Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA05397 (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 20:58:32 GMT Message-ID: <002601c18b2b$99054ac0$db9ebed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: "memetics" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Fw: Religious Thought and Lamarckism Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 21:58:31 +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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