Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA03540 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 21 Dec 2001 18:08:00 GMT Message-ID: <000d01c18a49$ede15da0$6187b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <200112201240.fBKCex116743@sherri.harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Religious Thought and Lamarckism Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:04:24 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Wade,
> Hi Kenneth Van Oost -
>
> >Is this a reason why Lamarckism seems to pop up in cultural evolution !?
>
> Cultural evolution is inherently lamarckian in process. Memes _can_
> change in situ, and do, whereas genes need the whole offspring thing to
> happen.
>
> The illusion of design in nature is just that.
Not according to neo-Darwinian theory. Disposing of the designer does
nothing, by itself, to eliminate the design. Identical objects are still
identical even if they're produced through radically different means. A car
is still a car whether it was made by an assembly plant or by hand. And a
design is still a design whether it was created intentionally or by random
mutation.
We're trying to have it both ways. After recognizing the impossibility of
design in natural evolution, we eliminate the designer and imagine that this
solves the problem. But we've still got a blueprint from which the body is
formed. Nothing has really changed. It's a sleight-of-hand. While one
hand conspicuously disposes of the design, the other hand furtively
reinstates it in a more subtle form.
We are simultaneously magician and audience, willing agents in our own
deception.
Ted
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