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Thread: Modernization Theory is Hokum.

  1. #61
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    Default Evolution: Religion, Adaptation and Warfare

    This is an interesting article by Allen MacNeill (an evolutionary psychologist at Cornell), The Capacity for Religious Experience Is an Evolutionary Adaptation to Warfare (2004) (his BLUF):

    Genes, Memes, or Both?

    It is extremely unlikely that any human behavior (or the behavior of any animal with a nervous system complex enough to allow learning) is the result of the expression of any single gene. On the contrary, it is almost universally accepted among evolutionary psychologists that all behaviors show a blend of innate and learned components.

    What is interesting to ethologists is not the question of “how much,” but rather the much simpler question of “how”? One answer that has been suggested is that there are two different carriers of information that can be transmitted among humans: genes and memes. According to Dawkins, a meme is “a unit of cultural transmission” corresponding to things like “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches” (1976, p. 206). Dawkins even addressed the possibility that God Himself might be a meme:

    Consider the idea of God…. What is it about the idea of a god which give it its stability and penetrance in the cultural environment? The survival value of the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal. It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be rectified in the next …. God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture (p. 207).
    Is all of religion simply a meme, or more precisely, a “meme complex”? And does the answer to this question tell us anything about the connection between the capacity for religion and warfare? There are at least three hypotheses for the mode of transmission of the capacity for religious experience:

    • Hypothesis 1: The capacity for religious experience might be almost entirely innate; that is, it arises almost entirely out of “hard-wired” neural circuits in the human brain, which produce the sensations, thoughts, and behaviors that we call religious.

    • Hypothesis 2: The capacity for religious experience might be almost entirely learned; that is, it arises almost entirely from concepts (i.e., “memes”) that are transmitted from person to person via purely linguistic means, and without any underlying neurological predisposition to their acquisition.

    • Hypothesis 3: The capacity for religious experience might arise from a combination of innate predispositions and learning; that is, like many animal behaviors, the capacity for religious experience might be the result of an innate predisposition to learn particular memes.

    Both Boyer’s and Atran’s theories of the origin of religion are closest to the third hypothesis. From the foregoing analysis, it should also be clear that my own hypothesis for the origin of the capacity for religious experience is closest to hypothesis 3. However, unlike Boyer and Atran, I have proposed that the specific context within which the human nervous system has evolved has been persistent, albeit episodic, warfare.
    This article was presented at a 2003 NEI conference (David Livingstone Smith; The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, and Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others), "Religion, Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology", and published by Konrad Lorenz Institute in 2004 (link), which presents all the articles presented at the conference.

    MacNeill has tackled a political hot potato - for which I give him credit. But, a lot of people, who sincerely believe that religion is peace, will be disturbed by the inferences that can be drawn. And, as were drawn by Jack Miles (the lede to MacNeill's piece):

    If we were forced to say in one word who God is and in another what the Bible is about, the answer would have to be: God is a warrior, and the Bible is about victory. —Jack Miles, God, A Biography (1995, p. 106)
    Regards

    Mike

    PS: Also from Allen MacNeill, Evolutionary Psychology II (2011; 122 pp.), a lecture course on the same topics - suggested readings start with Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (1974), and include Wrangham, Kelly, Keeley, etc.
    Last edited by jmm99; 09-22-2013 at 03:17 AM.

  2. #62
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    Default Memes

    I am not a big advocate of the theory of memes. By attempting to recreate genes in a societal setting it creates the false impression that societies evolve - a fundamental precept of modernization theory. I have always viewed society as more of a virus than a evolving independent life form. It cannot exist without its human host. If it changes it does so based on the requirements of its human host. So to create the impression that it can take on a life of its own creates a false impression that its host is a passive player in its "evolution". I find that idea ridiculous.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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  3. #63
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    Default Memes are products of the human mind

    They are "transmitted" (but the mechanism is different from transmission of genetic material - obviously). They are created and published by their authors; and then accepted or rejected by their recipients. What we are doing right now is swapping memes. Like everything in the universe, memes arise from the interaction of matter and energy.

    If someone wants to call them something else, that's fine with me - "culture unit", for example. And, if you think the concept is "ridiculous", that's also fine with me. We can pass as two ships in the night - far apart.

