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Title: Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society by Aaron Lynch ISBN: 0-465-08467-2 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: January, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.83 (23 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Mediocre Exposition of a Promising Perspective
Comment: Meme theory is an interesting concept, as exemplified by its analysis of the spread of Christianity. Likewise, Lynch has created a usable outline of the means through which memes spread, for example proselytization vs. procreation. However Lynch's lack of humility is insufferable and damaging. This manifests itself most obviously in his incessant hyperbolic sales pitch that memetics is a revolutionary "new science" or a paradigm shift comparable to the discovery that the Earth is round. Less immediately noticeable, but ultimately more damaging to his case is his refusal to seriously consider existing theory. This is most evident in the "missing link" chapter -- allegedly an overview of memetic's unifying place among the social and behavioral sciences -- which really shows the missing link in Lynch's theory is an understanding of the disciplines he expects to conquer. For instance, the well-established social psychology theory of cognitive dissonance deals with the evolution and interaction of ideas and the propensity of an individual to adopt and disseminate an idea, exactly the topics of Lynch's book, yet he does not integrate, confront, or even mention it. Ironically for a theory that originated in biology, Lynch even tends to ignore the importance of old-fashioned genetics -- for instance in his assertion that straight men look at women's breasts because it serves to advertise their heterosexuality. I think that meme theory may be a promising perspective for the social sciences, but it will only fulfill this promise when a more talented theorist becomes "infected" with the meme theory meme.
Rating: 4
Summary: This book got me to think
Comment: I read Thought Contagion as my first exposure to a book dedicated to the subject of memes and memetics and one of my earliest reads dealing with cultural evolution devoid of the Social Darwinism delusions prevalent earlier in this century. It captivated me to read further on this subject. While certainly drier and more academic reading than either Blackmore or Brodie, you shouldn't have any trouble staying focussed through it if overexposure to pop-media hasn't reduced your attention span a lot. If you actually get annoyed by hype, you may even enjoy this book more than the other two (see my other Amazon reviews of "The Meme Machine" and "Virus of the Mind" both recommended).
While Lynch does not have the behavioral sciences background of Blackmore, he makes up for it in thoroughness. He has as clear a grasp of the basic understandings of memetics as any. His examples prove very useful to orient us in this understanding. Some of them have come under scrutiny by others in the memetics field with more background in biological and behavioral sciences. But they still serve as good didactic devices to the uninitiated, for which purpose they seem intended. This book only represents the introduction to Lynch's ideas in this subject. He has gone on to provide much stimulus to other serious thinkers in the field through his contributions in the online Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transfer (JOM-EMIT -- you will also find some Blackmore contributions there as well as many others).
If you like this book, then certainly Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" deserves some consideration, a little more hyped, but with some deeper background in the behavioral sciences. If you don't like this presentation at all but still want to get a good introduction to the ideas of memetics, then Richard Brodie's "Virus of the Mind" may interest you better, attention grabbing and dealing more with psychological survival and self-realization in the context of our evolutionary cultural environment. If you remain skeptical about the idea of memes, but find yourself intrigued by the broader ideas of cultural evolution, then you may enjoy E. O. Wilson's "Consilience" for a renowned evolutionary biologist's approach to culture, or Gary Taylor's "Cultural Selection" for the cultural ideas of a renowned Shakespearean scholar immersed in evolutionary thinking.
Enjoy reading "Thought Contagion." It will get you thinking. It sure did for me.
Rating: 1
Summary: 60 years out of date
Comment: When sociobiologists finally conceded that reductionalism could not quite be explained by genes, they had found a new holy ground with people like Lynch and Dawkins. The problem here is that what Lynch advocates is at least 60 years out of date. Cultural ecology, particularly, has moved much beyond garbage written in this pseudo-scientific book. Instead of evidence, we are given conjecture. What is worse is that this conjecture simply does not stand against the HRAF (Human Resource Area Files), an anthropological database of cultures. What Lynch presents as truths, is not found in the HRAF. His explanations DIRECTLY challenge 200 years of anthropology. His examples are terrible. Consider:
Memes that are against birth control "offer the clearest examples of the quantity parental effect. By raising extra babies, followers of these memes can outpopulate nonhosts across various times and places"
Roy Rappaport, as well as Marvin Harris would groan. Population control is likely as old as humans. Anyone even slightly familiar with Cultural Ecology knows that human populations of horticulturalists and hunter/gatherers go well below the carrying capacity. Although there are explanations for this, such as cyclical starvation, or the simple fact often raised that higher population would mean more work, they go _against_ Lynch's argument. Widespread infanticide and other methods of birth control are plentiful in the HRAF. It is true that humans could perform the rabbit strategy, but they DO NOT, which is a slap in the face to everything memes try to explain.
OR, consider: "Laws against eating shellfish, pork, and other parasite-laden animals may reduce morality rates, thus propagating the movement."
Marvin Harris who did earlier research actually went to the ethnographic databases to see HOW actual cultures behave. Result: pig taboos occurred in places where they competed with humans for food. Or consider cows, another parasite-laden animal, which cannot be eaten in places like India. After lengthy analysis, supported by QUANTIFIABLE data, the economics of eating cows just wouldn't make sense. Yet ANOTHER slap in the face for Lynch.
Lynch showcases problems of not only memes, but also of reductionalist neo-Darwinism. Its results continue to be unimpressive and unscientific to the extreme.
I recommend reading cultural ecologists; Marvin Harris, in particular, is a good place to start.
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Title: The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins ISBN: 019286212X Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker ISBN: 0393318486 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins ISBN: 0192860925 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies by Albert Bandura ISBN: 0521586968 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 13 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics As a Science by Robert Aunger ISBN: 0192632442 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $59.50 |
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