Memes: Protoscience or Pseudoscience?

[John Hewitt]

So your objection is basically aesthetic? No one claims that memes are the fundamental entities of evolution, any more than are rna or (if Smolin is correct) black holes. It sounds to me like you're suggesting "bioepistemic bits" as an alternative to "memes" for ideas that can propagate and mutate? If so, that term has the benefit perhaps of being more accurate, but the disadvantage of being a little more clunky and in less common circulation, which could increase the costs of getting it widely adopted.

No, my objection is not aesthetic, my objection is that, despite repeated requests, nobody has yet suggested what memetics achieves in the way of testable predictions. I am suggesting that the reason for this lack of testability is the failure to define the word gene.

As for "bioepistemic bits," that is your phrase - kindly use mine, "self-bounding data sets."

I said that, in my opinion, ALL evolutionary theory should be based on the concept of data, not genes or any other supposed replicator. That is bioepistemic evolution. I expand bioepistemic evolution to ask about
1. The format of the evolving data and the hard and soft nature of the evolving system that utlizes this data.
2. The interpretative and selective processes occurring within the evolving system and the information and knowledge they produce.
3. The bounding processes that delineate data sets and the evolving systems on which it runs.
4. The biological and social correlates can link such studies with empirical work.

I can do such things with bioepistemic evolution. I can interpret standard genetics, molecular biology, human sexuality, humour and prebiosis in those terms.

When I say I can do nothing with the meme, I mean that it into that framework at all. It is so undefined that I can see no way to understand its format as a data set, the interpretative processes to which it is subject, the bounding processes that delineate one meme from the next, or any biological or social correlate that links it to empirical studies.

Please, tell me some serious correlations with observation that come out of memetics.

 

[John Hewitt]

I think you gave slightly more intelligent criticism on my other Replicator thread.
[/group]
This is patronizing.

Ah, yes. I will not deny that is a useful model. Just like group-selection is also a useful model. It may be useful, from certain levels of view. But, it does not get into the core foundation levels.

"Survival of the Species" (as a group) was, and to a certain extent, still is, a good way of thinking about adaptations, from a distant point of view. But, once you start examining things closer: first self-survival becomes more apparent. Then cell survival. And then, once you find what drives cell survival the most, you find it could very well be gene survival.

Social structure as the target of sexual selection, also looks good, from a distant point of view, and can still be useful, when examining societies at that granular stage. But, when you wish to see more detail, you discover that all those bits of information passed, back and forth, in a social network, can themselves, be thought of as replicators. These replicators, of course, exploiting the very "plastic" brains that were the product of selection (sexual or otherwise).

Dawkins antipathy toward group selection is a good example of how poor his work is. There is no doubt in my mind that group selection is valid in humans and I am happy to see that E.O. Wilson has come to appreciate that.

Let's continue to hear arguments that go beyond athestics, please.

Absolutely, lets hear some arguments that can hope to address observable facts.

 

[Dave1001]

No, my objection is not aesthetic, my objection is that, despite repeated requests, nobody has yet suggested what memetics achieves in the way of testable predictions. I am suggesting that the reason for this lack of testability is the failure to define the word gene.

As for "bioepistemic bits," that is your phrase - kindly use mine, "self-bounding data sets."

I said that, in my opinion, ALL evolutionary theory should be based on the concept of data, not genes or any other supposed replicator. That is bioepistemic evolution. I expand bioepistemic evolution to ask about
1. The format of the evolving data and the hard and soft nature of the evolving system that utlizes this data.
2. The interpretative and selective processes occurring within the evolving system and the information and knowledge they produce.
3. The bounding processes that delineate data sets and the evolving systems on which it runs.
4. The biological and social correlates can link such studies with empirical work.

I can do such things with bioepistemic evolution. I can interpret standard genetics, molecular biology, human sexuality, humour and prebiosis in those terms.

When I say I can do nothing with the meme, I mean that it into that framework at all. It is so undefined that I can see no way to understand its format as a data set, the interpretative processes to which it is subject, the bounding processes that delineate one meme from the next, or any biological or social correlate that links it to empirical studies.

Please, tell me some serious correlations with observation that come out of memetics.

"self-bounding data sets" seems to me to be a broader term than meme. For example, folks probably wouldn't say there has been replication of a meme when an amoeba replicates itself, but they would probably agree that a "self-bounding data set" had replicated. Similarly someone probably wouldn't say that an organism had been completely replicated when Bobby believes Johnny kissed Susie, and he whispers to Mary "Johnny kissed Susie" and Mary now believes Johnny kissed Susie, but they would probably agree that a self-bounded data set had been replicated, since two people now believe the information string "Johnny kissed Susise" instead of one.

So it seems to me that "Self-bounding data set" is a broader descriptor than users of either "gene" or "meme" aspire them to be.