    But, as this little exchange proves, memes are not handled passively by their human publishers and recipients (or rejectors).

    Memetics has its share of good science and junk science. Here's a 1680 page compendium on memes - in the military context: Finklestein, A Memetics Compendium (2008; prepared for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

    Its suggested working definition for a meme is (p.15):

    We developed a pragmatic definition to distinguish a meme from other sorts of information (such as common daily utterances):

    A meme is information which propagates, persists, and has impact.
    To distinguish memes from other kinds of information, an elaboration of the definition invokes a threshold for propagation and persistence and employs Shannon‘s definition of information as that which reduces uncertainty.
    Here's the basic flow chart (p.17):

    Meme Chart.jpg

    Figure 2: Meme Transmission Replicates Claude Shannon’s Iconic Schematic of a General Communications System.
    To those who think all of this is ridiculous, then they should ignore it and continue on in bliss.

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 09-22-2013 at 06:19 AM.

  4. #64
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    I don't think the concept of memes is ridiculous, I think the way it is applied is.

    Lets look at the definition offered in the Compendium:

    A meme is information which propagates, persists, and has impact.
    I am good with it being propagated. I am OK with it persisting - and in fact my interest is in why a particular idea (like the idea of God) persists? What need does it fulfill? How does it help the human animal survive or find more satisfaction in its life.

    The last part I tend to find disturbing (or ridiculous), it "has impact". This is a euphemism that transfers the action from the humans transmitting the meme to the meme itself. A meme can have no effect, no "impact", outside its human host. Humans may realize the truth or the utility of the meme, but the meme does nothing in and of itself. It has no impact.

    I realize that I may be making a very fine distinction to the point of sounding ridiculous myself, but it is very easy to start down the road of seeing memes as having an existence separate from their human host. By giving memes the power to have an "impact" they become independent components of something outside the people transmitting them. They become the genes of society creating the impression that society also exists as a separate entity. That societies evolve. That social evolution means that modern societies are more advanced than primitive ones - that they are "better" because they are more advanced. Hence, the basic foundation of modernization theory.

    You see this same thinking in ideas about bureaucracy. There is the belief that once a bureaucracy is created it becomes self sustaining and impossible to get rid of. People believe that it "takes on a life of its own". Ridiculous! The bureaucracy does nothing that its human masters do not want. It survives because those who created and maintain the bureaucracy like it. It provides for them. It is comfortable. People who then argue about changing the bureaucracy are arguing the wrong point and probably won't win. You have to change the people ... and that probably ain't gonna happen.

    Societies cannot and they do not evolve. It is not a living being. At best society is a parasitic virus that can only survive within its host. Even that is going too far.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 09-22-2013 at 02:02 PM.
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    Default ... propagates, persists, and has materiality ...

    is more the way I'd express it, if I were trying to define memes - which I'm not. The point, whether one uses "impact", "materiality" or some other such term, is to suggest that there is a treshhold quantitative value of horizontal propagation, below which we disregard the meme.

    I'd suggest that's probably a waste of time (spending time developing a quantitative threshhold definition) because a low materiality meme will usually be ignored despite its propagation and persistence. E.g., MemeA is propagated vertically one to one (A1 > A2 > A3 > ... An), but not horizontally, for n "generations". Odds are that meme would not have any significant "impact" on, say, 300 million Americans.

    However, it's possible for person An to reach an influential position, which would allow MemeA to be widely propagated horizontally - let's say among 300 million Americans, who say "Why didn't we think of that before ?" That would be an example of a pre-adaptative or exaptative meme - to steal terms from evolutionary genetics.

    Is a human host necessary for transmission of memes ? Am I transmitting my present meme, or is the SWC server transmitting it. Isn't there a lot of difference between tutor and pupil sharing a common log, eyeball to eyeball, and what we are doing here ?

    Finally, I'd suggest that selection (random and non-random) can occur at multiple levels - the individual and the group being two. E.g., societies and bureaucracies can evolve. However, there is little point in us beating that horse - if they evolve, I win; if they don't evolve, I lose; but by the time that's decided, I'll be dead.

