Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA28315 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 9 Feb 2001 04:38:08 GMT Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 20:26:10 -0800 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3A837162.ABBF86AB@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en References: <20010209021934.AAA25769%camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.66]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Wade,
> >"Play it, Sam, for old times'
> >sake," is altered by the environment to "Play it again, Sam," and the
> >alteration is passed on. That's Lamarckian evolution.
>
> Or "Play it, Sam" becomes "Play it again, Sam" because forces from the
> environment gave it no other choice.
>
> Lamarck didn't have a thing to do with it. There were no necks straining
> to reach the treetops.
>
Ah! The light begins to dawn. :-)
Lamarckian evolution has two distinguishing characteristics: 1)
inheritance of adaptations (not just selection); 2) intentional
adaptation (which is then inherited). We are focusing on different
aspects. For me, 1) is sufficient to make evolution Lamarckian; for you
2) is necessary. A question of terminology, no?
Best,
Bill
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