Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA05157 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 28 Jan 2002 22:41:57 GMT Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 09:38:10 +1100 Subject: Re: sex and the single meme Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.edu.au> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <F156TWSEVU29AhsFt4c000011f9@hotmail.com> Message-Id: <B4D74F72-143F-11D6-835F-003065B4D1F0@wehi.edu.au> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Saturday, January 26, 2002, at 06:44 AM, Scott Chase wrote:
>
> I'm not even going to attempt a total botching of Kimura's neutral
> theory. That's what we have Wilkins for.
>
I *think* I am miffed here.
Anyway, Kimura's theory is about molecular substitutions, not phenotypic
(in the memetic case, behavioural) drift. They do sometimes get
confused. It would be equivalent to the forums in which memes are
transmitted changing stochastically but not affecting the overall
outcome. Atran and others have suggested that memes are like "attractor
points" in the semantic phase space - I wonder if that might have an
element of truth (not as they propose it).
-- John S Wilkins Head, Communication Services The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Parkville, Victoria, Australia=============================================================== 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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