    Regards

    Mike

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    is more the way I'd express it, if I were trying to define memes - which I'm not. The point, whether one uses "impact", "materiality" or some other such term, is to suggest that there is a treshhold quantitative value of horizontal propagation, below which we disregard the meme.
    I think that the key to the usefulness of the meme concept is in the "threshold quantitative value" or what I would say is the "threshold qualitative value". What is it that causes the meme to be above that threshold? What is it about how the meme is digested by the receiver that makes it useful?


    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    However, it's possible for person An to reach an influential position, which would allow MemeA to be widely propagated horizontally - let's say among 300 million Americans, who say "Why didn't we think of that before ?" That would be an example of a pre-adaptative or exaptative meme - to steal terms from evolutionary genetics.
    Here is the key. It is not in the nature of the meme but in the nature of how the meme is received - in the "why didn't we think of that before?" - that makes a meme useful.

    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    Is a human host necessary for transmission of memes ? Am I transmitting my present meme, or is the SWC server transmitting it. Isn't there a lot of difference between tutor and pupil sharing a common log, eyeball to eyeball, and what we are doing here ?
    The message versus the medium, or in the case of the diagram - the message versus the signal.

    Also, think about dead societies, like the ancient Egyptians. Their messages were all over the walls of their tombs and temples but they were just images until we learned to decipher them. The memes were there, they had been transmitted, but until they were received they were just images on a wall. Its not about the medium, its about the message, and in particular, the utility of that message to the receiver.

    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    Finally, I'd suggest that selection (random and non-random) can occur at multiple levels - the individual and the group being two. E.g., societies and bureaucracies can evolve. However, there is little point in us beating that horse - if they evolve, I win; if they don't evolve, I lose; but by the time that's decided, I'll be dead.
    I guess I can see no situation where a society received a message. Individual members of the society receive the message, but the society only exists as an extension of its individual members. It has no life on its own. Besides, I don't see this as a win lose proposition ... and there is still time while you are alive to learn (or maybe for you to teach me)
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 09-22-2013 at 07:06 PM.

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    Default My point on multi-level selection

    was not my incapacity or your incapacity to learn within a finite time period.

    Rather, it was that the debate about multi-level selection has been going on for the last 50 years, without the various sides (there being more than two) coming out clearly ahead. I don't expect any sort of scientific eureka moment about multi-level selection in the remaining years of my life.

    Of course, the issue of group vs individual selection can always be argued out (ad infinitum) politically, libertarian vs collectivist, etc. But that's not what I was getting at.

    Regards

    Mike

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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    Rather, it was that the debate about multi-level selection has been going on for the last 50 years, without the various sides (there being more than two) coming out clearly ahead. I don't expect any sort of scientific eureka moment about multi-level selection in the remaining years of my life.
    I guess you are right. I can offer nothing more on the matter. I can say that I have a position, that I have articulated that position without total success. I can understand that others have differing views. I guess I see a danger in these differing views. Now that does not mean that they are wrong, only that they can be used to justify the wholesale destruction of other cultures - replacing them with the more advanced version. Perhaps that is the nature of mulit-level selection - that the human hosts are only hosts and must die along with their defective or non-selected social or cultural structures. I guess I find that thought somewhat disturbing. So I cannot argue that I am right scientifically, only that I "ought" to be right.

    Feel free to rebut, but lets move on to other lines of inquiry.

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    Default The Use and Misuse of Science

    Just to be very clear, I've been talking about science and its proper uses. I'm not advocating its misuse, which you have summed as follows:

    I guess I see a danger in these differing views. Now that does not mean that they are wrong, only that they can be used to justify the wholesale destruction of other cultures - replacing them with the more advanced version. Perhaps that is the nature of multi-level selection - that the human hosts are only hosts and must die along with their defective or non-selected social or cultural structures.
    One example of misuse that I see is Social Darwinism (a meme) with its collection of associated memes: eugenics, master races, over and under men. etc. We also have some less obviously malign memes: Manifest Destiny, the New Frontier and Walt Rostow's modernization construct. All these memes attempt to use (but in fact misuse) scientific evolution and selection.

