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I'm sorry I didn't understand what "closer to the rock face" means. As far as I know, Dawkins' books give his version of evolution, that is somewhat non-standa
by hhm 18y ago
I'm sorry I didn't understand what "closer to the rock face" means.
As far as I know, Dawkins' books give his version of evolution, that is somewhat non-standard and not yet proven. Gould used to write about evolution more as it was widely accepted by scientists on his time. I know they both have disagreements, but as far as I know Dawkins is faster in writing about not very accepted subjects as widely accepted science.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoHm, perhaps I am misusing that metaphor. Let me try a different metaphor: As you move from well-established, abstract, general principles to newly-proposed ideas that are still being tested against a bunch of specific data, you'll find scientists disagreeing with each other more and more. At the very edge of science, where new hypotheses get started, the put-downs can get pretty sharp. Just because Scientist A calls Scientist B a statistically-ignorant fool doesn't necessarily mean, in any objective sense, that Scientist B is a statistically-ignorant fool. They may just be embroiled in one of those academic debates. As for your generalizations: I think they're way too sweeping. Gould and Dawkins have written hundreds of thousands of words. Some of those words are probably too daring, others not daring enough; some are words about cutting-edge subjects, some are about classic works in their fields. Some of their words have caught fire in the popular imagination to a much greater extend than their authors intended, i.e. Dawkins' "meme" concept was originally intended as a half-joking metaphor, and he himself doesn't take it too seriously.
- hhm 18y agoThank you for your interesting replies.
- jacobolus 18y agoIndeed, “meme” is a stupid name for what was completely understandable when simply called an “idea”. The analogy of ideas to genetics is not particularly insightful, and at this point quite worn through.
- thwarted 18y agoPeople congratulate themselves when they have an idea. A group doesn't get an idea. You get a meme from someone else, and it seems to survive on its own. Not all ideas are memes, and not all memes are ideas. But finding a meme these days is like mentioning the long tail. It seems a little antiquated and cutesy.
- hhm 18y agoNot all memes are ideas? How is that so?
- thwarted 18y agoGetting a song stuck in your head (commonly called "earworm", but I think that's a terrible name for it. I think "memelody" makes more sense) when you hear the tune or someone says something that reminds you of it I think qualifies as a meme but not an idea, especially if there is some shared culture reference that makes multiple people think of the same tune from similar stimuli.