Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA08770 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:31:22 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745BC7@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia? Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:29:58 -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
<Their favorite stories seem to be about religion and cultures. And
the
> stories they tell indicate that they have a very shallow conception of
> human
> nature and society. The orthodox memetic position is that the most
> important thing about religion is that it is irrational. That's what they
> want to explain. How do they explain it? By saying those pesky memes are
> working juju on the minds of otherwise unsuspecting adults.
>
> That's a pathetic explanation. It tells me these people simply do not
> have
> any deep conception of human nature. They aren't interested in explaining
> human behavior. Rather, they want to explain it away by palming it off on
> memes.>
>
So why is religion so widespread? And, more particulary, why are
some religions significantly more widespread than others? Why do people
follow one religion over another? Why do people persistently engage in
practices which they can often be consciously aware of as being irrational,
e.g. reading one's horoscope? Why do people engage in practices that seem
antithetical to adaptive behaviour e.g. giving up your child or yourself for
sacrifice, or celibacy?
Tell me what disciplines have unequivocally answered such questions,
and what the answers are, and we can all go home and put our feet up.
There's a major difference between shallow and reductive. People
who don't like things they hold dear explained in reductive terms call such
explanations shallow.
<I make no such assumption. But I know enough about literature,
art, music,
> cognitive and neuropsyhology (and have published on several of these) to
> know that memeticists don't know much about those things.>
>
Again, gives us the answers then, and I'll go home and shut up. I'd
be interested in what you constitute as knowledge about literature, art and
music, though, as these in my experience are fields of profound and dramatic
disagreements about all sorts of fundamental elements not least questions of
intepretation and meaning (e.g. the Fish/Iser debates in literature).
<Look, memetics has been out there for what, 25 years? What
substantive
> results has it produced? It's not as though it were an obscure idea with
> only a half-dozen people thinking about it. As Dawkins points out, the
> word
> "meme" has entered the English language. Memetics is a major branch of
> pop
> science. But that's all it is so far.>
>
I wouldn't say 'meme' has entered the public consciousness. Most
people I mention it to haven't heard of it. Otherwise though, its greatest
publicity has indeed been in popular science. Does that automatically
discredit it though?
<Now maybe the problem is that all the mainstream thinkers -- a
class which
> surely does not include me, by mainstream standards I'm as wild and crazy
> as
> any memeticist -- are ignoring memetics and so memetics can't work up a
> critical mass of thinkers. Or maybe the standard memetic paradigm, memes
> in
> the head, simply isn't workable.>
>
Like sociobiology, there will be communities of researchers and
disciplines that will entirely ignore memetics perhaps feeling that it
threatens their authority and autonomy. In my own university education,
despite obvious implications of sociobiological ideas for all sorts of
disciplines, including humanities and social sciences, I never saw it
mentioned on a syllabus. I'd only heard of it because I've always
maintained an interest in subjects that I didn't pursue into higher
education and tended to read popular science books on things like evolution
and astrophysics, as well as constantly watching science documentaries (as
people may have gathered already :-)) [Just a quick aside, often educated
people watch very little television, but those of you who may be like that
should reconsider, it's a very under-rated, and under-valued medium]
I don't, now, buy the neural meme model so maybe on that point
you're right. Of course, a point of contestation here is the kind of
material that people have claimed is evidence.
I actually think that memetics is likely, initially, to get its
results from retrodictive analysis, and this will undoubtedly involve
reassessing and revisiting previous research in a variety of fields (e.g.
one might look at the spread of a particular sport which would draw on works
like Bale's 'Sports Geography' (1989), London: E & FN Spon).
Since not a lot of work like this has been done thus far, it may be
fair to criticise because of this lack of activity, but it isn't appropriate
to criticise on the assumption that nothing new will be found or added to
previous research. We just don't know yet.
Besides, some of the events that perhaps may best evidence memetics
as viable are essentially highly ephemeral e.g. the craze for wearing
baseball caps back to front, and such things have high personal risks for
those considering undertaking them- not least ridicule from colleagues and
others. Memetics seems to be drawing a lot of ire just for being
considered.
For me, this is familiar territory, as in the UK there are lots of
people who think that media studies is a complete waste of time and not
academic in any way, unfortunately including some senior politicians and
educationalists (e.g the recent head of the schools inspection service
called media studies degrees, and others, 'mickey mouse' degrees).
To my mind the central question of memetics, what processes drive
culture are important and worthy, even if memetics itself is a cul-de-sace
rather than the right path to a better understanding of that set of
questions.
> >> Sometimes knowledge acquisition is
> > >dramatic and profound (Darwin, Einstein), but largely it is gradual and
> >> incremental, and for the most part we are all standing on the shoulders
> of
> >> giants.
>
>None of them being memeticists.
Physicists today aren't giants, for the most part standing on Einstein's
shoulders, biologists (and all variations thereof) are standing on Darwin's
shoulders, psychologists (many rather reluctantly) on Freud's shoulders etc.
etc.
Perhaps memeticists are guilty of over stating, or being too enthusiastic
about the possibilities of the theory. Well, what a sin that is.
Vincent
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