Subject: Re: virus: Random thoughts & more poor analogies!
Date sent: Sat, 15 Aug 98 23:04:39 -0400
From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
To: <virus@lucifer.com>
Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
>Are you asking is it possible to determine if a meme has
>occupied a mind?
And I consider your following to be no more evidence of such than a crop
circle is evidence of alien visitation.
>Then I'd say most folks have undergone such a "test".
>Quite literally. I'm taking about the kind of test we all had to take in
>school. Like the SAT or ACT.
What?!
> What is a test after all but an evaluation
>to see if certain memes have successfully replicated into your mind? Its
>the kind of data scientists love, ready made, complete with error
>analysis!
No, it is not data of any such sort at all. It is a result of a specific
test, created to determine the amount of concordance the test-takers have
with an expected result.
Nope, and this is exactly the sort of claim of 'experimental' evidence
that makes 'memetics' just as specious and meretricious as phrenology,
and causes scientists who deal in actual experimental protocols to be so
derisive of all such claims. Memetics is a laughing stock in many
circles....
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
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