Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA01578 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 29 Nov 2000 14:42:43 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745B55@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: new article (another quick point) Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 14:40:21 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Typically, after posting my quick response earlier, I was struck by another
theory put forward that fits in with this kind of idea, and I'm suprised the
author didn't mention it.
Agriculture is generally regarded to have been the catalyst for the
emergence of cities, and it has been argued that the combination of
agriculture and large dense urban populations led to requirements for other
things too, not least money, and also writing. For example, some 95% of
writing found in ancient Sumer concerned trade.
But this also turns the argument on its head in some ways. if if wasn't for
the discovery/ invention of farming, large scale communities of humans were
unlikely to develop. So qualitative factors can beget major population
shifts, which in turn beget qualitative shifts in social trends. A while
ago in New Scientist there was a piece about the discovery of fire-making
that was speculating on these kinds of issues, i.e. how and to what extent
did fire-making impact on human evolutionary development (in that case I
think this was meant in genetic as well as social terms).
BTW, nice to see fortunate coincidences of discussions on the list appearing
in press or on screen. I don't know if you caught, or what you thought
about the Channel 4 programme 'The Difference', which focused on both
genetic similarities and differences between ethnic groups, where the milk
drinking tolerance was discussed. Also New Scientist a couple of weeks
back mentioned that tribe in Papua New Guinea where they got the CJD like
disease from eating dead relatives (it was in the news because several
elderly survivors of that period, the 1950s, have begun to die from the
disease, leading to fears that people previously thought immune to
vulnerability to such diseases may just have very long incubation periods
instead, so every meat eater in the UK is going to die from vCJD...
perhaps).
Also, has anyone else seen the Rose & Rose book 'Alas, Poor Darwin'? It's
an attack on evolutionary psychology mostly, but there's a chapter called
'Anti-Dawkins', and Mary Midgely has written a piece about memes (flicking
through it in the bookshop it didn't seem a strong argument to me against
memes, but there you go I'm biased, although I did agree with some of the
criticisms of Blackmore's Buddhism).
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Gatherer, D. (Derek)
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 8:49 am
> To: 'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'
> Subject: new article
>
> The transition from quantity to quality: A neglected causal mechanism in
> accounting for social evolution
> Robert L. Carneiro
> American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024
> Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 97, Issue 23, 12926-12931, November 7,
> 2000
>
> Students of social evolution are concerned not only with the general
> course
> it has followed, but also with the mechanisms that have brought it about.
> One such mechanism comes into play when the quantitative increase in some
> entity, usually population, reaching a certain threshold, gives rise to a
> qualitative change in the structure of a society. This mechanism, first
> recognized by Hegel, was seized on by Marx and Engels. However, neither
> they
> nor their current followers among anthropologists have made much use of it
> in attempting to explain social evolution. But as this paper attempts to
> show, in those few instances when the mechanism has been invoked, it has
> heightened our understanding of the process of social evolution. And, it
> is
> argued, if the mechanism were more widely applied, further understanding
> of
> the course of evolution could be expected to result.
>
> Available at:
>
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/23/12926
>
> ===============================================================
> 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 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
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