Re: USA Today - interview with Gugatkin and de Waal on animal culture

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jun 08 2001 - 14:33:03 BST

  • Next message: Wade T.Smith: "Re: USA Today - interview with Gugatkin and de Waal on animal culture" 

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From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: USA Today - interview with Gugatkin and de Waal on animal culture
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 09:33:03 -0400
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    >From: Philip Jonkers <P.A.E.Jonkers@phys.rug.nl>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >Subject: Re: USA Today - interview with Gugatkin and de Waal on animal
    >culture
    >Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 14:50:45 +0200 (CEST)
    >
    >Nice article indeed.
    >It is good though to know that animals do imitate. If imitation
    >would be exclusively human it would have necessarily have to be
    >evolved with a quantum leap out of animal traits which
    >do not support imitation then. This seems highly unlikely
    >since evolution graduates.
    >Darwin rules!
    >
    >
    Part of the fan club I see.

    If imitation or culture (or whatever) might be rooted deeper than many
    conceited humans would care to appreciate within the phylogenetic bush, then
    imitation (or culture or whatever) would be quite archetypal, in which case
    Richard Owen or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would rule.

    If rooted deep enough, imitation (or culture or whatever) might be a part of
    the body plan, much like a limb or spinal column. I'm skeptical on how
    deeply rooted these things might be. Superficial similarities may arise from
    convergent adaption to similar circumstances, not shared parts (homologies
    reflecting unity of type) modified by the conditions of existence into a
    hand or wing.

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