Memes: Protoscience or Pseudoscience?

[Wowbagger]

Splitting from this thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69697

Are the concept of memes useful as a science? Although memes are considered, by their supporters, to be a "protoscience", what objective studies have been conducted to verify or falsify their existence, or their usefulness as a model for social evolution?

Or, should memes be considered junk science, since many of its critics claim that none of its concepts are well defined?

Are memetics mutually exclusive to other theories on social evolution, or are many of them valid, from certain levels of view?

There was one study, I vaguely remember, about a game of "Telephone" getting analyzed, by humans and computer, for discreet units of mutation and propagation, and stuff like that. But, I could not re-locate it, yet. If anyone know of this study, or a similar one, please let us know about it.

This is a topic that may have been discussed here, before, but there are a few new people interested in it.

 

[Cynric]

Hmm, thorny question. I've been wondering about it too, whilst reading the God delusion.
I get the feeling that Dawkins himself isn't completely sold on the issue, and that he only raised the idea in order to broaden the scope of the Selfish Gene. I think it served a useful purpose there in getting people to think in terms of replicators rather than organisms, but is it a science?
At the moment I would say no, simply because I struggle to think of a good experiment to test the hypothesis. It seems inevitable that ideas will spread through society (brains), and will be selected for by appeal, but can we really define a "unit" of idea-ness in such a way as to make it a useful analytical device? It also seems seductively easy to explain every observation in terms of memetics, making it vulnerable to the same pitfall as pseudosciences such as psychoanalysis.
So, I'm sceptical, but I think those researching it are doing so in an openminded and scientific manner - so I guess protoscience wins over pseudoscience at this stage.
Until someone invents a "meme-clean" helmet to remove toxic thought parasites, of course .

 

[Danniel]

I think that memes are more a synonym or term for "cultural information", or small units/entities of cultural information (of which the imprecise delimitation doesn't seems to matter), rather than something that could have a precise size and a whole new science of "memetics" for studying it. It would still be studies of compared cultures or whatever.

I do not know much about other theories of cultural evolution, but I think that the gene metaphor/analogy indeed brings something, because to me seems that without that we are a bit more prone to think of cultural evolution in a adaptationist and orthogenist-like fashion.

As if culture were always evolving toward progress, and also as if the culture were necessarily adaptations of their "hosts" rather something that can evolve on its own, despite of bringing any "real benefit" to their hosts.

It is an interesting awareness, I think. There's a bit of problem in defining what would be a "real benefit" tough, it could end in everlasting phylosophical discussios of whether just feeling good or relieved despite of the truth of the information held and spread isn't already a "real benefit" and things like that. However, it could just be rephrased as that culture can evolve on its own, despite of the truthfulness of the content then, to avoid that.

 

[drkitten]

I think that memes are more a synonym or term for "cultural information", or unimportantly undefined small units/entities of cultural information, rather than something that could have a precise size and a whole new science of "memetics" for studying it. It would still be studies of compared cultures or whatever.

I do not know much about other theories of cultural evolution, but I think that the gene metaphor/analogy indeed brings something, because to me seems that without that we are a bit more prone to think of cultural evolution in a adaptationist and orthogenist-like fashion.

If you want specifics -- there are a lot of theories of cultural, and specifically linguistic, evolution that hinge on the idea of language-as-a-replicator.

In particular, the sentences that I say -- the sounds -- are interpreted by your brain into a set of symbols -- and then reproduced later when you try to say the same thing. Sound reproduces sound, or alternatively symbol reproduces symbol.

And there's lots of opportunity for re-analysis and mutation; the prefix "cyber-" used to mean "control" and now means "computer." Or on a ligher note, how many of you have sung the hymm about "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear"?

So something is replicating and mutating. But what? The replication "elements" are something smaller and less specific than sentences or words. Phonemes? Sounds? Morphemes? Ideas? Absent any other term for the elements of this replication system , "memes" is as good a word as any.

Linguistic evolution is a real phenomenon, studied by real scientists. If you don't want to use the terms derived from memetics and biological evolution to describe it -- what terms do you suggest?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

How about "bits"?

 

[Danniel]

I think that a "bit" somewhat implies something even more specific and quantitatively delineated than "meme" suggests.

