🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <a0fb99$995$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
Nick Maclaren <nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <376f0a.ec1.ln@linuxsys.ii01.org>,
>Robin Faichney  <robin@ii01.org> wrote:
>
>>> 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.
>
>Oh, was it?  I thought that it was late 1980s.  In which case, it
>was still fairly radical then, but definitely no longer heretical.
>I stand corrected.

Upon checking with my copy, it is only chapters 12 and 13 that are
late 1980s.  "Memetics" is chapter 11 - out by one, Nick :-)

I certainly couldn't see anything very controversial about chapters
1-10, except that they did seem a bit one-sided.  What he omitted
to say is that BOTH the "selfish gene" and "group selection" models
are merely non-mathematical approximations to the probabilistic
(discrete Markov) models dating from Fisher et al.  So any argument
about which is 'right' is complete nonsense.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:  nmm1@cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679