Nope. Memetics is not simply the claim that ideas change over time; it is a more specific analogy to evolution, which is almost certainly false. At least to me, the fact that memes can be deliberately (ie non-randomly and intelligently) created and changed is enough to disprove the analogy. Of course, empirical evidence would also be nice.
FWIW, evolution is compatible with a central authority, IMO. The essential elements of evolution are copying, variation and differential survival—following Lewontin, 1970: “THE UNITS OF SELECTION”. There’s no mention of the presence—or absence—of a central authority. It’s the same with textbooks on the subject of evolution. If there was a central authority dictating the contents of the ideosphere, memetics would still have something to say about how those ideas evolved.
The “natural” method of change for genes is random change, with some selection acting afterwards.
Changes do occur randomly to memes, but when approaching an arbitrary meme, I generally feel >95% confident that it was, at some point, extensively and deliberately designed, and >75% confident that the deliberate design was the dominant influence on it. In addition, basically everybody who is passing on a meme tries to communicate it in the most effective way possible: so even when looking at a change, my prior is that it is almost always at least partially deliberate (a result of somebody reasoning that they should change it in a certain way) instead of accidental.
In addition, genetic evolution is much more advanced than memetic evolution: the most competitive organisms in the wild are all randomly evolved, yet almost all effective memes were artificially designed.
I don’t think there’s much debate about this. Everyone agrees that there’s more design in cultural evolution than there has been in organic evolution so far—though this may well change, as organic evolution tries to catch up. Of course some designers at work doesn’t obviate the need for Darwinian evolutionary theory. The products of design are naturally selected, just like everything else. For example, in VHS vs Beetamax, consumer selection played a critical role in determining what we see.
One other thing to be aware of is that there’s copying, selection and variation within the brain too (e.g. see: William H. Calvin, “The brain as a Darwin Machine” 1987). It’s rather like how viruses multiply within bodies—as well as having a transmission phase where they spread between bodies. Within the mind, there’s an awful lot of trial-and-error—taking place at a low level. If you only look at the results of that process, then it seems smart. However at root, the process takes place at the level of neurons—where there isn’t too much scope for an intelligent designer.
So: even if you think memes are intelligently designed, they were still produced by an evolutionary process—one going on inside an individual mind.
Can you taboo “design?” As I understand the concept, I don’t really see how it’s something that can be applied to ideas that one formulates and adopts oneself.
I don’t think that the analogy is intended to be that close. It is a bit hard to imagine that Dawkins failed to notice that memes can be deliberately created and changed. So whatever he intended, it must have been a sufficiently abstract analogy to allow for that.
Memetics is not simply the claim that ideas change over time; it is a more specific analogy to evolution, which is almost certainly false. At least to me, the fact that memes can be deliberately (ie non-randomly and intelligently) created and changed is enough to disprove the analogy.
Memetic engineering seems generally similar to genetic engineering. Memetic engineering doesn’t disprove Darwinian cultural evolution any more that genetic engineering disproves Darwinian organic evolution.
Nope. Memetics is not simply the claim that ideas change over time; it is a more specific analogy to evolution, which is almost certainly false. At least to me, the fact that memes can be deliberately (ie non-randomly and intelligently) created and changed is enough to disprove the analogy. Of course, empirical evidence would also be nice.
This seem to be a connotations problem. The words simply mean different things to us, and quite possibly yet a third unrelated one to the OP.
My connotation might be approximately summed up along the lines of “Ideas can change incrementally without a central authority in control”
FWIW, evolution is compatible with a central authority, IMO. The essential elements of evolution are copying, variation and differential survival—following Lewontin, 1970: “THE UNITS OF SELECTION”. There’s no mention of the presence—or absence—of a central authority. It’s the same with textbooks on the subject of evolution. If there was a central authority dictating the contents of the ideosphere, memetics would still have something to say about how those ideas evolved.
Why is that? Genes can be deliberately engineered as well, albeit with greater difficulty.
Can was probably the wrong word.
The “natural” method of change for genes is random change, with some selection acting afterwards.
Changes do occur randomly to memes, but when approaching an arbitrary meme, I generally feel >95% confident that it was, at some point, extensively and deliberately designed, and >75% confident that the deliberate design was the dominant influence on it. In addition, basically everybody who is passing on a meme tries to communicate it in the most effective way possible: so even when looking at a change, my prior is that it is almost always at least partially deliberate (a result of somebody reasoning that they should change it in a certain way) instead of accidental.
In addition, genetic evolution is much more advanced than memetic evolution: the most competitive organisms in the wild are all randomly evolved, yet almost all effective memes were artificially designed.
I don’t think there’s much debate about this. Everyone agrees that there’s more design in cultural evolution than there has been in organic evolution so far—though this may well change, as organic evolution tries to catch up. Of course some designers at work doesn’t obviate the need for Darwinian evolutionary theory. The products of design are naturally selected, just like everything else. For example, in VHS vs Beetamax, consumer selection played a critical role in determining what we see.
One other thing to be aware of is that there’s copying, selection and variation within the brain too (e.g. see: William H. Calvin, “The brain as a Darwin Machine” 1987). It’s rather like how viruses multiply within bodies—as well as having a transmission phase where they spread between bodies. Within the mind, there’s an awful lot of trial-and-error—taking place at a low level. If you only look at the results of that process, then it seems smart. However at root, the process takes place at the level of neurons—where there isn’t too much scope for an intelligent designer.
So: even if you think memes are intelligently designed, they were still produced by an evolutionary process—one going on inside an individual mind.
Can you taboo “design?” As I understand the concept, I don’t really see how it’s something that can be applied to ideas that one formulates and adopts oneself.
What’s the problem? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/design
I don’t think that the analogy is intended to be that close. It is a bit hard to imagine that Dawkins failed to notice that memes can be deliberately created and changed. So whatever he intended, it must have been a sufficiently abstract analogy to allow for that.
Memetic engineering seems generally similar to genetic engineering. Memetic engineering doesn’t disprove Darwinian cultural evolution any more that genetic engineering disproves Darwinian organic evolution.