Is the Darwinistic Selection Principle False?

Arminius · August 3, 2015, 7:55pm

It is not really a dichotomy, because culture is embedded in nature.

Which evolutinary theory? That is the question. And the next and more important question is: Is it false?

What do you exactly mean by “identify single direct causes”?

Lev_Muishkin · August 3, 2015, 10:49pm

There is a VERY good reason why the NATURE/CULTUREdichotomy is valid.

Natural evolution is restricted to the transmission of genes, whilst cultural selection concerns the transmission of memes or ideas, technologies, knowledge and belief systems.

Whilst genetic evolution relies on natural selection thought the differential breeding success of individuals within species; and competition between species; Social or Cultural evolution is the success of ideas. These ideas or memes are not immutable units of heritability in the same way that genes are.
Social and cultural evolution is more like Lamarkism in that specific solutions can be chose in light of the circumstances by human agents and does not need to rely on random variations and mutations.

Lev_Muishkin · August 3, 2015, 10:50pm

The point about Social Evolution is that people can chose. So duh yeah it can have direction.

LaughingMan · August 4, 2015, 12:08am

Yes, subjectively and relatively speaking. Objectively? No.

zinnat · August 4, 2015, 4:58am

LaughingMan:

zinnat:

LaughingMan:

^^^I consider societal contribution a false dictomy.

If that was true, you were not communicating with the people from all over the world without moving an inch from your place. It becomes possible for you because of the contributions of the many generations in the past.

Contribution does not mean merely empathy or helping others. Whatever one does in any field, small or big, is contribution. Yes, it may be either positive or negative.

And, this capacity of contribution is precisely what differs humans from other animals. Animals are unable to contribute to their society. That is why they are there where they were thousands of years ago, but humans evolved continuously.

With love,
Sanjay

To be judged by so called contribution to society is to admit being owned by it.

True.

But, why fear the reality and run from it?
Just because it puts some responsibility on one’s shoulders?

That is what true maleness is; not to run away from the responsibilities but own those willingly as they come in the life.

With love,
Sanjay

James_S_Saint · August 4, 2015, 7:21am

Into???

Sometimes evolution really doesn’t know when to quit.

zinnat · August 4, 2015, 10:44am

Yes, that happens. But, it will be learned eventually one day for sure.

With love,
Sanjay

LaughingMan · August 5, 2015, 3:28am

You’re not talking about responsibility, you’re talking about indentured servitude. Good luck trying to sell that.

With magnificence,

LaughingMan

Arminius · August 5, 2015, 7:34pm

@ ALL

Genes and memes do not work in the same way. So Richard Dawkins’ meme theorie is false too.

objet_petit_a · August 5, 2015, 9:47pm

In fact, it is not so original either. Cough Aristotle.

zinnat · August 6, 2015, 2:28am

There is a lot of difference between the two, or rather they are just the opposite, if one can understand and discern.

With love,
Sanjay

Lev_Muishkin · August 6, 2015, 9:50am

Your distinction is invalid. Direction is direction. Nothing is objective.

LaughingMan · August 8, 2015, 1:49am

Not really.

LaughingMan · August 8, 2015, 1:51am

Nothing is objective yet my distinction is invalid…

Lev_Muishkin · August 10, 2015, 9:45am

You can still be wrong regardless of objectivity and subjectivity.

Arminius · August 11, 2015, 12:43am

Criticism of Dawkins’ meme theory:

Luis Benitez-Bribiesca M.D., a critic of memetics, calls the theory a “pseudoscientific dogma” and “a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution”. As a factual criticism, Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of a “code script” for memes (analogous to the DNA of genes), and to the excessive instability of the meme mutation mechanism (that of an idea going from one brain to another), which would lead to a low replication accuracy and a high mutation rate, rendering the evolutionary process chaotic.

British political philosopher John Gray has characterized Dawkins’ memetic theory of religion as “nonsense” and “not even a theory… the latest in a succession of ill-judged Darwinian metaphors”, comparable to Intelligent Design in its value as a science.

Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Deacon and Kull. This view regards the concept of “meme” as a primitivized concept of “sign”. The meme is thus described in memetics as a sign lacking a triadic nature. Semioticians can regard a meme as a “degenerate” sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.[clarification needed]

Fracchia and Lewontin regard memetics as reductionist and inadequate. Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr disapproved of Dawkins’ gene-based view and usage of the term “meme,” asserting it to be an “unnecessary synonym” for “concept,” Mayr reasoning that concepts are not restricted to an individual or a generation, may persist for long periods of time, and may evolve

Sources:

Benitez Bribiesca, Luis (January 2001), “Memetics: A dangerous idea” (PDF), Interciencia: Revista de Ciencia y Technologia de América (Venezuela: Asociación Interciencia) 26 (1): 29–31, ISSN 0378-1844, retrieved 2010-02-11, “If the mutation rate is high and takes place over short periods, as memetics predict, instead of selection, adaptation and survival a chaotic disintegration occurs due to the accumulation of errors.”
Gray, John (2008-03-15), “John Gray on secular fundamentalists”. The Guardian (London).
Deacon, Terrence, “The trouble with memes (and what to do about it)”.". The Semiotic Review of Books 10: 3.
Kull, Kalevi (2000), “Copy versus translate, meme versus sign: development of biological textuality”. European Journal for Semiotic Studies 12 (1): 101–120.
Fracchia, Joseph, R. C. Lewontin (February 2005), “The price of metaphor”, History and theory (Weleyan University) 44 (44): 14–29, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00305.x, ISSN 0018-2656, JSTOR 3590779, “The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to “evolution.” […] [W]e conclude that while historical phenomena can always be modeled selectionistically, selectionist explanations do no work, nor do they contribute anything new except a misleading vocabulary that anesthetizes history.”
Mayr, Ernst (1997), “The objects of selection”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Stanford University’s HighWire Press®) 94 (6): 2091–2094. doi:10.1073/pnas.94.6.2091. PMC 33654. PMID 9122151. Archived from the original on November 15, 2013.

Lev_Muishkin · August 11, 2015, 11:41am

What’s your point?

The critique as well as the meme theory itself both assume natural selection as true. So you are only clouding your argument with lack of understanding.
The great thing about NS is that it is a priori true, almost definitively true, and beyond refutation. It is tautologically truth.
Nothing anyone has said here changes that. In fact the only criticisms that have been offered all assume NS to be true.

Arminius · August 11, 2015, 12:14pm

Ignorance upon ignorance.

Some people are not capable of seeing a tree, if one shows them a forest.

Lev_Muishkin · August 12, 2015, 9:44pm

The point is that you don’t have a point. You’ve copy/Paste dumped your crap onto the thread without relevance or understanding.

Arminius · August 12, 2015, 9:54pm

Try to read this thread, and then you will see that you are absolutely wrong.

And if you are not interested in this thread, then search for another thread.