Subject: RE: implied or inferred memes
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 15:31:45 -0400
From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>The breakthrough in memetics is in extending Darwinian evolution to culture.
Or the great mistake.
>one of which is the ability to predict that ideas will spread not because
>they are "good ideas", but because they contain "good memes" such as
>danger, food and sex that push our evolutionary buttons and force us to
>pay attention to them.
This 'ability to predict' is something about which I am highly, highly,
skeptical. And my skepticism is in large part my basis for moving away
from this stance.
If asked now about the proliferation of pornographic sites on the Web,
I'm sure we would all have said, well, of course, look at what happened
with VCR's. But, did anyone have an inkling about VCR's? This 'ability to
predict' is indeed what a science should have. I have failed, so far, to
see any ability on the part of memetics to predict anything, and this is
precisely the sort of experiments that should be ongoing- predictive
ones.
- Wade
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