Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA10837 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:54:29 GMT Message-ID: <A4400389479FD3118C9400508B0FF2300411A7@DELTA.newhouse.akzonobel.nl> From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: candid camera memes Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 16:46:04 +0100 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
Vincent:
This has much to do with pressures for social conformity, I guess, but what
is the mechanism compelling people to do as others do in such a situation?
Is it memetic?
Derek:
I don't think the _mechanism_ is memetic. The phenomenon is memetic. The
mechanism is presumably neurobiological/neuropsychological. Why people
exhibit social conformity at all is a question for evolutionary psychology.
Can we imagine a palaeolithic scenario (well, that's what evolutionary
psychologists always do....) in which social non-conformism is
advantageous?? I think it would be difficult, so we must presumably in some
way be genetically predisposed to such things. From a slightly different
perspective Kendal and Laland show that imitative behaviour can (should?)
invade a population,
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/2000/vol4/kendal_jr&laland_kn.html. There
isn't much in the way of hard empirical evidence for this, of course, but
the fact that genetic mutations have been identified that lead in humans and
mice to sociopathic behaviour eg
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Ab
stract&list_uids=7792602, would make it surprising if these models weren't
largely correct.
Vincent:
Or is this simply the tendency_'when in doubt copy others'_that allows memes
to exist and spread?
Derek:
Yes, that's the memetic part, but the underlying mechanism is probably
genetic.
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