Nate answers:
Cool .... that can be postulate number 2: Memes are copied or
learned by rote & not derived.
To continue with the door handle example ... my old house was built
in the 1890's and all the original door handles seemed just a tad too
low....on the other hand doors that had been added later seemed "just
right". My thinking was that citizen's average height has changed ... and
so functionality dictates the height of the knob. As to location of the
knob ... I tried to change the mechanism on some of those old doors and the
new mechanisms were always about a ¼ inch short ... I would have had to move
the handle ¼ inch to the left. It's not clear to me what the relationship
was between the door manufacturer and the mechanism manufacturer was ... but
it seems to me that there is now "a standard."
Along the same lines my wife and I bought a chandelier on our big
European tour several years ago. I had to change the sockets because I
couldn't find "Real Amurricahn Lightbulbs" that would fit and the Europeans
use little tiny wires that aren't wide enough for "Real Amurricahn Current".
Are the Amurricahn and European standards competing memes?