RE: [asa] Memes and Phylogenic trees

Culture is complicated for each animal. I saw a tv show where chimps
and Bonobo's are very close in DNA.

Culture is much different.

Chimps: Patriarchial and violent.

Bonobo's: Matriarchial and really into sex.

Part of it may have to do with their environment and food supply.

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Jon Tandy
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 2:58 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: [asa] Memes and Phylogenic trees

I haven't read Dawkins, but I was considering the implications of his
argument that things like morality and altruism could have evolved
naturally over time, because (for instance) altruistic behavior could
prove to be more beneficial to a species or group than non-altruistic
behavior to the survival of the group. On one hand, this sounds on the
surface like it has some merit, even if I don't like or believe that
that is the source of altruism or morality in general.

However, I was also considering one of the key arguments from Ken Miller
and others regarding the evidence for biological origins, which is that
the evolutionary model (descent with modification and common ancestry)
requires that new discoveries fit into their correct place on the
phylogenic tree. If you find mollusks with feathers, or recent mammals
with scales, or any sort of randomly distributed pattern of
characteristics that didn't fit into the phylogenic tree of common
ancestry of species, it would be evidence against evolution. The
argument, as far as it goes, says that both genetic and heritable
characteristics in biology fit perfectly into such a pattern, whereas in
things like automobile design (2 or 4 doors, paint color, size, shape,
weight, body style, etc.) do not. Automobiles can essentially mix and
match features, because they are each designed uniquely, and do not
share a heritable common descent through a progressively branching
lineage through time.

Before I go further, is this essentially a correct statement of the
argument from biology?

So now, applying this to "memes", such as altruism, or charity, or
empathy, etc., it seems to me that this fails to fit an evolutionary
phylogeny, in anything like biological evidence seems to show. One can
find just in the known course of human history those individuals and
cultures and sub-cultures which had these characteristics in varying
degrees, and others which don't. You find sub-cultures or individual
philosophies anciently which were peaceful and were open to accepting
foreigners, and then you find in modern history Hitler exterminating
Jews, Christians, and others. Even in animal populations, you find some
which care for their young, and some who kill or eat their young or
their mate, etc. Unless Richard Dawkins could show a progressive
evolutionary development of something like affection for one's young, it
seems his idea is in trouble on this basis. Just as Ken Miller makes
the case that biological evidence which falls outside the predicted
phylogeny would have meant trouble for evolutionary biology, doesn't
this argument do the same for Dawkins' theory of memes?

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Received on Tue May 6 18:08:47 2008