RE: The Status of Memetics as a Science

From: Vincent Campbell (v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Apr 25 2001 - 14:40:13 BST

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    From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Subject: RE: The Status of Memetics as a Science
    Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:40:13 +0100
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    Yeah, possibly.

    I suspect it's also to do with profound problems of trying to measure these
    attitudinal environments, especially since public opinion as a concept, and
    polling as a research tool are highly problematic (despite being used
    widely).

    Vincent

    > ----------
    > From: William Benzon
    > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:32 pm
    > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Subject: Re: The Status of Memetics as a Science
    >
    > on 4/25/01 7:07 AM, Vincent Campbell at v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk wrote:
    >
    >
    > >
    > > ... b)
    > > there are entire industries engaged in persuasive communication already
    > who,
    > > despite the money paid to them by clients, have absolutely no way of
    > > predetermining the effectiveness of their efforts, and when they are
    > > successful its largely nothing to do with them, and everything to do
    > with
    > > the attitudes of those they're trying to persuade).
    >
    > It's really quite amazing isn't it?
    >
    > Taken collectively, those attitudes are the environment in which these
    > pesky
    > little meme thingys must survive. But memeticists give almost zero
    > attention to them.
    >
    > Why? I suspect because it would seem to diminish the power of these
    > memes,
    > making them seem less like self-propelled vehicles of mentation.
    >
    > BB, the curmudgeon
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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