes and evolutionary psych are incompatible,
so too are memes and *any* psychology. The etiology of a trait is in no
way relevant to its compatibility with memes - only the plasticity of
that trait WRT memes.
-- Dr John S Wilkins Head, Communication Services The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Parkville, Victoria, Australia =============================================================== 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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