Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:22:25 +0100
From: Chris Lees <chrislees@easynet.co.uk>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: FW: Memetics in Time magazine
Derek wrote :
<snip>
> No, I refuse to acknowledge such a possibility. This argument of yours is
> ad hominem. It's not the first time you've tried this. For instance, you
> have sought to insinuate that I am religiously motived. How would you like
> it if one of us were to indulge in the same kind of speculation regarding
> your motives......? I think you'd be very annoyed, so I suggest that in
> future you leave out such tactics and concentrate on arguments.
I find the speculation about why someone might have not done something
( i.e. a ref to JoM, was it ? ) by intelligent educated people here, is really
thoroughly bizarre. For all any of us know, maybe Dawkins did sincerely
intend to add that reference, and maybe he said to his secretary " Don't
forget to include the JoM ref ", but he/she did, because the phone rang,
and / or / if.....the possibilities are myriad... or maybe he said, with an evil grin
" I know, I'll leave out the JoM ref, that'll put a spanner in the works and get 'em
all thinking ". The only way to know would be to ask him. And then, assuming
he could remember the detail, you never know, he might not give an honest
answer, and then we'd have to speculate whether we should believe him or
not, and what possible nefarious motives he might or might not have for
deceiving us.....maybe he's not even conscious of his own duplicity ?
I suppose there is a place for suspicion and paranoia, because
humans are often devious, but even more often they are just devious,
plus fallible, messy, incompetent, forgetful, prone to error and muddle.
Chris.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrislees/tao.index.html
===============================================================
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