RE: Lamarck references

Phill Christian (pchristian@seattle.usweb.com)
Wed, 3 Dec 1997 11:17:02 -0800

From: Phill Christian <pchristian@seattle.usweb.com>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Lamarck references
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 11:17:02 -0800

Liane Gabora, in her paper titled "Culture, Evolution, and Computation" =
contains a reference to Lamark in (approx) para 3 where she says, =
"Transmission is Lamarkian--modifications acquired since the acquisition =
of a meme can be passed on to others."
I found this paper online at JOM-EMIT
Hope this helps
phill

Phill Christian
Vice President, Technology
pchristian@seattle.usweb.com
http://www.cosmix.com
206.467.4590

"What a waste it is to lose ones mind or not to have a mind is very =
wasteful"
- Dan Quayle

-----Original Message-----
From: Ton Maas [SMTP:tonmaas@xs4all.nl]
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 1997 11:07 PM
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Lamarck references

>Dear All,
>I am not sure if this message camer through before. If it did I
>apologize for sending it again:
>
>I am looking for references as early as possible where people refer
>to memetic or cultural evolution as lamarckain, or 'kind of
>lamarckian and so on.

For what it's worth, it may well have been Gregory Bateson who put =
Lamarck
back on the map. Already in 1963 he wrote an article (The Role of =
Somatic
Change in Evolution, in "Evolution" 17: 529-39), which contained a =
notion
he elaborated again in 1979 (in two sections section of his book "Mind =
and
Nature, a Necessary Unity" - entitled "The Lamarckian Errors" and "Use =
and
disuse" ), namely that whereas Lamarck's proposition that environmental
impact could directly affect the genes of the single individual, is =
indeed
untrue, a similar proposition of next-higher logical type *is* true,
namely: that the environment does have direct impact on the gene pool of
the *population*. With this statement Bateson made clear that Lamarckian
evolution is prevented only by the Weissmannian barrier, which operates =
on
the individual level of biological reproduction.

In "Mind and Nature" Bateson also draws a parallel between Lamarckian
inheritance and communication: "Cross species communication is *always* =
a
sequence of contexts of learning in which each species is continually =
being
corrected as to the nature of the previous context. In other words, the
metarelations between particular signals may be confused, but =
understanding
may emerge again as true at the next more abstract level."

Ton

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
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

===============================================================
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