Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA00389 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 25 Apr 2001 11:56:48 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DE7@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 11:52:53 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<They can use logic just as well as we can; the only difference lies
in
> the underlying set of basic axioms, which are ontologicaly unprovable,
> and have to be accepted by a leap of faith, in both cases.>
>
No they can't. Logic is a foreign country to religions. When the
end of the world didn't come in 1911 did the Jehovah's Witnesses' abandon
the notion that it would end, as might have been logical? No, they picked
another date, and another, and another, and another, and another.
Eventually it dawned on them that they might not recruit new members if they
kept on getting it wrong, so they were rather quite by the time of the
Millenium.
The list has discussed science as a memeplex, and here we ended up
with broad agreement taht it was to some extent at least, if there was also
some strident disagreement as to what that did to science's validity (or
whether science was a "good" or "bad" meme). Whilst I'll acknowledge clear
problems with some of the viewpoints there, including my own, I see
absolutely no reason to equate science with religion in the terms you're
utilising here. Religion is illogical, irrational, and has only an
arbitrary relationship with reality. Science endeavours to be logical,
rational, and to understand reality. Religions is about absolute truths
that must not be questioned, science is about contingent truths that must be
continually questioned. They couldn't be further removed as ways of
thinking. As cultural institutions, they may be closer, but that's a
different point.
Vincent
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