RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia?

From: Gatherer, D. (Derek) (D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 08:40:47 GMT

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    From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
    To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia?
    Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:40:47 +0100
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    Derek: [yesterday]
    You don't even know for sure if they [neural memes] exist at all.

    Mark:
    It's not difficult at all. All one has to do is follow genetic procedures,
    population genetics to begin with, but neural research can be blended in
    (as DNA research has been blended into genetics). It is the combination of
    substrate and population research that produces powerful results.

    Derek:
    You'll need to be much more specific than that. I've been working as a
    geneticist for 17 years now, and I just don't see that "All one has to do is
    follow genetic procedures". What genetic procedures? I can't see that
    population genetics leads us to neural memes. I worked in neurobiology
    1992-1995 and again since 1999, and I can't see how "neural research can be
    blended in". You need to give me a specific example, with empirical data,
    of these "powerful results" you refer to. As far as I can see there are no
    results at all in internalist memetics, much less powerful ones. I gave you
    a specific example of how my version of memetics would work. I took a
    hypothesis, some data, did a quantitative analysis and judged the hypothesis
    in the light of the results. You need to show me that you can do the same
    using your paradigm.

    Mark:
    Sure, one can count artefacts and behavior. Where is the meme, though?

    Derek:
    The artefacts and behaviours are the memes. They are the cultural
    replicators.

    Mark:
    Counting artefacts and behaviors is a traditional activity, but few
    practitioners of the art find it necessary to call their subjects memes.

    Derek:
    True, as Bill points out.

    Mark:
    The Lynch-meme paradigm allows one to call these artifacts and behaviors
    memetic phenotypes. By studying population dynamics of these phenotypic
    expressions, the patterns of memetic genotype replication can be discerned.

    Derek:
    But can they? You point out that there is no particular reason to call raw
    anthropological data memes. Okay, fair enough, for the sake of argument
    let's call them 'memetic phenotypes' as you suggest. One could call them
    culture types, culturgens, cultural traits etc, as various people have done
    in the past. The nomenclature is not a problem. What I dispute is that the
    observation of such external visible things as culturgens etc implies,
    necessarily or even plausibly, the existence of some corresponding 'memetic
    genotype'. There are millions, literally millions, of different ways a
    brain can produce one behaviour. There's absolutely no reason to assume a
    '1 behaviour = 1 brainpattern' model.

    Mark:
    It's just like genetics.

    Derek:
    No, it's not. Trust me, I'm a geneticist.

    Mark:
    [the SOM] is an interesting example. What it has to do with a substrate
    free meme
    is less obvious. First, there is no mention of memes in the outline
    provided, only a
    discussion of beliefs and cultural activities. The term 'memetics' doesn't
    occur until the last sentence when the example is labeled 'empirical
    memetics' and the lack of any references to 'neural memes' noted. It would
    have been more accurate to say there wasn't any mention of memes
    one way or the other. This is basically the point Bill Benzon made in his
    reply. People have been doing population studies like the above for years
    and had no need for memetics. I don't know how you are going to involve
    the substrate-free meme in this,
    I would still like to know. I agree your example is a memetic case study,
    but don't see what a substrate free meme does for anyone.

    Derek:
    2 suggestions on this score a) it frees from the necessity of spending the
    rest of our lives looking for neural memes that don't exist, and b) it
    integrates memetics into the mainstream of the social sciences. If
    substrate-free memetics just ends up looking like anthropology, then that's
    fine by me.

    Mark:
    For the neural meme brigade, the above is similar to the raw data Mendel
    collected. It's a population study. It suggests a relationship between
    environment and belief system. The data isn't random. The study suggests
    there is a genotype-phenotype relation between the phenotypic cultural
    behavior and the neural mechanics of the brain, the neural meme. As you
    point out, we don't know 'why this is the case,' we have a reasonable
    starting point for study, though. Neural mechanics.

    Derek:
    No, you misunderstand the nature of Mendelian genetics. Mendelian genetics
    wasn't just about collecting populations studies of raw data. In fact, very
    little raw population sampling was done at all. Mendel formulated a very
    rigorous set of rules for determining what was and was not likely to be a
    gene. As undergrads, we would sit in labs for weeks, literally, plating our
    our Aspergillus, trying to determine if our phenotypes were true breeding
    (ie. are they genetic at all), if they exhibited expected patterns of
    segregation and assortment (ie. did they obey Mendel's first and second
    laws) if complemented other mutants (ie. were they alleles of already
    described genes). Mendelian genetics is a seriously tough quantitative
    empirical discipline that allows you to get right down to the core of
    heredity without even a mention of DNA. (the DNA is a bonus of course).
    There's no way you can say, no way at all sorry, that memetics now is like
    genetics was in the days of Mendel. There's just no comparison whatsoever.

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