Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA07223 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 27 Apr 2001 14:27:37 +0100 Subject: RE: Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 09:23:12 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010427132316.AAA12906@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 04/27/01 07:02, Vincent Campbell said this-
> As cultural institutions, as I said, I think indeed
>there are clear parallels, but your comments are about processes of
>thinking, and deep structures, which IMHO science and religion clearly
>diverge.
Yes, indeed- there is Science and there is science, just as there is
Religion and religion. (Personally, I use the capitalized version for the
cultural institutions.) The lower-case versions are methods, and motives,
for observing and understanding reality, and to me, the religionist
simply adopts _not_ to understand reality, but to rely upon a model of it
useful to the culture only.
>Having said that, I suppose
>it kind of goes without saying that I'm an example of someone who can't
>"host" science and religion at the same time (of course I'd put it as
>having a natural immunity against religion :-)).
I can't host the differing models of reality, but I can contain the
emotive and compassionate components of the philosophies of religious
thinkers or their schools of thought. I've come to the thoughts of
Confucius lately with a special admiration, and I'm a humanist at heart.
And I have as much contention for the missteps of institutionalized
science as for any institutionalized anything, including franchised food
service operations.
- Wade
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