Message-Id: <199706201050.GAA26834@brickbat9.mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 06:54:47 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: bbenzon@mindspring.com (Bill Benzon)
Subject: Re: Lynch's Memetic Theories about Masturbation (Long)
Aaron Lynch,
>
>Memetics is a branch of science first and foremost. This means that not all
>of its theory, hypothesis, and fresh data will be culled by reference to
>prior sources. To say first that it is a "branch of scholarship" may, in a
>round about way, demand that it be built upon vast bodies prior scholarly
>writings, such as those of hermeneutics.
>
But also social and cultural anthropology, sociology, political science,
economics, literary history, history of science, history of ideas,
historical demography, musicology, art history, archaeology, linguistics,
various branches of psychology. Very little of that, of course, is written
in memetic terms. But surely much of it is relevant. The fear that I have
is that memetics aspires to solve problems variously addressed in those
fields without undertaking to discover and assimilate what is known.
>
>Show me good data on reproduction versus age in taboo and non-taboo
>populations, and I will not dismiss it.
You have a point there.
William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbenzon@mindspring.com
Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
===============================================================
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