Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA07613 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 19 Sep 2000 23:54:51 +0100 Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 09:52:32 +1100 From: John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.EDU.AU> Subject: Re: empirical "memetics" To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk In-Reply-To: <20000919175642.AAA24091@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Message-ID: <MailDrop1.2d7j-PPC.1000920095232@mac463.wehi.edu.au> X-Authenticated: <wilkins@wehiz.wehi.edu.au> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 13:55:16 -0400 wade_smith@harvard.edu (Wade T.Smith)
wrote:
>On 09/19/00 13:41, William Benzon said this-
>
>>While Martindale nowhere uses the term or concept of "meme" he more
>than
>>makes up for that "deficiency" by providing a great deal of data on
>the
>>evolution of art, mainly poetry and music, but also painting.
>
>Which brings up my very basic, oft-wondered, never answered, query-
>
>Just because something cultural (in this case artistic) changes
>(changes
>from what to what, I wonder internally as subset), can we really say it
>is 'evolving'? Again, compared to what? (in the eternal plea of Eddie
>Harris and Les McCann....)
>
>Granting the wheel, is the automobile an 'evolution' of the horse
>carriage?
>
>Where is the analog of speciation within culture?
>
>And I ask this because, dammit, I don't see it. Improvements and
>alterations are not necessarily evolutions, IMHO.
This is the reason why I am doing my PhD on species concepts rather than
on cultural concepts - and my answer is that culture speciates when
traditions split. When the making of automobiles is no longer taught as
part of horse carriage making, then automotive engineering has become a
separate tradition and thus must be classified as a distinct lineage.
As Hull has argued, the fundamental ontological category in evolution is
the lineage. Lineages can change in one of two ways: they can change
their states (in adaptive, anagenetic or stochastic change of the
profile of the group that instantiates the lineage at a series of
times); or they can split (phylogenetic or cladogenetic change). Both
get called "evolution" but both are quite distinct. Selection does not
cause all splits, and often can cause the lack of a split, in a lineage.
Likewise, splitting does not mean that selection has occurred, as most
speciation occurs through allopatric isolation and subsequent drift.
There is another distinction that must be made firmly in this matter if
memetics is not to repeat the confusions of taxonomy for the past 250
years: the difference between *why* something is a separate lineage, and
whether we can *tell* that it is. This is the difference known as the
history-character split in taxonomy. For example, sibling or cryptic
species may be indistinguishable to a human taxonomist, but yet be
evolutionarily distinct.
So, if we can tell the difference, then there may be one; if we cannot,
there may still be one.
In biology, adaptive evolution results in the shifting of the
frequencies of alleles in populations. In this way, by analogy, carriage
making may shift to car making but remain within the same population of
professionals. But when car making becomes an isolated tradition, then
it becomes a distinct cultural species. IOW, the critical thing for
speciation is lineage splitting, not adaptation.
>
>Had Martindale shown that the _reason_ man creates art has evolved over
>the eons?
I would have thought that was irrelevant to the evolution of culture. In
the same way, it is irrelevant to speciation that the sun continues to
shine and be the source of energy input into ecology, or that graviation
and tectonic plate movement continue to be the background to biological
evolution. Human "nature" (ie, biology) is the background to cultural
evolution.
My $0.02, and worth what you paid for it.
--John Wilkins, Head, Graphic Production The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Melbourne, Australia <mailto:wilkins@WEHI.EDU.AU> <http://www.users.bigpond.com/thewilkins/darwiniana.html> Homo homini aut deus aut lupus - Erasmus of Rotterdam
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