    Here's how Social Darwinism was viewed by one of my favorite lawyers in the Monkey Trial, William Jennings Bryan - the other is his opponent Darrow. A good 5 minute Youtube, Monkey Trial: William Jennings Bryan and Social Darwinism. I accept Bryan's views on Social Darwinism, but not on Creationism.

    The longer course on William Jennings Bryan and Social Darwinism is Lee, Inherit the Myth: How William Jennings Bryan's Struggle with Social Darwinism and Legal Formalism Demythologize the Scopes Monkey Trial (2004).

    Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism did not evolve from Darwin, but had its own (prior) origins, as well as a different construct. How did Darwin differ from Spencer ?; from Lee (p.9):

    Against this view [JMM: Spencer's], Darwin argued that evolutionary change serves no transcendent moral purpose. Its goal or end is not the metaphysical good or right. It is simply survival of the species through adaptive advantage. Darwin viewed natural selection as merely a force tending to bring about greater adaptation of a species to its environment. He was even reluctant to call his theory of descent with modification a theory of "evolution" because he feared that the progressive implications of the term would be misleading. In the end, however, he reluctantly adopted the term, in part because Spencer had already popularized it.
    Footnotes omitted; all are from Steve Gould's, Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History (1977) - I also accept what is said by Lee based on Gould.

    Thus, genetic selection (like memetic selection) is not necessarily good or bad as a scientific process - nor is it usually predictive of a "better society". They (especially memetic selection) can be used for malign purposes.

    As to which, Lee (p.10) quotes Steve Gould (same source):

    This discredited theory [JMM: Spencer's Social Darwinism] ranked human groups and cultures according to their assumed level of evolutionary attainment, with (not surprisingly) white Europeans at the top and people dwelling in their conquered colonies at the bottom. Today, it remains a primary component of our global arrogance, our belief in dominion over, rather than fellowship with, more than a million other species that inhabit our planet. The moving finger has written, of course, and nothing can be done; yet I am rather sorry that scientists contributed to a fundamental misunderstanding by selecting a vernacular word meaning progress as a name for Darwin's less euphonious but more accurate "descent with modification."
    All of this discussion is about memes - and how they can be misused.

    So, I think the topic of memes is very material to this thread - and a many others involving cultural evolution in its vulgar sense.

    Regards

    Mike

    PS: For those with an interest in the Monkey Trial on Youtube, The Scopes Monkey Trial Full Documentary (1hr 17min)
    Last edited by jmm99; 09-23-2013 at 02:14 AM.

  10. #70
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    Default Societies are not organic life forms

    I understand. It is not the science that I think is the problem. It is the application of unproven theories that I dislike primarily because my own theories run contrary to them. While many people are perfectly content to see society as a living organism and the meme as an equivalent to a gene, I do not. There is no multi- level evolutionary system because only individual organic creatures can evolve. We use that analogy to try to explain how social systems change over time but it is an inaccurate and incomplete analogy. Societies are not organic life forms.

    When we apply this inaccurate analogy to cultural studies we get the social Darwinism ecxept applied to entire societies instead of individuals.

    I have a more Spencerian approach but it is still applied at the individual leve and then aggregated to create a society wide result. Even then it is not truly society wide since all large societies are not homogenous. Still, in the aggregate, it becomes more likely than not that the society will act in a certain way.

    I realize that may not be helpful, but it is as accurate as I can make it.
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  11. #71
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    Default Societies devolve - life forms don't

    I guess my strongest argument against multi-level, or at least societal evolution is that societies devolve along predictable patterns, life forms continue to evolve. When any great society collapses it splinters along predictable lines. If resources continue to dwindle towns are abandon and people take to the country returning to their tribal ways. When resources become plentiful they again build a society along the same patterns as they had before. Similar patterns occur in societies that have not had contact.

    This does not occur in evolution. Once a fish left the sea and evolved into a mammal, when mammals returned to the sea they did not become fish. They maintained their genetically mammalian aspects.

