Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA12965 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 15 Nov 2000 14:06:18 GMT Subject: RE: Tests show a human side to chimps Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 09:02:57 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20001115140137.AAA7945@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 11/15/00 08:27, Gatherer, D. (Derek) said this-
>If you can show that a novel cultural variant has a selective
>advantage or disadvantage which does not affect the constitution of the gene
>pool of that population, then you have a good case.
Ah, but wouldn't evolution itself battle, and battle hard, against any
such variant?
>The best I think we can hope for are
>retrospective analyses, eg. along the lines of the Peruvian water-boiling
>case study.
Not that I don't like retrospection, but, in most instances,
retrospection is a pseudoscience, akin to astrology, where the bias of
the 'experimentor' is the desired result of the analysis.
I ask the same thing of 'scientific' astrologers (who are also akin to
skeptical believers, in that impossibly portmanteau way of the flagrantly
newage)- please, please, begin by gathering data, not by applying your
preconceptions and wishes upon a derived set of numbers. It's not the
ability to find patterns, but the theory of pattern which is important in
science, but, retrospection is all they know.
Both memetics and astrology (although hopefully for different reasons)
need to begin to gather data from experimental bases, and not continue to
pattern-seek among aggregates of loosely strewn data.
Hopefully because it should signal the end to any effort to
scientifically validate astrology, and the beginning of a validation of
memetics.
- Wade
===============================================================
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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 15 2000 - 14:07:58 GMT