Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 09:06:03 +0200
From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
Subject: RE: implied or inferred memes
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Derek:
But, and this is a big but, we should remember Fisher's dictum
(mentioned in John Wilkins' JoM paper) that the mutation rate, ie. the
rate at which novelty is generated, needs to be an order of magnitude
less than the selection pressure.
Bill:
Exactly what is that a condition for? Thanks. <s>
Derek:
Well, I think John can explain it better than I can, but basically it's a
condition for evolution to be able to respond to selection. If the
background level of mutation is too high, there's too much of a chance that
a selectively advantageous mutation will mutate into something else before
it has a chance to spread. One might argue (not necessarily correctly but
still one might argue...) that modern multimedia cultures are too
novelty-prone in most areas. There's no time for a trend to take a grip
before the next craze replaces it. This is (was) (perhaps) less the case in
so-called less developed societies.
Derek:
societies are full of apparently maladaptive cultural
practices that nevertheless are fairly persistent over time.
Bill:
Maladaptive from the point of view of the humans? Or from the point of
view of the memes? Actually, I think that it is here that the memetic
viewpoint pays off, where persistent cultural practices do not benefit
the people involved.
Derek:
I've yet to see a convincing example of a maladaptive-to-the-individual meme
which spreads because it is adaptive to itself. Of course, memeticists tend
to make much of religion as maladaptive to the individual (because it makes
you do stupid things like have funny diets or strap bombs to yourself and
press the button) while being adaptive to itself (because most memeticists
seem to think that religions are all about proselytisation - although here I
think that opinion shows a distinct tendency to imagine the entire world is
like the American Mid-West...., but that's another matter).
However, that argument won't wash as there is plenty of evidence that
religion is on the whole adaptive at the level of the individual - it makes
you healthier, it helps you cope with life's little or big setbacks etc.
Anyone who doubts this need only see the marvelous effect Seventh Day
Adventism has had on the lives of some of Britain's poorer black people. Of
course, it's all rubbish, but it's rubbish that's good for you. Secular
rationalism has a much poorer record of getting people out of the ghetto and
into economically productive lives.
Those traits that are _genuinely_ maladaptive, like Rogers & Shoemaker's
classic account of the Peruvian villagers that point-blamk refuse to boil
water, are harder to explain as adaptive to the meme. Can anyone explain
this example?
Derek:
It seems that the cultural practice of lecture attendance definitely
gives a selective advantage in terms of survival in the academic
system, but only for ethnic minority groups.
Bill:
This is *not just* an association? You were able to indicate a causal
connection?
Derek:
No, it's just an association. The reason it 'works' is (we think) that
ethnic minorities find solitary library study a lot more difficult (but of
course we haven't been able to provide any evidence for that).
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