Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA05276 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 22 Dec 2001 19:59:57 GMT Message-ID: <000d01c18b23$70086880$b104bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <9862A432-F58A-11D5-B2B5-003065A0F24C@harvard.edu> Subject: Re: Religious Thought and Lamarckism Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 21:00:47 +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 Smith <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
Hi Wade,
I wrote, You wrote,
> > Lamarck's theory is misrepresented and misinterpreted.
> It's not a misunderstanding to remark that lamarckianism has no
> place in evolution. Culture _is_ lamarckian, and I would say
> that Lamarck was simply one person to notice the trends of
> cultural patterns, sheerly luckily getting his name attached to
> 'change due to need'.
Perhaps not in biological evolution, yet !
I just merely want to point out that Lamarckism does already has a place
in evolution ! Maybe with not that much impact as its Dawinian opponent
have, but like I said, the American society/ politics/ ideology/... is more
Lamarckian orientated than for instance Europe.
Don 't you think that this does have important implications as well for the
community itself as for ' evolution ' as such !?
Don 't you think that the much broader religious fixation about creation
which runs loose in the US, and already affects the ways how education
must be conducted, does not affect " cultural evolution " !?
( If I understood it correctly, major efforts were and are in progress to
get
the creatonists- view into the class- rooms).
And if it does, don 't you than not think that such changed ways can
influence ' brain- making- gene- cells ' up to such a level that the bio-
logical signifiers change accordingly !?
It would take a while, accordingly to the Darwinian paradigm, and I
don 't say that will be the reason why the US differs from Europe in that
respect, but IMO, socio- political ideas based upon Lamarckism exist,
do have influence upon how people behave and do change in that context,
maybe, people biologically and, maybe, those changed cultural vibes do
affect their offspring .
And, again IMO, as Salice did point out in her remarks about the archi-
tecture- thread, maybe there is no Lamarckian ' need ' for culture, but
you never know what people are up to !
Their ' need ' to change the evolution of the American culture can be
inducted by Darwinian ways of selection, varation and mutation, but
that raises a major question, why should the natural evolution of things
' select ' trends in thinking, education and behavior which don 't end up !?
Yeah, to spread more memes and kill off better the ones which are sitting
in their way, I understand... well like Bush always says, God bless America
!
He knows damn good why, I suppose !?
Regards,
Kenneth
> Of course Dawkins and Darwin noticed these things culturally.
> Culture is all about needs and wants. Evolution is about fit.
> That we see confluence between these two processes is
> understandable. Culture is one of the things evolution has
> selected for us.
>
> But there was never and never will be any lamarckian _need_ for
> culture. The peoples with it, however, spread more and killed
> better.
>
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