Comments:

A Common Fallacy Regarding Evolution - 2004-10-15 20:23:11
Oops, on rereading I see I'm guilty of the 19th-century fallacy that evolution equals the progression to a hierarchically superior state of being when I talk about unicorns--->maps. Actually evolution is about the organism becoming better suited to its environmental niche. There's no inherent cultural superiority to old maps vs. unicorns. Wait, I'm getting too relativistic--old maps *are* culturally superior to unicorns. Aren't they? Pardon me, I have to go think this over.
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addiann - 2004-10-15 22:44:43
I think the two are apples and oranges. ..... It's very interesting that you mention "The Selfish Gene", which I actually did read in the late 70s and immediately gave it a spot on my favorite-books-shelf. And the internet, not yet born then, what a difference it now makes in the thinking about memes. Obviously time to reread that book.
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Laura - 2004-10-16 17:14:29
Was that Richard Hawking's book--isn't he the founder of memetics? Funny that it took so long to catch on--to my understanding, memetics is only now emerging as a semi-recognized though still controversial theory.
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brett - 2004-10-16 17:16:28
do you have a map showing where the unicorns live?
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addiann - 2004-10-16 18:20:32
Richard Dawkins, zoologist at the University of Oxford when "The Selfish Gene" was published (by the Oxford University Press in 1976). ....(said with chagrin) it appears from my 20-year-old bookmark that I only got half way through it. Now the dilemna is, do I try to pick up where I left off or start again. Probably to doze off again at the same place. A third option is to settle it back into it's slot on the shelf.
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addiann - 2004-10-16 18:21:49
spellcheck in blogs would be nice. I think it's dilemma.
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Laura - 2004-10-17 00:45:08
Brett: When I was 13 or so, I made a map showing where the unicorns lived, in my 2-acre backyard. They preferred to hang out in a grove of cottonwoods in the backyard. I had 2 imaginary unicorns that were under my care, back then.

Addiann: Richard Dawkins wrote a great refutation of creationism in the latest issue of the secular humanist mag "Free Inquiry," but I guess I misremembered him as the author of "The Selfish Gene." His comments on the book aren't exactly flattering. Still, memetics has come a long ay since then, so maybe he was reacting to what seemed to him then a half-baked theory.
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