    Humans have a hardwired list of needs. Which needs Human seek to satisfy change depending on security and resources. The pattern that they follow as security and resources remain abundant are predictable because nothing has changed in the basic list of wants and needs of the population. This is not evolution, this is adaptation based on changing needs.
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    I realize that I may be making a very fine distinction to the point of sounding ridiculous myself, but it is very easy to start down the road of seeing memes as having an existence separate from their human host. By giving memes the power to have an "impact" they become independent components of something outside the people transmitting them.
    What happens if one replaces the word "meme" with the word "gene" in the above quotation?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    You see this same thinking in ideas about bureaucracy. There is the belief that once a bureaucracy is created it becomes self sustaining and impossible to get rid of. People believe that it "takes on a life of its own". Ridiculous! The bureaucracy does nothing that its human masters do not want. It survives because those who created and maintain the bureaucracy like it. It provides for them. It is comfortable. People who then argue about changing the bureaucracy are arguing the wrong point and probably won't win. You have to change the people ... and that probably ain't gonna happen.
    As a counterpoint to the above, consider the Abilene Paradox or the Prisoner's Dilemma

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Societies cannot and they do not evolve. It is not a living being. At best society is a parasitic virus that can only survive within its host. Even that is going too far.
    Evolution is a rather value-laden term. It suggests a positive change. Were this not the case, then, I submit, we would not also have the term "devolution." As suggested in my comment on the first quotation above, what happens when some simple word changes are made? "Societies cannot and they do not change" for example. Now that is at some level true, but then a similar claim can be made for the biological system of systems (SoS) that we call a human being. In fact, I think we can agree that a SoS does not change except insofar as its component systems change. And the component systems do not change except insofar as their parts do. But then we are faced with a variation on the the paradox of the ship of Theseus. At the first change of a component, do we still have the same system or SoS? If not, when do we decide that the system or SoS is different?

    If one wants to be consistent, then one must accept a lot of baggage that comes along with adopting the concept 'evolution' and its normative correlative, 'progress.' And, I think that this baggage includes memes and unchangeable bureaucracies. To discuss progress one needs some form of measurement. How does one measure "progress" without an unchanging baseline? We need some basis of comparison in order to say "we are better than X" where X is that prior baseline. I think that baseline might well be composed of the structures of societies, AKA bureaucracies, and the lexicons, AKA memes, used to refer to them.
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    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    What happens if one replaces the word "meme" with the word "gene" in the above quotation?
    I am not sure that it would, which is the problem. You walk away with the impression that the two are interchangeable.


    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    As a counterpoint to the above, consider the Abilene Paradox or the Prisoner's Dilemma
    I am not sure that either one are applicable. The Abilene Paradox would assume that bureaucracy is not in the best interest of the group. I would argue that it is. Likewise, the Prisoner's Dilemma assumes that the first one out of the bureaucracy has slight advantage but his best option is to let it remain. Again, I see bureaucracy as filling a need. But even if it was only self sustaining, there could be no advantage in being the first out of the system.

    Let me throw a counterproposal at you - a prisoner's dilemma so to speak. If you live in a world that is based on a client-patron relationship then your basic needs are fulfilled by that relationship. As the client you get your food, shelter, and protection as part of the bargain for your unwavering support of the patron. As long as that is all you need there is no reason to alter this relationship. But if your needs change, if after generations of having your basic needs satisfied your needs change, then the relationship no longer works. You will fight to get out of it - you will seek the freedom that you have been lacking. The rules of the game have changed. I can think of no paradox like that.

    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    Evolution is a rather value-laden term. It suggests a positive change. Were this not the case, then, I submit, we would not also have the term "devolution." As suggested in my comment on the first quotation above, what happens when some simple word changes are made? "Societies cannot and they do not change" for example. Now that is at some level true, but then a similar claim can be made for the biological system of systems (SoS) that we call a human being. In fact, I think we can agree that a SoS does not change except insofar as its component systems change. And the component systems do not change except insofar as their parts do. But then we are faced with a variation on the the paradox of the ship of Theseus. At the first change of a component, do we still have the same system or SoS? If not, when do we decide that the system or SoS is different?
    I agree, but you have to look at which parts of the system are active and which parts are passive. The human being is the only active system in this system of systems.

