From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu 14 Apr 2005 - 05:17:58 GMT
In his essay "Man's place and role in nature" which
Julian Huxley first presented as a paper at a
conference in 1954 he wrote (pages 44-45):
[JH] "Biological evolution depends on natural
selection, which was made possible when matter became
capable of self-reproduction and self-variation.
Psycho-social or cultural evolution depends on
cumulative tradition, which was made possible when
mind and its products became capable of
self-reproduction and self-variation." [JH]
And the essential difference between this quote and
Dawkins arguing for replicators in the biological and
cultural realms in _The Selfish Gene_ would be? Sounds
like he's talking about something close to a cultural
replicator to me at least. And he coins a term
"noogenetics" on page 47 for "the study of how [noetic
patterns] are transmitted and how they change and
evolve in time".
In a subsequent essay "Evolution, cultural and
biological" we have the coup de grace. Huxley claims
his crown with the following Tyson punch (page 73):
[JH] "A culture consists of the self-reproducing or
reproducible products of the mental activities of a
group of human individuals living in a society. These
can be broadly divided into artifacts- material
objects created for carrying out material functions;
socifacts- institutions and organizations for
providing the frammework of a social or political unit
and for maintaining social relations between its
members; and mentifacts- mental constructions which
provide the psychological framework of a culture and
carry out intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, ethical
or other psychological functions." [JH]
Stick a fork in it. It's done! Huxley is gracious
enough to credit Bidney on page 61 with the
terminological triad of artifact, socifact and
mentifact that he uses.
Aunger uses the term "mentifacts" in his book _The
Electric Meme_ (hardcopy, page 30), but I see no
mention of Bidney nor Huxley or Huxley's theoretical
system of "noogenetics". Such a shame. He's not alone
in his omission.
If we grant priority should we be changing the name to
noogenetics? Granted Huxley's coinage stems
*explicitly* from Teilhard, but Huxley seems to be
driving at roughly the same thing that Dawkins and
others looking at memes have. I'd call him a
proto-memeticist at least. And his grandfather was the
Bulldog no doubt!
above essays found in Julian Huxley's _Knowledge,
Morality & Destiny_ (1957. Mentor Book. New York)
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