Subject: RE: memes and dancing
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 20:38:04 -0500
From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>> I haven't seen any definite evidence. Have you?
> [Bruce Jones] This is said tongue in cheek .... isn't it?
No, it isn't. I have not seen any evidence that culture is a separate,
identifiable, evolving, form that, even with the supposed (memetic)
cohesion to the living host, can be uniquely defined.
>I would hate to think that you or I, or
>anybody for that matter, just grew up in a vacuum with no guidance or
>control from a social --cultural-- structure.
And there is no way I would say that. But I do say that culture is an
anthropomorphism of behavioral adaptation, a just-so story of history.
And, the more I see of behavioral, cognitive, and social experiments, the
less need I have to think otherwise.
Standing outside the box, I see no need to explain culture as anything
more than behavioral adaptation. Birdsong, if you will, taken to the
complex arena humans have available.
Such is where, I think, E. O. Wilson and others are going with this.
Memetics, so far, to me, just looks like a re-definitional dance, and
while it may tone a few good muscles, I don't think it is a required
exercise.
- Wade
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