    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    If one wants to be consistent, then one must accept a lot of baggage that comes along with adopting the concept 'evolution' and its normative correlative, 'progress.' And, I think that this baggage includes memes and unchangeable bureaucracies. To discuss progress one needs some form of measurement. How does one measure "progress" without an unchanging baseline? We need some basis of comparison in order to say "we are better than X" where X is that prior baseline. I think that baseline might well be composed of the structures of societies, AKA bureaucracies, and the lexicons, AKA memes, used to refer to them.
    Here is my problem, I don't want to be consistent. I reject out of hand the idea that societies evolve. Societies are passive, not active. They reflect changes in the motivations of their active hosts, the human beings.

    I am offering a different paradigm. One where there is not progress, but a change in the objective of the game.

    In this case no system is better than any other. The system that the Yanamamo natives of the Amazon have developed is just as "good" as the tribal systems of Afghanistan or the capitalist systems of the United States. The difference is the objective, the goal each system is trying to achieve. That change is based on changes in the needs of the humans who make up the system. That idea is difficult to swallow, but it is what I believe is actually happening. The society, and all its cultural components, represent a solution set to designed to satisfy the needs of the human population. As the needs change, so does the solution set. It is not "progress" or "evolution", it is a change in the rules of the game, in the goals of the system. in the needs of the human hosts from basic survival to group supremacy to individual supremacy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Let me throw a counterproposal at you - a prisoner's dilemma so to speak. If you live in a world that is based on a client-patron relationship then your basic needs are fulfilled by that relationship. As the client you get your food, shelter, and protection as part of the bargain for your unwavering support of the patron. As long as that is all you need there is no reason to alter this relationship. But if your needs change, if after generations of having your basic needs satisfied your needs change, then the relationship no longer works. You will fight to get out of it - you will seek the freedom that you have been lacking. The rules of the game have changed. I can think of no paradox like that.
    Not a counter example as the rules have changed. Your proposal above commits the "fallacy of swapping horses" as in swapping horses in the middle of the stream.
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    I agree, but you have to look at which parts of the system are active and which parts are passive. The human being is the only active system in this system of systems.
    Not if you adopt the position of those who espouse the "selfish gene."
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Here is my problem, I don't want to be consistent. I reject out of hand the idea that societies evolve. Societies are passive, not active. They reflect changes in the motivations of their active hosts, the human beings.

    I am offering a different paradigm. One where there is not progress, but a change in the objective of the game.

    In this case no system is better than any other. The system that the Yanamamo natives of the Amazon have developed is just as "good" as the tribal systems of Afghanistan or the capitalist systems of the United States. The difference is the objective, the goal each system is trying to achieve. That change is based on changes in the needs of the humans who make up the system. That idea is difficult to swallow, but it is what I believe is actually happening. The society, and all its cultural components, represent a solution set to designed to satisfy the needs of the human population. As the needs change, so does the solution set. It is not "progress" or "evolution", it is a change in the rules of the game, in the goals of the system. in the needs of the human hosts from basic survival to group supremacy to individual supremacy.
    Consistency is not a requisite, but it is considered to be a significant piece of the sine qua non of being human, i.e., rationality. So you could redefine the essence of humanity if you wish. But, we tend to have some set usages for language, which allow us to engage interactively. Similarly yopu could reset the denotation/connation for 'evolution.' This Humpty Dumpty approach to language (see chapter six of Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll/C. L. Dodgson) is one way of resolving discussions, but once you fall off the wall, remember that all the king's horses and men may well be unable to help you as they may not be able to understand what you are requesting.
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  15. #75
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    Not a counter example as the rules have changed. Your proposal above commits the "fallacy of swapping horses" as in swapping horses in the middle of the stream.
    You have caught me with my fallacious trousers down!

    It is always a pleasure to trade barbs with you. But here I have to make a clear distinction between evolution and adaptation. To me, this is very important. But I am glad to have your (and others) attacks as they allow me to hone my arguments.

    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    Not if you adopt the position of those who espouse the "selfish gene."
    I am familiar with the selfish gene. I think I have it somewhere on the bookshelves behind me (ask my wife and she will tell you I have it inside me). But it is only half an answer and no answer at all when dealing with a social animal. If selfishness were the answer, we would not be social.

