> This is a good observation Nate, but I'm not sure that speciation never
> occurs in meme-space. I think it happens all the time between the highly
> religious and the rest of the world. When the fundamentalist becomes
> thoroughly innoculated against "worldly" memes, and thoroughly absorbed
> with memes that depend on the <Holy Bible Is Inerrant> meme, there can be
> very little memetic replication between the two groups. Here are two
> examples:
>
> I was conversing with a Baptist missionary who was preparing to go to the
> mission field in Africa. Not thinking, I said to her "Do you realize that
> you're going to the continent where the human species first appeared?" Of
> course, I was met with a blank stare. I then said "Oh, never mind. I
> forgot that you don't accept evolution.", then we started talking about the
> weather or some other superficial subject.
>
> I've been to many social gatherings with a roughly equal distribution of
> fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. On many occasions, the
> fundamentalists retired to a separate room to discuss and debate obscure
> fine-points about the Christian faith. In the other room, the rest of us
> were discussing other things. There was plenty of memetic replication
> occurring within the two groups, but *none* between the groups.
>
> This second example seems like an almost perfect description of speciation,
> but it may be imperfect, because superficial memes like <The Cubs Stink
> This Year> can still replicate between the groups.
>
> Continuing on the speciation analogy, I wonder if there is a danger of
> memetic inbreeding? Are the Amish the end result of memetic inbreeding?
> Comments?
I'm put in an odd position here. First I argue how alike memes and
genes are now I'm arguing for the difference! In the case of religious
cults there always exists the possibility of converts. But a pig and a
horse will never cross breed naturally!
Still I agree that your example comes fairly close to speciation for
meme complexes.
As for the Amish, they got interbreeding genetic and memetic, sad to
say!
Nate Hall