Since "meme", if I recall, aims to be analogue not to a certain well defined physical sequence of nucleotides, but is more in the sense of whichever network of nucleotide sequences and all the pyisiology are the cause or "factor" (as genes used to be called) of a specific phenotype, which, just incidentally, can several times be traced to a key sequence in a certain context. They are like "cultural factors" of something done by cultural reasons.

 

[drkitten]

How about "bits"?

Not a chance. Bits are defined probabilitistically and information-theoretically, not in terms of semantic content.

 

[Dave1001]

Hmm, thorny question. I've been wondering about it too, whilst reading the God delusion.
I get the feeling that Dawkins himself isn't completely sold on the issue, and that he only raised the idea in order to broaden the scope of the Selfish Gene. I think it served a useful purpose there in getting people to think in terms of replicators rather than organisms, but is it a science?
At the moment I would say no, simply because I struggle to think of a good experiment to test the hypothesis. It seems inevitable that ideas will spread through society (brains), and will be selected for by appeal, but can we really define a "unit" of idea-ness in such a way as to make it a useful analytical device? It also seems seductively easy to explain every observation in terms of memetics, making it vulnerable to the same pitfall as pseudosciences such as psychoanalysis.
So, I'm sceptical, but I think those researching it are doing so in an openminded and scientific manner - so I guess protoscience wins over pseudoscience at this stage.
Until someone invents a "meme-clean" helmet to remove toxic thought parasites, of course .

I think if in studying ideas and how they propagate, mutate, etc. we stick with the scientific method (Popper, etc.) we'll be somewhat protected from falling into pseudoscience a la psychoanalysis.

 

[Mercutio]

"Memes" appear to be perfectly compatible with an operant conditioning/verbal behavior approach. When I first heard of the term, I was intrigued, but the more I read, the more I thought (quite favorably) "this is old B.F. Skinner in new bottles".

 

[Dave1001]

"Memes" appear to be perfectly compatible with an operant conditioning/verbal behavior approach. When I first heard of the term, I was intrigued, but the more I read, the more I thought (quite favorably) "this is old B.F. Skinner in new bottles".

Does the B.F. Skinner stuff look at how ideas spread, decline, and modify in populations over time? Also how ideas "compete" with each other in the medium of human brains (for example attaching an idea such as "Jesus is God and died and was reborn" or "Muhammed was Allah's propheit" to commands to proselytize and be fruitful and multiply)?

 

[John Hewitt]

How about "bits"?

I go with memetics being junk science. I think that Dark Jaguar's suggestion contains some sense, one might even say several bits of sense.

In general, I have suggested that the fundamental entities of evolution are "self-bounding data sets" and that such data sets are always asscoiated with "evolving systems," where the word system should be given its IT meaning. (A data system is defined in terms of data inputs, data processes and data outputs. An evolving system requires certain other properties as well.)

This is what I call bioepistemic evolution and, within it, evolutionary analysis involves giving chemical and biological intepretations to the data inputs, processes and outputs of biological evolving systems.

As for the word "meme," it just leaves me cold. It is so vacuous, I don't see where you go with it.

 

[Dave1001]

I go with memetics being junk science. I think that Dark Jaguar's suggestion contains some sense, one might even say several bits of sense.

In general, I have suggested that the fundamental entities of evolution are "self-bounding data sets" and that such data sets are always asscoiated with "evolving systems," where the word system should be given its IT meaning. (A data system is defined in terms of data inputs, data processes and data outputs. An evolving system requires certain other properties as well.)

This is what I call bioepistemic evolution and, within it, evolutionary analysis involves giving chemical and biological intepretations to the data inputs, processes and outputs of biological evolving systems.

As for the word "meme," it just leaves me cold. It is so vacuous, I don't see where you go with it.

So your objection is basically aesthetic? No one claims that memes are the fundamental entities of evolution, any more than are rna or (if Smolin is correct) black holes. It sounds to me like you're suggesting "bioepistemic bits" as an alternative to "memes" for ideas that can propagate and mutate? If so, that term has the benefit perhaps of being more accurate, but the disadvantage of being a little more clunky and in less common circulation, which could increase the costs of getting it widely adopted.

 

[Wowbagger]

As for the word "meme," it just leaves me cold. It is so vacuous, I don't see where you go with it.

I think you gave slightly more intelligent criticism on my other Replicator thread.

