Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA24977 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 16 Mar 2001 15:50:00 GMT Message-ID: <3AB2356C.80A395A3@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 15:46:52 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: (no subject) References: <90.117e336e.27e24663@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I think you'll find that many religions produce groups of people who do
sensible things, but because God told them to rather than because
they've found the behaviour to be useful (which is practically
impossible in one lifetime) - don't kill or steal, don't eat pork in hot
countries (it goes off quicker than other meats) and so on.
The argument would be that groups who adopt a religion (or possess it
already) will outcompete other equivalent groups, therefore the
religious group's ideology survives, because it is the fittest, and
spreads (often by active promotion). All these things (and some hitch
hiking junk) travel together, cooperatively. Think about lichen - moss
and fungus in commensalistic harmony.
Sorry if that was a bit higgledy-piggledy, I'm sure someone else will
give me a kicking now.
Cheers, Chris.
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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