🚀 go-pugleaf

Nick Maclaren <nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> In article <j0bc0a.b01.ln@linuxsys.ii01.org>,
> Robin Faichney  <robin@ii01.org> wrote:
>>Swarat Chaudhuri <swarat_c@lycos.com> wrote:
>>> Okay, actually I went to your webpage. Looks impressive. And though I
>>> don't have a _very_ high opinion of Dawkins (he isn't quite
>>> mathematical and appears to be more of a cult figure than a
>>> scientist), I respect him sufficiently to consider his praise
>>> valuable. And since this Christmas break is already getting
>>> pathetically boring, I'll read Dennett up. :)
>>
>>He's a great writer as well as a great thinker.  You won't regret it.

> Which, in my view, Dawkins isn't.  While my opinion is similar about
> Dawkins, he IS a real scientist - unfortunately, his taste for self
> publicity makes him appear less of one than he really is.  The
> introduction to The Selfish Gene contains several quotes designed
> to cause controversy in cases where what he says in the book is much
> less contentious.

What about the title?  That's caused enormous amounts of misunderstanding.
And his anti-religious crusading is highly unscientific.

> The extreme example (which is very relevant to this group) is the
> way that he has dressed up the meme weebling to sound radical and
> even heretical.  Well, it was once - 25+ years back - but I can't
> say if he held the viewpoint then.  It is now mainstream, in principle
> if not in detail.

Can't agree with you there.  Firstly, 25+ years back from when?
TSG was first published in 1976.  Secondly, memetics remains far from
the mainstream, even (perhaps especially) in principle.  I find it
fascinating, and I've been following it quite closely, attending a meeting
in your neck of the woods (Kings) in 99 with both Dawkins and Dennett.
Sue Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, was there too, and reaction
to that indicated how far from the mainstream memetics remains.  If you
doubt it, look for reviews in the New Scientist archives and such places.
Gould, in particular, is very anti, though I'm not sure if he wrote
anything specifically in response to TMM.  (Dawkins, by the way, has
said that he wishes he'd called TSG, The Gene Machine.)

-- 
"The concept of information is the key that decodes mind, matter,
meaning, consciousness..."
Robin Faichney -- inside information -- http://www.ii01.org/