Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA11490 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 11 Feb 2002 23:50:38 GMT Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 10:45:21 +1100 Subject: Re: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics 1 of 3 (1988, updates 2002) 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: <16.1a0c1509.2999a826@aol.com> Message-Id: <69786B2F-1F49-11D6-A9C5-003065B4D1F0@wehi.edu.au> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 10:05 AM, <AaronLynch@aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 2/10/2002 11:23:12 AM Central Standard Time, Keith
> Henson
> <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> [writes in thread Re: Memes Meta-Memes and
> Politics 1 of
> 3 (1988, updates 2002)]:
>
>> [Not to detract from Dawkins, but as I have dug deeper into the
>> subject,
>> Dawkins himself recognized William Hamilton as more of an original
>> thinker. For certain though, Dawkins made the work of Hamilton,
>> William,
>> Trivers and a host of other players available to ordinary people with
>> his
>> popular works.]
>
> Hi Keith.
>
> Credit for evolutionary replicator theory should also go to F.T. Cloak,
> whose
> 1973 paper developed evolutionary replicator theory for both biological
> molecules and culture. The paper not only develops evolutionary cultural
> replicator theory, but also evolutionary biological replicator theory.
>
> I take it that giving Dawkins credit for popularizing is not meant to
> detract
> from Cloak, Hamilton, Trivers, etc. either.
>
> --Aaron Lynch
>
> Cloak, F. T. 1973. "Elementary Self-Replicating Instructions and Their
> Works:
> Toward a Radical Reconstruction of General Anthropology through a
> General
> Theory of Natural Selection." Paper Presented to the Ninth International
> Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographical Sciences, Chicago.
> Scanned
> version online at http://www.thoughtcontagion.com/cloak1973.htm.
Thanks for putting that online, Aaron.
I think some credit should also be given to Donald Campbell and Stephen
Toulmin. Campbell did his first evolution of culture work in 1960, and
Toulmin's 1972 _Human Understanding_ is an almost complete treatment of
the evolution of culture (he calls memes "transmits"). Of course, Scott
Chase will now tell us that it was first done by Nietzsche or
Schopenhauer or Porphyry :-)
-- 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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