 

[Dave1001]

It is a good question Hewitt brings up. It doesn't sound too difficult to put together solid experiments testing how the spread of memes function. Have they been done already under different auspices (such has by Skinner/behaviorists)? Where's the data, the research, etc. I imagine marketing departments and Darpa would heavily fund this type research.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Not likely to be done by behavior analysts.We typically use single-subject methodology to study the behavior of individuals.

 

[Dave1001]

Not likely to be done by behavior analysts.We typically use single-subject methodology to study the behavior of individuals.

Why? Is it that much of a complexity barrier to use 2 or 3 subjects in interaction? I understand the value of single-subject methodology, but not for all research in that area to be almost completely limited to single-subject methodology.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Your original question had to do with how the spread of memes function. This could be the concern of social psychologists and would typically involve much larger groups of people than 2 or3.
As I said, behavior analysts prefer to focus on the behavior of individuals rather than groups.

 

[Mercutio]

As I said, behavior analysts prefer to focus on the behavior of individuals rather than groups.

Yes, but not exclusively. As an example, Volume 15 of Behavior and Social Issues explores "Cultural Analytic Science"; the behaviorists in our department were strong proponents of cultural application of behaviorism. I don't know what they would have thought of "memes".

 

[Dave1001]

As I said, behavior analysts prefer to focus on the behavior of individuals rather than groups.

As I asked before, why? Why don't the prefer to look at both behavior of individuals, and behavior of multiples?

 

[Mercutio]

As I asked before, why? Why don't the prefer to look at both behavior of individuals, and behavior of multiples?

Much tighter experimental control. And let's face it, this behavior is reinforced by a history of successful investigations. If it works...

Corey--found this a bit ago, the abstract to a paper by Catania.

As instances of behavior, words interact with environments. But they also interact with each other and with other kinds of behavior. Because of the interlocking nature of the contingencies into which words enter, their behavioral properties may become increasingly removed from nonverbal contingencies, and their relationship to those contingencies may become distorted by the social contingencies that maintain verbal behavior. Verbal behavior is an exceedingly efficient way in which one organism can change the behavior of another. All other functions of verbal behavior derive from this most basic function, sometimes called verbal governance. Functional verbal antecedents in verbal governance may be extended across time and space when individuals replicate the verbal behavior of others or their own verbal behavior. Differential contact with different verbal antecedents may follow from differential attention to verbal stimuli correlated with consequential events. Once in place, verbal behavior can be shaped by (usually social) consequences. Because these four verbal processes (verbal governance, replication, differential attention, and verbal shaping) share common stimulus and response terms, they produce interlocking contingencies in which extensive classes of behavior come to be dominated by verbal antecedents. Very different consequences follow from verbal behavior depending on whether it is anchored to environmental events, as in scientific verbal practices, or becomes independent of it, as in religious fundamentalism.

That last sentence suggests to me (I have not yet read the paper) that this analysis is certainly applicable to cultural stuff.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Much tighter experimental control. And let's face it, this behavior is reinforced by a history of successful investigations. If it works...

Corey--found this a bit ago, the abstract to a paper by Catania. That last sentence suggests to me (I have not yet read the paper) that this analysis is certainly applicable to cultural stuff.

Yes, at a theoretical level, but will it lend itself to experimental analysis?
And Charley's always been enamored of his own verbal behavior.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Dave1001]

Yes, at a theoretical level, but will it lend itself to experimental analysis?
And Charley's always been enamored of his own verbal behavior.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

You're hilariously gossipy about your field.

Mercutio, I'm still surprised that there isn't a large body of experimental analysis (according to you and Jeff) with 2 people in interaction. And then 3 people in interaction. Relatively small numbers of people beyond 1.

 

[Mercutio]

Well...any analysis of verbal behavior is going to have at least 2 people, by definition. Verbal behavior requires another person for reinforcement.

And there is an entire journal on The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. So it's not like there is no research going on.

 

[Dave1001]

Well...any analysis of verbal behavior is going to have at least 2 people, by definition. Verbal behavior requires another person for reinforcement.

And there is an entire journal on The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. So it's not like there is no research going on.

In that case 2 people seems to me to be an ideal unit to do a lot of research on, as it's probably the simplest and most controllable unit (with the fewest costs involved).

 

[Dave1001]

Also, fascinating journal title and mission by the way. I wonder what insights have been gleaned from the work published there.

 

[John Hewitt]

Well...any analysis of verbal behavior is going to have at least 2 people, by definition. Verbal behavior requires another person for reinforcement.

And there is an entire journal on The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. So it's not like there is no research going on.

Yes, there may well be some interesting analyses going on in a journal with that title but I am a bit puzzled by the answer emerging from this thread. Dawkins introduced the idea of memes in "The Selfish Gene," which was published, to widespread acclaim, in 1976. So the meme concept has just passed its thirtieth birthday. No doubt the concept of memes took a little while to take off but it had a flying start and memetics has been around now for some time. After such a passage of time, I find it a bit strange that we are still discussing whether memetics is a protoscience or a science or even a pseudoscience. Surely, by this time the field should have produced some results. Should we not be able to point to concrete interpretations of hard data and say, "look, this breakthrough is a result of memetics. Without memetics we just would have no way of understanding these results." Should we not be seeing those results in journals devoted to the topic?

