Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA01907 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 20 Dec 2001 19:51:34 GMT Message-ID: <000701c1898f$ecf82aa0$ec01bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <200112201240.fBKCex116743@sherri.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Religious Thought and Lamarckism Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 20:52:22 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Wade T. Smith <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
> Designing culture is what is so archly called memetic engineering, but
> the manipulation of a few or a thousand people is not a full force social
> experiment. Religions are. And of course, anything that is designed and
> changed within its life span is a lamarckian process.
Hi Wade,
But is that than not present in any political perspective and in any social
debate !?
Political ideologies ( and the democratic one too) are manipulating, with
intent or not, more than a thousand towards (in)tolerance/ disobedience/
righteousness/ honesty/ equality/ solidarity/...
Ideology is believing and all what is ' designed ' to support such is a
Lamarckian process.
The 5- year planning of the economy in the former USSR, were such
Lamarckian processes. Designed ( chemical) new drugs to fight disease
is another way.
In Lamarckian terms, when there is a " need " it involves Lamarckian
processing. The ' need ' to improve yourself, the strategies by which
the economy is working, the need for a better product so that you can
outline the competition,... are all Lamarckian- based processes.
We tend to see this as the Darwinian paradigm_ natural selection can do
the same trick
Darwins theory may indeed have won the race, but Darwin himself
never give up the idea of use- inheritance.
Even Dawkins mentions this !
Lamarck 's theory is misrepresented and misinterpreted.
Regards,
Kenneth
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