From: "Paul Marsden" <paulmarsden@msn.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Meme Conference
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 21:13:41 +0200
Aaron,
Not guilty - merely passing on the conference organiser's pitch!
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Date: 17 May 1999 20:35
Subject: Re: Meme Conference
>At 10:40 AM 5/17/99 +0200, Paul Marsden wrote:
>
>>"A CHALLENGE TO MEMETICISTS
>>
>>The study of kuru, a degenerative neurological disease first isolated
among
>>the Fore in the New Guinea Highlands, has produced two Nobel Prizes in
>>Medicine: once in 1976 to D. Carleton Gajdusek and Baruch Blumberg, and
>>again in 1997 to Stanley Prusiner. Both awards have been controversial.
>>Gajdusek (1977) argued the disease is produced by a slow-acting virus.
This
>>constituted a new strategy (long-term dormancy) in an existing class of
>>replicator. Prusiner (1995), on the other hand, believes kuru (and related
>>diseases) are caused by an entirely new class of replicator which
>>reproduces independently of DNA: prions (short for "proteinaceous
>>infectious particles"). Only one of these arguments can be correct.
>>
>>Analogous options exist for explaining another phenomenon which also
>>"infects" the brain: culture. Culture is either a new phenotypic strategy
>>used by the most prominent class of replicators, genes (e.g., Flinn and
>>Alexander 1982; Flinn 1997), or the product of a novel, quasi-independent
>>class of replicators with their own interests (e.g., Brodie 1996; Lynch
>>1997). These basic units of information, able to reproduce themselves
>>during transmission between individuals, were called "memes" by Dawkins
>>(1976). One of these theories is wrong: either memes exist or they don't.
>
>
>I have seen the publication date of my book Thought Contagion listed
>incorrectly a number of times now, including above. The publication date of
>the book is 1996. The publisher's copyright date is 1996. The release date
>is 1996, and it appeared in bookstores in October, 1996. I did, however,
>register a copyright in 1993, when I started sending the manuscript to
>publishers, but this should not cause a mutated date of 1997. I did publish
>articles in 1997, however, and these must not be confused with my book.
>
>First (humorous) "corollary" of thought contagion theory:
>
>People don't learn from each other's mestakes; they learn each other's
>mestakes.
>
>
>
>--Aaron Lynch
>
>http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.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
>
===============================================================
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