From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Non-human memes (again)
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 11:43:43 -0400
In-Reply-To: <hlaKuPAdoPy3EwCj@faichney.demon.co.uk>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Robin Faichney
> Sent: Sunday, August 29, 1999 5:15 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Non-human memes (again)
>
>
> In message <19990828153326.AAA10438@camail2.harvard.edu>, Wade T.Smith
> <wade_smith@harvard.edu> writes
> >>you left out the bit about the monkeys on nearby islands
> 'suddenly' adopting
> >>the same behaviour without any perceived contact with the
> original group.
> >
> >It is my considered opinion, and I am not alone, that this whole
> >monkey-washing-fruit thing is _not_ evidence, and in fact has been shown
> >to be fraudulent.
> >
> >It is _not_ evidence of memetic replication in non-humans at all.
Again, I saw with my own eyes, the horse who scratched behind his ear like
the stable's dog.
>
> How about this:
>
> <begin quote>
> True imitation does occur in birds... Many songbirds have long
> traditions. The young learn what to sing by imitating their parents or
> neighbours.
And there is also the extensively documented evolution of whale songs.
>In chaffinches, for example, the nestling may hear its
> father sing long before it is capable of singing itself. A few months
> later it begins to make a wide variety of sounds, gradually narrowing
> down to the song it heard as a chick. Experiments show that there is a
> critical period for learning and that the bird has to hear its own song
> and match it to the remembered song it is imitating. Hand-raised birds
> can learn songs from tape recorders and adopted birds sing songs more
> like their adopted, not biological, parents. Some species learn many
> songs from neighbours and a few, like parrots and mynahs, can imitate
> human speech. So we can count birdsong as a meme.
> <end quote>
> Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine, p49.
> --
> Robin Faichney
> Get Your FREE Information at
> http://www.conscious-machine.com
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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===============================================================
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