When I asked "Does your favorite alternative explain socialization as well or better than that?", you responded:

My favourite explanations is Darwinian sexual selection with social structure as its phenotypic target. Yes I think it does.

Which sounds more legitimate than "the word 'meme,' it just leaves me cold".

For the record, my response to that comment is reprinted below:

------------------------------------------
Ah, yes. I will not deny that is a useful model. Just like group-selection is also a useful model. It may be useful, from certain levels of view. But, it does not get into the core foundation levels.

"Survival of the Species" (as a group) was, and to a certain extent, still is, a good way of thinking about adaptations, from a distant point of view. But, once you start examining things closer: first self-survival becomes more apparent. Then cell survival. And then, once you find what drives cell survival the most, you find it could very well be gene survival.

Social structure as the target of sexual selection, also looks good, from a distant point of view, and can still be useful, when examining societies at that granular stage. But, when you wish to see more detail, you discover that all those bits of information passed, back and forth, in a social network, can themselves, be thought of as replicators. These replicators, of course, exploiting the very "plastic" brains that were the product of selection (sexual or otherwise).

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive ideas. Just different ideas that work at different levels of examination.
------------------------------------------

Let's continue to hear arguments that go beyond athestics, please.

 

[Wowbagger]

Some definitions of Protoscience to help us out:
http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Protoscience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoscience

Given these definitions, it would appear, to me, as if memetics were proto, not pseudo. Useful models are being developed, even if it is not a hard science, yet. Unlike junk-science or pseudoscience, where the model is either completely useless, or flatly contradicts other sciences.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I never saw the use of the concept. A meme is an idea that can change? So?

 

[Mercutio]

Does the B.F. Skinner stuff look at how ideas spread, decline, and modify in populations over time? Also how ideas "compete" with each other in the medium of human brains (for example attaching an idea such as "Jesus is God and died and was reborn" or "Muhammed was Allah's propheit" to commands to proselytize and be fruitful and multiply)?

Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971. Chapters 6 & 7, on the evolution of culture and design of culture, respectively. Although your assumptions ("in the medium of human brains"?) needlessly limit your investigation, and your examples are not the same as his, the notion of competition and selection of belief systems is there.

 

[UserGoogol]

Memetics is more of a paradigm than a theory. The fact that ideas are things that replicate from person to person is fairly obvious, the point of memetics is merely that if you look at culture in that way, you get a valuable new perspective. That is, it's less like Newton's Laws of Motion and more like the idea of describing reality in terms of numbers and then describing the relationships between those numbers.

The paradigm of memetics can of course be directed towards psuedoscientific ******** if someone wants, but I don't think memetics is itself psuedoscience. But then, I haven't really heard any concrete claims, psuedoscientific or not, coming out of the world of memetics. A bit of speculation here or there, but there's no woo in that.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Memetics is more of a paradigm than a theory. The fact that ideas are things that replicate from person to person is fairly obvious, the point of memetics is merely that if you look at culture in that way, you get a valuable new perspective. That is, it's less like Newton's Laws of Motion and more like the idea of describing reality in terms of numbers and then describing the relationships between those numbers...

Paradigm, another fashionable term for what used to be called a "school". But I would like to know what valuable new perspective I would get out of calling an idea a meme.

 

[athon]

Any time you have a complex pattern where the survival of the pattern within a changing system relies on how it interacts within its environment, you're going to see evolution. We can see examples of this in chemical competition, computer programs, living systems and of course, in socially learned behaviours.

I see no problem with defining a unit of cultural inheritance a 'meme'. Indeed, it makes a comparison with genetics, but then I think if it serves to demonstrate that there are parallel rules between any such competing systems, then all the better.

The term is useful in describing something that in itself isn't novel (cultural evolution). If so far the only criticism is one of aesthetic displeasure, then we've got little to argue.

Athon

 

[Wowbagger]

I never saw the use of the concept. A meme is an idea that can change? So?

So, they not only change, but can do so in ways that can aid or hinder its replication. In other words, there are selection pressures (natural and artificial) that impact ideas, not just physical objects.

It is a useful concept, for thinking about ear worms, fashion trends, folklore, urban legends, artistic methods, and teaching of more practical skills, such as bridge building. Oh, and also religion. I have yet to find a better explanation for how it spreads.