sodom <Sodom@ma.ultranet.com> wrote:
> I simply think that the environment for natural selection
> is changing, but all the basic rules still apply.
Again, I have pointed out numerous places where natural selection NO LONGER
holds any sway -- eye glasses, child birth, fertility drugs, etc. We are
breeding a race of humans which cannot survive without the aids of modern
civilization.
Nathaniel Hall <natehall@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> For an avid follower of the memes you still don't get it.
> Gene's are merely information replicators using DNA. Memes
> are information replicators using brains (and now computers)
> and are much more efficient at processing and evolving new
> information. Natural selection is still here but it's now
> called progress and the marketplace, that's all. The evolution
> of genes is nearly obsolete, get use to it.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again -- memetic evolution
PRESUPPOSES an adequate base. Without the meme-spheres of our human
brains, memetic is going NOWHERE -- and it follows that if we degrade the
genetic base on which the memetic base rests, memetic evolution will cease
to exist. To vividly illustrate, if tomorrow a deadly disease was released
into the atmosphere and it killed all the humans on earth, HOW MUCH MEMETIC
ENGINEERING do you think would be occurring on earth, a week from now?
Answer: NONE. Memetic engineering PRESUPPOSES an adequate base -- and
right now, our *genes*, and the brains they code for, are the only such
base we know of.
For this reason, it is important that we pay attention to gene -- in the
same way that a computer user pays attention to his supply of
electricity...
ERiC