Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 11:47:55 +0200
From: Mario Vaneechoutte <Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: On Gatherer's behaviourist stance
Paul Marsden wrote:
> Mario said
>
> >To the opposite, a little information about the ideas of people, as we
> >can gather through asking questions, immediately provides a lot of
> >information on the objects they make or dances they perform and often we
> >realize that our interpretation - based on our cultural background
> >interpretation of the artefacts or dances - was completely wrong.
>
> This is what social scientists - social psychologists, market researchers,
> sociologists etc. have been doing for over a century - how does your
> interpretation of memetics differ from standard social science?
>
> Paul Marsden
> Graduate Research Centre in the Social Sciences
> University of Sussex
> e-mail PaulMarsden@msn.com
> tel/fax (44) (0) 117 974 1279
Dear Paul,
I try to add to these social sciences an evolutionary point of view (and save
us from the adaptationist arguments of many evolutionary psychologists, who -
to paraphrase Bill and Derek - have not understood basic standard books on
evolution).Some questions in return:1. Is it because things have been studied
before that we should say: Oh, our field definitevely has to go about
something else. Let us study artefacts and host free behaviour (an oxymoron)
2. How does your view on memetics differ from social sciences?
Mario
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