>Really? Why is it, then, that field guides to birds can record bird songs
>accuratly? My parents possess a 20 year old record of bird songs which is
>every bit as useful now as it was then -- Robins still sound like Robins,
>and it don't even matter where you live!
>
>I think you're trying to bullshit me, Tim.
I'm getting so tired of arguments from incredulity here at CoV. I can't
help it if you're ignorant. ("We are all born ignorant, but he who remains
ignorant has only himself to blame.")
You could have looked this up on your own, a simple search for "birdsongs
and memes" would have done it. But since you can't be bothered to doubt
yourself or do a lttle research on a topic you're talking about, this is
from a new paper to the Journal of Memetics by Susan Blackmore titled
_Imitation and the definition of a meme_ which can be found at:
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/blackmore_s.html
"5.1 Vocal imitation in birds and dolphins
"There is no doubt that there are examples of vocal imitation in birds and
cetaceans. Song birds have been treated as a special case since research on
imitation first began a hundred years ago (Bonner, 1980; Delius, 1989;
Thorndike, 1898; Whiten and Ham, 1992). This is partly because imitation in
birds is generally confined to sounds, and to rather specific kinds of sound
at that (with the possible exception of parrots who may be able to imitate
simple gestures). Many songbirds have long traditions. The young learn what
to sing by imitating their parents or neighbours. In chaffinches, for
example, the nestling may hear its father sing long before it is capable of
singing itself. A few months later it begins to make a wide variety of
sounds, gradually narrowing down to the song it heard as a chick.
Experiments show that there is a critical period for learning and that the
bird has to hear its own song and match it to the remembered song it is
imitating. Hand-raised birds can learn songs from tape recorders and adopted
birds sing songs more like their adopted, not biological, parents."
Now, should you rethink your premises about memes a little? Or is that just
more bullshit on my part?
-Prof. Tim