Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA12198 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 10 Nov 2001 17:45:43 GMT From: <mcvjones@netscape.net> Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 12:36:25 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: RE: Re: Wade's last week's phrase of the day... Message-ID: <28118D80.23D81CA1.00A07139@netscape.net> X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
"Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> wrote:
>Hi mcvjones@netscape.net -
>
>>Put another way, these studies investigate how the degree of environmental
>>openness/closure in the early stages, effects future creativity and
>>academic ability ie our ability to change ie to learn.
>
>And what were their conclusions, if any?
>
hi wade
In the two american studies there was a signifgant correlation between:
decreasing academic ability and increasing religious fundamentalism, and
religious type (catholic, protestant, jewish) and academic ability and creativity. The protestants doing better than the catholics and the jewish group doing better than all (per population much much better).
Every religion accepts or tolerates within its group a degree of change, (they map our change tolerance landscape). The spectrum starts with islam, then christianity then Judaism.
More importantly, removing the religious element, the studies reflect the extent to which children are 'closed-off' from their very early years. A closed-off child is more receptive to control memes, more receptive to accepting facts and figures (for ever) rather than thinking, working things out, making mistakes, evaluating feedback ie learning
>The fact that a fundamentalist can tie his own shoelaces (and fly a jet)
>is of concern to the pacific humanist and the intended victims of his
>enmity, but it is also a concern to the ethical secular humanist that
>those memetic voids were filled with hateful dreck in the first place-
>thus my claim that religious indoctrination and teaching (and certainly
>fundamentalism of any stripe) is largely an abuse of children.
>
Yes an abuse, nearly always, the degree of openness is locked in concrete from the early years - we can't see this - we go to extremes to defend our 'values'.
Just think how often we say to people, 'have an open mind,' we are wasting out time, they can not change, it is not their fault - their environment closed them off...
mark
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>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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>
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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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