From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Tue 09 May 2006 - 19:51:31 GMT
In correspondence with Eugene V Kooin, the author of the comment here:
>http://genomebiology.com/2001/2/4/comment/1005
>
> My main point, however, is a tribute to meme selection: the fittest will
> survive!
He commented:
snip
>. . . it is hard for me to understand how many people, including
>biologists, can have such a negative attitude (sometimes, almost
>violently expressed) to this entire conceptual development. I suppose
>this in itself is a peculiar phenomenon to be understood from the point
>of view of evolutionary psychology . . .
Let's try. Examples first.
I remember with near horror a time when a very senior scientist (not in
geology) went off on a disjointed emotional rant that was scary to
behold. (He was shaking with rage.) I was reading *his* copy of
_Scientific American_ at his house and made some innocent comment about an
article on plate tectonics.
A story illustrating this effect to a T was posted here by Aaron Lynch back
in 2004 and expanded on the Extropian mailing list. (That was where the
Libertarians freaked out for over a decade about the whole meme concept
seemingly because of an article I wrote for _Reason_.)
The K/T extinction event meme is another one that inspired high emotion
against it for over a decade. Even 25 years after the 200-mile wide crater
was found there are "partisans" who still reject the
meme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater Drew Westen imaged
the effects in brains for political "partisans" but I would bet long odds
that the same brain regions were/are active in challenged K/T rejecters.
Usually the memes that get tied up with so much emotion are religious or
political. Whatever the source, it is clear that a wide variety of memes
can obtain this kind of binding to emotional areas of the brain. Are there
features of plate tectonics, the "memes about memes" and the K/T event that
group them with political or religious memes? What other memes classes
have this binding?
In some cases, and memetics is one of them, the reaction is almost
allergic. People often don't have an expressible meme in competition to
the challenge meme; they just emotionally and sometimes violently reject
the meme. (That does not mean they don't have a meme or set of memes in
competition, just that they can't express them.)
This business of emotional freak-outs over memes is so widespread among
humans that it must be a species typical psychological trait--though people
vary in how much they have it.
Evolutionary psychology makes the claim that--without exception--every
human psychological trait either evolved (example capture-bonding) or is a
side effect (drug addiction) of some trait that *did* contribute to
reproductive success back in the EEA (Stone Age.)
I have been baffled over this for two decades, I still am, but perhaps the
above framing of the problem might give someone an idea about how to solve it.
The "rules" of the EP game is that you need to show how the "feature" would
have directly improved reproductive success in the EEA for those who had
it, *or* how the psychological trait is a side effect of some trait that
did improve reproductive success. (Extra points if you can suggest ways to
test it.)
Dawkins makes the case that being gullible may be a feature of
children. You can see why believing adults would contribute to
reproductive success (those eaten by bears didn't leave descendents).
The possibility exists that some memes get trapped in the partial freezing
of the brain's ability to learn language that happens around
puberty. (That might have something to do with the 13 year-old boys who
read Rand.) Or perhaps there is a later freezing in of memes. In that
case, we should be able to detect an age cutoff in those who opposed plate
tectonics or the K/T extinction.
Perhaps it is some side effect of the drive for status to have strong
emotional attachments to memes? (None of these feel right in EP terms.)
(Added the next day)
Or perhaps these emotional bindings to scientific memes (plus religious and
political memes) are a side effect of emotional bindings to xenophobic memes.
I recently made the case that the trait to pass around xenophobic memes and
go non-rational is an evolved species typical behavior of humans facing bad
times. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296
It may be active in some people at some level even under low stress
conditions. Low level activation of the psychological traits behind
capture-bonding (Stockholm Syndrome) seems to account for the rewards
people get from BDSM sex practices.
Wars and captures were *major* selection factors in the EEA. It should not
be a surprise if many of our deepest psychological traits were shaped by
such selection.
Comments?
Keith Henson
PS. The theory leads to the prediction that *this* theory will be met with
violent rejection by some. :-)
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