Instead, this thread is suggesting that that we could begin looking at social psychological results for something relevant, or we could look at a journal about "The Analysis of Verbal Behaviour."

Once upon a time, there was a "Journal of Memetics" and I would have thought we could look at the results it has published in the expectation of finding such breakthrough results there. Well, as I mentioned somewhere before, I think that journal folded because its published data was seemingly not found to be of much real value.

Still, perhaps you are correct and there are good results somewhere but I feel that, by now, they should be real results, not mere twinklings in a memeticist's eye. I would like someone to show them to me.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I suppose memetics could at least hypothetically be used to predict how ideas will flow and allow us to do something about that, much in the same was as genetics allows us to predict how bacteria might mutate.

 

[Schneibster]

See, when I read "pseudoscience," and then I hear people refer to psychology as pseudoscience as well, then I get kinda all up in arms. Now, mind you, I'm no psychologist myself- much more the hard-science type, physics for recreation, computers and software for money. Still and all, I have to say that having read a fair number of books on the brain, and on cognitive studies, and even gone so far as to read a textbook on psychology, I find referring to psychology as a "pseudoscience" pretentious to say the least, and more like downright misleading or even patently and obviously false. I see modes of behavior defined in that psychology text that are obscure until they are pointed out, but are obvious thereafter. This, for me, is the hallmark of accurate observation and classification, and that, in turn, makes the treatment of the subject scientific in my eyes; what could be more scientific than accurate observation, and classification of one's observations? How can one make good theories in the absence of good data? And how can anyone claim that we have good data where our own minds are concerned? We are still discovering what are obviously foundational mechanisms in our own brains, not to even speak of any kind of understanding of the foundational mechanisms of our minds, or how those mechanisms vary from one individual to another, and how they remain the same. And even with that small depth, we have managed to make discoveries that at least mitigate the effects of emotional or mental disorders among the worst affected.

By no means would I characterize psychology as anything more than an infant science, if that much; we know a hell of a lot, but it is obvious to anyone who thinks seriously about it and does some studying that we are a hell of a lot farther from knowing much compared to how much there is to know, than we are in more mature areas of study like astronomy or chemistry. We are still at the stage in cognitive studies of all types of defining empirical knowledge; we don't have enough to start looking for meaningful global patterns, or devising solid theories that have very much scope (although there is considerable room for limited sorts of theories, that actually pass scientific tests that those here who denigrate psychology as "pseudo-science" would be surprised if not chagrined to discover) compared to the breadth of the subject matter. It is likely to be a very long time until we do. To judge psychology, therefore, on the basis of this extremely incomplete data set, is not merely unfair but actively deceptive; the extent to which it is deliberately so is even open to question.

So when faced with a choice in this particular case, I have no hesitation in stating that we do not and cannot know enough to define memetics as "either" anything "or" anything to do with science. All that we can say at present is that it is a relatively plausible way of defining fairly amorphous and very ill-delimited "units of social discourse" (whatever the hell that might mean) and ways that such units might, if we understand things correctly, change and get distributed over time. Whether it will survive our acquisition of more and more data about ourselves, and the construction of well-grounded theories of psychology, or sociology, remains very much up in the air, and in fact it may be alternately asserted and denied many times over before we come to any sort of deep understanding of what it means, much less what it implies, about our minds, brains, and emotions.

 

[Wowbagger]

...(snip)...
All that we can say at present is that it is a relatively plausible way of defining fairly amorphous and very ill-delimited "units of social discourse" (whatever the hell that might mean) and ways that such units might, if we understand things correctly, change and get distributed over time. Whether it will survive our acquisition of more and more data about ourselves, and the construction of well-grounded theories of psychology, or sociology, remains very much up in the air, and in fact it may be alternately asserted and denied many times over before we come to any sort of deep understanding of what it means, much less what it implies, about our minds, brains, and emotions.

So, I'll take that as a vote for protoscience, then?

If it's "relatively plausible", right now, that ought to be good enough for such a vote. Unlike real pseudoscience, which is never plausible, from a scientific stand point.

Of course, in the event (which I think is unlikely) that memetics gets definitively disproven, you could then argue that anyone who still promotes it, is doing pseudoscience.
Since we can't tell if that is going to happen, yet, it is "proto", for now.

How about that?

 

[Walter Wayne]

I'll say neither, unless you take meme too literally. In science, like in everything else, invoking a metaphor can help steer ideas in a certain direction. A good thing while the idea is new, and you want to get lots of people exploring it, and a bad thing if it gets so instilled that other avenues of thought go unexplored.

As usual, choice of language can open up avenues of thought or close them down.

Walt