Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 09:53:04 +0200
From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
Subject: RE: JASSS Critical Review of Thought Contagion
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Aaron:
Marsden vaguely criticizes my differential equations as "arbitrary
mathematical manipulations"
Derek:
But they are arbitrary, because it is not clear at all to what they refer.
Mnemons? What are they?
Aaron:
Marsden does not attempt to identify any section of my paper he takes as
discussing "laws" of meme separation, nor does he quote anything to this
effect.
Derek:
Of course not, he was reviewing your book, not your paper.
Aaron:
The high irony is that nothing in the paper depends on metaphor to either
genes or biological contagions
Derek:
Again, he wasn't reviewing the paper. But in any case what are your
equations based on? Epidemiology? Isn't that rather depending on metaphor?
Aaron:
Marsden did actually read enough of _Thought Contagion_ to discover some of
its topics. For example, there really is a section on the evolution of
memes pertaining to homosexuality. In a nutshell, it says that adherents of
the taboo out-procreated more tolerant people over the course of many
generations in ancient times
Derek:
Evidence?
Aaron:
leading to increased prevalence of the taboo.
Then _horizontal_ transmission kicked in as people maligned homosexuality
to "prove" their adherence to the taboo.
Derek:
Evidence?
Aaron:
As the taboo becomes extremely
widespread, most homosexuals live heterosexual lives, leading them to
reproduce any genes involved. As the genes gain prevalence,
Derek:
Wrong here Aaron. Removal of selection pressure doesn't mean that a gene
will 'gain prevalence' as you say. It will drift, as we geneticists say.
Aaron:
the rate of
taboo dropout increases. Gene carriers who have dropped the taboo are more
sexually and socially motivated to spread acceptance of homosexuality than
are non-gene carriers who drop the taboo. So the rising gene prevalence can
lead to a self-sustained propagation of pro-gay memes.
Derek:
No, the likelihood of a 'rising gene prevalence' is very small especially
since the period since the removal of taboos in the Western world is about
one generation. Genetics doesn't run on that timescale.
Aaron:
(Horizontal
transmission, again contrary to Marsden's claim that I ignore horizontal
transmission.) That, in turn, can lead to lower gene prevalence in the next
generation, and even lower prevalence of pro-gay memes.
Derek:
Evidence? How do you know that gay men are less fecund than heterosexual
men? After all the average male fertility in France is 1.4. A gay man
would have no difficulty exceeding this target.....
Aaron:
I narrow my focus to discuss only a subset of cultural evolution
phenomena, and this does not call for a survey of literature in the broader
field as Marsden seems to imply.
Derek:
But the problem is you haven't even bothered to survey the literature in the
narrow field either. You discuss gene-meme co-evolution above, but you make
no attempt to situate it within the broader framework of Laland, Feldman,
Lumsden/Wilson, Takahasi etc. You discuss homosexuality, but I see no
reference to Dean Hamer or Tom Bouchard.....
Aaron:
I suspect that reading too much into the cover could be what lead
Marsden to the rather inflated hope that the book would somehow cover both
of the vast territories of Evolutionary Culture Theory and Social Contagion.
Derek:
or the rather inflated hope that it might contain come evidence for your
speculations.
Aaron:
Thought Contagion_ is indeed filled with hypotheses awaiting empirical
investigation
Derek:
No, it's filled with hyoptheses that ignore work that has already been done,
or that are so ludicrous as to be scarcely testable.
Aaron:
a book that takes horizontal
transmission as faster than vertical transmission without any mathematical,
computational, or empirical methods to back it up.
Derek:
It is faster. This is well documented in the memetics literature, eg.
Laland, Feldman, Cavalli-Sforza etc
Aaron:
The quantitative memetics presented in Lynch (1998) also allow for
falsifiability and animal experimentation.
Derek:
No, they don't. How can you identify a mnemon in an animal?
Aaron:
Yet sociobiologists may have a conflict of interest in
directing attention away from such technical memetics works, as this leaves
their own frequently rival hypotheses on safer ground.
Derek:
Here we go again...... What can I say?
Aaron:
We may therefore
have to set aside some their opinions from time to time. Likewise, we may
at times have to set aside the opinions of some social scientists who,
though sympathetic to memetics, simply do not comprehend its more technical
expressions.
Derek:
We do comprehend your work Aaron. That's why we don't like it.
Aaron:
One of the observers of the debate between myself and Marsden wrote
privately to express his opinion that Marsden's harsh comments were coming
because he felt threatened by my work--especially with the fact that it has
been expressed in quantitative terms suited to computational and empirical
investigation. Whether Marsden really feels threatened or not, I cannot
say. Yet a distorional effort to dissuade people from reading the work is
not the proper way to seek refutation.
Derek:
This is really too much. Paul is not engaged in any conspiracy to prevent
people from reading your work. Paul does not give a toss about your book
sales figures. Neither do I. Neither does anyone I know. Look, Aaron, you
have some ideas. I think they are bad. Paul thinks they are bad. Dawkins
thinks they are 'good in their different way'. Dennett thinks they 'swiftly
spawn complications'. 4 honest opinions from 4 honest guys. No
conspiracies.
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