Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA09372 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 24 Oct 2000 14:22:37 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 09:22:06 -0400 Subject: Re: Wimsatt on memes at the Uni Pittsburgh From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B61AF642.530E%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745AB7@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 11:58:45 +0100
> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: Wimsatt on memes at the Uni Pittsburgh
>
>
> The idea/hypothesis comes first, the well-defined technical stuff comes
> later, as people investigate the idea.
It can go both ways, but memetrics has done neither.
There's an endnote (pp. 325 ff.) in the 2nd edition of The Selfish Gene
where Dawkins tracks the spread of the idea of kin selection in the
scientific literature. He gives this as an example of empirical memetis.
So there it is, in the canonical heart of memetics. But what memeticists do
this sort of thing? There's Michael Best and who else? This kind of
research doesn't require much in the way of hypothesis generating, etc. You
just follow the memes. Or, some time ago a guy--I forget his name--made a
brief appearance on this list and talked about work he'd been doing
compiling a list of sightings of a meme about, I believe, some particular
kind of blotter acid. That's empirical work & it doesn't require any grand
hypothesis. But it does require work.
> But there's no point doing large
> scale empirical projects if the idea can be refuted by either (a) rational
> argument and/or (b) already existing evidence to the contrary, so
> cross-disciplinary discussion is required before rushing into research.
On the other hand, if you keep your ideas sufficiently fuzzy, they can't be
either refuted and confirmed and so you can continue the chatter.
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