From: Dale Fletter <dfletter@sirius.com>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Parody of Science
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:38:41 -0700
Memetic behavior is not linear over the course of human development. A
language learned as a child is assimilated in a different way than one
learned later in life. A language learned prior to adolesence will probably
be spoken without an accent that is almost impossible to shake if learned a
few years later. It is not only a question of imitating the overt behavior
but a question of when in the development cycle that meme is passed. Sexual
behavior memes would be passed long before a full awareness of social
status and ambition would exert their influence. That prejudice toward
replication of that meme can be altered by rational control over behavior
later in life. The two factors would work together to perpetuate the social
effect but only one would be considered memetic or at least memetic in a
different way. It is only the non-memetic behavior that could be
horizontally transmitted. The memetic component could not be transmitted
until the next generation. I think in this way memetics provides a
supplement to genetic transmission without leaving the door open to the
type of issues raised here.
On Thursday, August 12, 1999 11:51 PM, Gatherer, D. (Derek)
[SMTP:D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl] wrote:
> Boyd and Richerson's memetic model of demographic transition has a few
> criticisms placed against it by Borgerhoff Mulder. The first of these is
> that there is no real explanation as to why the process should start in
the
> first place.
>
> If high status individuals are 'imitated indiscriminately', then it is
> perhaps easy to see how the behaviour would be horizontally transmitted
(to
> use the Cavallian phrase), but why should high status individuals opt to
> restrict their family sizes in the first place?
>
> Prior to dem.trans., higher status individuals had higher fertility (this
is
> one of the theories - by no means the only one - about the reasons for
the
> high frequency of hexosamidase deficiency in Ashkenazi Jews, and its
> especially high frequency in rabbinical families). Even today, a study
in
> Canada by Perusse, quoted by BM, shows that higher status males 'achieve
> higher copulation rates'.
>
> Boyd and Richerson's theory is rather akin to Fisher's (genetic) theory
of
> runaway sexual selection, which accounts for things like peacock's tails
> etc. The differences are a) Boyd and Richerson's theory is entirely
> memetic, and b) peacock's tails and other such sexually selected traits
do
> seem to increase the reproductive success of the animals that exhibit
them,
> and thus are genuinely evolutionarily stable.
>
> 'Runaway cultural selection' acting to decrease (genetic) fitness would
> however not be stable. BM complains that the memetic model requires our
> imitative tendencies to be stronger than our inherent genetic tendencies
to
> reproduction, and that, for her, just isn't convincing.
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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