    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    Consistency is not a requisite, but it is considered to be a significant piece of the sine qua non of being human, i.e., rationality. So you could redefine the essence of humanity if you wish. But, we tend to have some set usages for language, which allow us to engage interactively. Similarly yopu could reset the denotation/connation for 'evolution.' This Humpty Dumpty approach to language (see chapter six of Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll/C. L. Dodgson) is one way of resolving discussions, but once you fall off the wall, remember that all the king's horses and men may well be unable to help you as they may not be able to understand what you are requesting.
    I am not redefining the essence of humanity, I am clarifying it. Let us suppose for a minute that I am right - that the needs of humanity change based on the conditions they exist in - ... nope, I guess that it is, lets just suppose that I am right.

    I am not trying to redefine humanity. I am trying to explain why what appears to be evolution is in fact adaptation. That by using evolution as your model you allow for all sorts of horrors. To do this; to have a xenophobic view of other cultures, is natural for humans. It is something we have to work to avoid.

    I will try to clarify myself further, and I realize that I go against the tide of current opinion on the matter, but if I am to discredit modernization theory I must offer an alternative. That alternative is that societies do not evolve, they adapt to the changing needs of the human population.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 09-23-2013 at 09:26 PM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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    Default Groups, Individuals and Altruistic Behavior

    Attached is a pdf with snips from a number of online articles dealing with Groups, Individuals and Altruistic Behavior - based on Sober and Wilson's 1998 book, "Onto Others ...", which "updates" the "Selfish Gene" mentioned by wm.

    Regards

    Mike

  17. #77
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Mike,

    As always, many thanks ...
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
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  18. #78
    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    So many points to comment on in this post but I'll limit myself to a response to this:
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    I will try to clarify myself further, and I realize that I go against the tide of current opinion on the matter, but if I am to discredit modernization theory I must offer an alternative. That alternative is that societies do not evolve, they adapt to the changing needs of the human population.
    I'm not sure why you need an alternative to modernization theory in order to discredit it. Unless you are erecting a straw man of modernization theory, it does a good job of discrediting itself by assuming that change is evolutionary and, therefore, that modernization is progress through evolution.
    As you have pointed out in your posts, societies and organisms adapt. Adaption is not a normative term; so adding in "better," "improved," and other such normative words is not necessarily warranted. When I take three steps to the right of my current position, I have changed locations. But that does not mean I have moved to a better location. In fact, if I changed my location to protect you by lying on the hand grenade that the terrorist just threw in the room, I would say I have changed my position to my detriment.
    Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
    The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught. — Sydney J. Harris

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    Default wm, I can't resist ...

    you need (IMO) the added, bolded text in your syllogism:

    ... by assuming that change is evolutionary; and that all evolutionary changes are progressive; and, therefore, that modernization is progress through evolution.
    Of course, all change is not evolutionary; and evolutionary changes may be progressive (whatever that means; presumably, "improved", "better", "higher", etc.) or non-progressive.

    The grenade story is a nice altruistic touch.

    Regards

    Mike

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    WM,

    I suppose I don't need an alternative, it just so happens that I have one. That is probably enough for me to make my argument today. But modernization, built on the deceptively simplistic idea of social evolution, keeps coming back around like a bad penny. It coddles us with the belief that we are the best system and that we have earned that position by being the most evolved. As you point out, evolution is a word laden with certain beliefs.

    There are other reasons why I am going out of my way to make these arguments. The primary one is because I believe it is right. Societal, and in particular, political change is not evolutionary. When a society moves from a political systems built on a centralized power base (i.e. a King) to one built on a decentralized power base (i.e. a democracy) it is not because they have evolved, it is because what the population's needs changed. It changed from the need for security and group identity to the need for autonomy and individual identity. This idea has huge repercussions for counterinsurgency. For example, the 5-34 uses good governance and things like electricity as the lines of effort that lead to legitimizing the government. But while the population may like good governance and electricity it is not why they fight and die. It will not identify what legitimizes the government. They fight and die because the government is not meeting more important needs. The need to validate their communal identity, to acknowledge its primacy (or at least equality). When you confront that communal identity with values that oppose it (like freedom for women) you end up in direct opposition to the populations needs.

    Anyway, it is not critical to replace social evolution in order to discredit modernization, but it is a necessary element in making my more complete argument.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 09-25-2013 at 12:31 AM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
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