The Meme Machine

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92 THE MEME MACHINE increasing the risk of choking. Why were these costly and potentially dangerous modifications ever made? What made them worth it? This question forces us into a difficult situation. As several authors have pointed out (Deacon 1997; Dunbar 1996; Pinker 1994) it appears that either we must understand what selective advantage language gave early hominids, or we must abandon hopes of a Darwinian explanation. This is not a happy choice – if indeed it is a choice.
CHAPTER 8 <strong>Meme</strong>–gene coevolution <strong>The</strong> mystery of language origins has apparently presented us with an unpleasant choice – abandon hopes of a Darwinian explanation or find a function for language. But this is only a forced choice if the function has to be for the genes. If there is a second replicator this is no longer the only option. I shall argue that once imitation evolved and memes appeared, the memes changed the environment in which genes were selected and so forced them to provide better and better meme-spreading apparatus. In other words, the human language capacity has been meme-driven, and the function of language is to spread memes. What is language for? If we want to understand the evolution of language, a Darwinian explanation is the obvious starting point. However, it has been argued that language shows no genetic variation, could not exist in intermediate forms, and would require more evolutionary time, and more space in the genome, than could possibly have been available – quite aside from the fact that its selective advantage is not obvious (Pinker and Bloom 1990). All of these arguments have been forcefully opposed. Nevertheless, they keep reappearing in various guises. Oddly enough, the two major opponents of a traditional Darwinian approach to language origins are one of the world’s most famous evolutionary theorists, Stephen Jay Gould, and the world’s best-known linguist, Noam Chomsky. In the 1950s, the prevailing behaviourist paradigm treated language as just another aspect of human beings’ general ability to learn. It denied any innate restrictions on what could be learned or any universal properties of language structure. Chomsky went right against this view. He pointed out that the logical structure of languages is far more complex than anyone had thought before, even though it is easily picked up by children without explicit training, and that vastly different languages actually share a common ‘deep structure’. He proposed the now familiar idea of an innate Universal Grammar. However, he has subsequently argued that natural selection cannot explain the origin of this
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The Meme Machine Susan Blackmore 19
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Foreword by Richard Dawkins As an u
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FOREWORD ix Grinning Idiot Press’
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FOREWORD xi following confident pre
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FOREWORD xiii visiting the school d
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FOREWORD xv about genetic selection
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FOREWORD xvii would see them) of in
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xx THE MEME MACHINE Adam Hart-Davis
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2 THE MEME MACHINE human supremacy
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4 THE MEME MACHINE accidentally lef
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6 THE MEME MACHINE We need a name f
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8 THE MEME MACHINE own creations, a
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CHAPTER 2 Universal Darwinism Darwi
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12 THE MEME MACHINE than can surviv
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14 THE MEME MACHINE questions - wha
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16 THE MEME MACHINE allow some meme
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18 THE MEME MACHINE evolution” wo
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20 THE MEME MACHINE Imagine two mem
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22 THE MEME MACHINE congested commu
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CHAPTER 3 The evolution of culture
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26 THE MEME MACHINE Inventions as m
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28 THE MEME MACHINE human race’ (
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30 THE MEME MACHINE Whose advantage
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32 THE MEME MACHINE He was absolute
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34 THE MEME MACHINE The Stanford ge
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36 THE MEME MACHINE largely takes t
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38 THE MEME MACHINE Written words m
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40 THE MEME MACHINE Mithen 1996; Tu
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142 THE MEME MACHINE changing and f
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144 THE MEME MACHINE politician int
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146 THE MEME MACHINE possible and,
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148 THE MEME MACHINE (1991) calls
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150 THE MEME MACHINE times in the h
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152 THE MEME MACHINE altruism. Acts
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154 THE MEME MACHINE for avoiding i
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156 THE MEME MACHINE true we should
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158 THE MEME MACHINE cultural relat
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160 THE MEME MACHINE he-best-imitat
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CHAPTER 13 The altruism trick In to
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164 THE MEME MACHINE behaviour and
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166 THE MEME MACHINE stamps. Many p
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168 THE MEME MACHINE help the anima
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170 THE MEME MACHINE persuades its
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172 THE MEME MACHINE do the task th
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174 THE MEME MACHINE now like Janet
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176 THE MEME MACHINE frightened by
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178 THE MEME MACHINE advanced techn
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180 THE MEME MACHINE 1977). Some pe
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182 THE MEME MACHINE experiences, a
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184 THE MEME MACHINE prone to it th
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186 THE MEME MACHINE symptoms, beca
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188 THE MEME MACHINE experiments ha
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190 THE MEME MACHINE perpetuate the
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192 THE MEME MACHINE maim, rape, pi
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194 THE MEME MACHINE effectively co
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196 THE MEME MACHINE these are typi
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198 THE MEME MACHINE the species’
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200 THE MEME MACHINE them in heaven
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202 THE MEME MACHINE may explain th
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CHAPTER 16 Into the Internet In our
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206 THE MEME MACHINE language are n
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208 THE MEME MACHINE variations on
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210 THE MEME MACHINE forces. The me
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212 THE MEME MACHINE then the demog
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214 THE MEME MACHINE to taste the s
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216 THE MEME MACHINE Caught in the
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218 THE MEME MACHINE the net runs,
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220 THE MEME MACHINE nothing else,
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222 THE MEME MACHINE on the neurons
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224 THE MEME MACHINE decided to act
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226 THE MEME MACHINE of the action,
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228 THE MEME MACHINE about what we
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230 THE MEME MACHINE from the evolu
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232 THE MEME MACHINE believe that b
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234 THE MEME MACHINE overstretched
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236 THE MEME MACHINE language and o
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238 THE MEME MACHINE First, by cons
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240 THE MEME MACHINE But, as we hav
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242 THE MEME MACHINE choices made w
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244 THE MEME MACHINE practice. One
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246 THE MEME MACHINE of one’s chi
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248 THE MEME MACHINE Psychology, (e
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250 THE MEME MACHINE Conlisk, J. (1
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252 THE MEME MACHINE Freeman, D. (1
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254 THE MEME MACHINE Lynch, A., Plu
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256 THE MEME MACHINE bottlenose dol
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258 THE MEME MACHINE Wills, C. (199
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