From: Maru Dubshinki (marudubshinki@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Jan 31 2005 - 17:50:42 MST
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 10:49:07 -0800 (PST), Phil Goetz
<philgoetz@yahoo.com> wrote:
....
> Oops - I forgot that Gould specifically argues
> that this argument may not apply to societies,
> which may in fact tend to become more complex
> over time. Although I don't buy his argument.
> The conclusion may be right, but his claim that
> the ability to transfer skills from person to
> person via language throws all the rules of
> random-walk evolution out the door doesn't make
> sense to me. Communicating acquired skills just
> changes evolution from Darwinian to Lamarckian,
> but I don't know that it would change its
> directedness.
> - Phil
I have a suggestion: cultural evolution could be seen as not
Darwinian, nor Lamarckian, but faster and better because the culture
can improve the heuristics (that is, make it less of a random walk)
used to generate the culture; when Darwinian or Lamarckian evolution
either just randomly generate and pass/fail; or have faster feedback
based on what was necessary to survive.
~Maru
Microsoft delenda est.
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