Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA03555 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 17 Feb 2001 18:36:38 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.221.118] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 13:34:08 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F289bxcbz37cfJiY9ZN00008a04@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Feb 2001 18:34:11.0327 (UTC) FILETIME=[3886F8F0:01C09910] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: Darwinian evolution vs memetic evolution
>Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 14:38:49 -0000
>
> <As for whether memetics (at least as I see it, where the ones in
>your
> > head or physically manifested in the world are just as much memes as the
> > ones that are in the process of spreading through a culture) has more
> > explanatory power than psychology/sociology in some sense; I think it
> > does have, not because it covers new ground (as pointed out by Robin),
> > but because its explanation is more compact, more generic and more
> > consistent with other things we know about the way the world is
> > (basically a load of systems which locally disobey the law that entropy
> > increases, manifested as dynamic patterns, in matter, minds whatever).>
> >
> Not sure about your other comments Chris, but this point echoes
>Dennett's foreword to the Aunger edited memetics book, when he says that
>whether memetics as a theory of culture is correct or not, any theory of
>culture that hopes to be appropriate must at least be consistent with the
>theory of evolution, as culture exists in creatures produced by
>evolutionary
>processes in biology.
>
> Fair point well made.
>
>
The fact of evolution is a given. The problem arises when people start
analogizing and uncritically latching concepts from general biology (and
more specifically evolutionary biology) onto ideational or cultural
phenomena. What if, for the sake of a general call for consistency in the
specific direction of "memetics", a theoretical system arises which is
inconsistent with reality and either partly or totally misleading? What if
"memetics" amounts to a bum steer in the same mode as "animal magnetism"?
OTOH what is inconsistent between social psychology and evolutionary
biology?
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