Hi Vinayak
By reading the right books, I suppose you are talking about the
book "The Selfish Meme" by Kate Distin ;-).
Haven't read it. Might, when I get a chance.
Wasn't one of the ones I was thinking about.
Serendipitously, I just finished
reading the book. Even in the book the author argues that certain
memes
survive because of the biological and psychological makeup of humans.
While access to medical care does increase the longetivity and quality
of human life, it does not alter the basic recipe of life - the DNA
(unless
you are talking about medicines which cause certain changes in the
genetic makeup of humans).
I am not, primarily, even though that is totally possible and likely
to become
very commonplace soon.
My basic argument is that:
a. The human mind trumps all other known mechanisms as a means of
survival. This is why human beings are the dominant life form
on this
planet.
b. The existence of the human mind takes evolution to the next level:
the
intellectual and cultural, over the genetic. Human cultures
thrive and
advance inasmuch as their thinking advances.
Therefore, biological evolution becomes largely irrelevant for
humans, as
what's in a human's mind matters a whole lot more to his survival than
what's in his genome, and that same thing holds true for human societies
and cultures.
It seems likely that at some point human thinking will advance to the
level
that genetic hacking is commonplace. But this is not the primary reason
that intellectual evolution is more significant than biological
evolution when
you're talking about humans.
The primary reason is simply that the human mind is capable of
generating
_ideas_ and designs that can so radically alter biological and physical
constraints, and rapidly react to changing circumstances, in so many
different
ways, that biological evolution truly becomes secondary.
The existence of diseases or viruses for which there is currently no
defense
doesn't contradict this. It only makes it more important to protect
and develop
free societies and free markets, so we can unleash human productivity on
solving these problems and avoiding needless human casualties.
Human beings, and cultures are, in essence, the ideas they have. That is
the primary factor in their survival and evolution.
It is a fact that biological evolution (propagated through genes)
is much
slower than cultural evolution (propagated through memes). But you
are discounting the fact biological evolution has had a headstart of
several billion years over cultural evolution. The view that cultural
evolution can replace biological evolution is misplaced.
The nature of the difference between biological and intellectual
evolution
make the former's headstart quite irrelevant.
What if something like AIDS sweeps the earth and is hard to eradicate
and difficult to control. Especially if it is a air-borne or water-
borne
microbe which multiplies rapidly. Some people might be more resistant
to such diseases than others. Cultural evoution needs people to
survive. What is people themselves are threatened ?
See above. The answer is again cultural: free societies and free markets
are the only way we can outmaneuver such biohazards as new viruses,
because only by freeing the natural human motivations for creative
expression and personal profit can human ingenuity reach its full
expression
in life-enhancing tech.
As you can see from your own example, just for biological evolution
of the
human species to continue, first cultural and intellectual evolution
must get
us to the stage where we can outsmart the threats of nuclear wars,
deadly
viruses, etc.
Read the section on retroviruses. Biological evolution via mutation by
viruses is vastly underestimated.
Hey, as I said before, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Sure it
exists, but it
isn't as significant for human beings / cultures / populations as is
intellectual
evolution.
Cheers
#!
