What's
in a Meme?Wilkins, J. S., 1998; What's in a Meme? Reflections from the
perspective
of the history[jlh1] and philosophy[jlh2] of evolutionary biology. Journal of
Memetics
- Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 2.
http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/1998/vol2/wilkins_js.html
What's
in a Meme?
Reflections
from the perspective of the history and philosophy of evolutionary
biology
John S.
Wilkins
3 Peel
Grove,
Contents
1 - Introduction
2 - The background to the problem[jlh3]
3 - The Hull-Dawkins Distinction and the
evolutionary gene
Sidebar: interactors and replicators
Sidebar: phenotypes, phemotypes and
classification
4 - The lineages and ecologies of culture
5 - Memetic individuals
6 - Conclusion and prospectus
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Notes
References
Abstract
This paper is intended as a focal article[jlh4] to raise philosophical issues about
the nature[jlh5] of memes[jlh6] and memetic theory[jlh7]. To bring consistency[jlh8] to memetic
analysis[jlh9], researchers need to understand[jlh10] and agree[jlh11] upon the theoretical role
of memes and
the generalized model of evolution[jlh12] in which it occurs as a
theoretical term. To help this, I have traced
the source of Dawkins'
conception of memes
from GC Williams' evolutionary gene and through to the
Hull-Dawkins Distinction between replicators
and interactors and
of lineages and the idea of an individual in
biology. The complexity[jlh13] of
biological modes of evolution
suggests that conceptualizing memes as disease
pathogens is not an alternative to
evolutionary models of memetic development.
I argue for a close and strict analogy
between biology and memetics. I
introduce the idea of a memetic individual or
profile to clarify the ontology
of memes and
their ecologies. Some promising methods from biology and other
disciplines such as Hamming Distance and
Wagner groundplan divergence methods
are suggested. A glossary of mainly
biological technical terms used and
introduced neologisms is included.
Keywords: Meme, evolution,
gene, replicator, interactor, individual, natural
selection, term, mnemone, pheme, deme,
ecology, epidemiology, mind virus[jlh14],
Lamarckism, Dawkins,
JULIET: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy[jlh15];
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,
Act 2, Scene 2)
1
Introduction
The
fundamental theoretical concept of memetics is the meme1 - the unit of
cultural
evolution and selection. The term is unclear in
its meaning[jlh16] and what it
denotes,
and the application of evolution to culture is
often based on a partial
or even
mistaken notion of the general structure of evolutionary explanation. In
this
paper I give some historical background to the origin and function of the
term
"meme" from the debates in evolutionary theory
out of which it sprang. I
argue
that there is a close analogy between the entities and processes of
biology
and culture, although the parameters that describe each domain often
differ
in their rate and frequency, and perhaps in the dynamics of the
evolutionary
process they undergo. It is as crucial to understand
what the units
of evolution in culture are as it is in biology to be
able to apply an
evolutionary
explanation, and for this reason[jlh17] we must be quite clear about what
a
cultural individual is. We can make better sense[jlh18] of these issues if we look
first at
the analogous problems of what a biological individual is, especially
in the
context of what the units of selection are.
Problems
that bedevil memetics include classifying cultural entities and
reconstructing
historical developments, and these also have their analogues in
biology.
Resolving them depends on determining the level at which selection
occurs,
for it is selection that defines what is functionally important in
evolution, not
the contrary. The conceptual tool of most help to us here is the
distinction
between replicators and interactors. There are three common
approaches
in memetic writings - most commonly writers picture meme evolution as
the
spread of disease pathogens, others restrict selectionist accounts to some
part of
culture that is amenable to this form of explanation such as science[jlh19],
and I
argue for a third option. We must more broadly understand
the variety of
biological
evolutionary phenomena, so that we can see the similar patterns in
cultural
change. In order to assist in this, I introduce the notion of a memetic
individual,
and discuss the relationship this entity has with the biological
organism[jlh20] in which it resides. In the
conclusion and prospectus, I suggest some
analytical
techniques of biology, particularly methods of taxonomy and genetics,
which
these distinctions permit for memetic research[jlh21].
I hope
both that biologically literate readers will understand
my
simplifications
of biology and that those not familiar with biological
terminology
its necessity. I append a glossary of various technical terms
introduced
in this paper and those that are likely to be unfamiliar to
nonbiologists.
2 The
background to the problem
The increase of the conceptual clarity of a theory through careful
clarifications and specifications is, as
William Whewell observed more than a
century ago, one of the most important ways
in which science progresses. He
called this process "the explication of
conceptions" and showed how a number
of theories, in the course of their temporal
careers, had become increasingly
precise - largely as a result of the critics
of such theories emphasizing
their conceptual unclarities. Many important
scientific revolutions ... have
depended largely on the recognition, and
subsequent reduction, of the
terminological ambiguity of theories. (Laudan
1977:50)
Certain
terms and notions in both the sciences and humanities are fated to be
misunderstood,
either because they are first vaguely formulated, or because they
are so
evocative they generate such immense enthusiasm and are applied to almost
everything,
coming to mean almost nothing. A classic example is the term of
Thomas
Kuhn's (1962): paradigm. Originally intended by Kuhn to apply to what
changed
radically in a scientific revolution, it came to be applied to
perceptual
and conceptual changes in cases of individual, social, literary,
political[jlh22], economic and even consumer choice[jlh23]. When a term of philosophy of
science is used
to advertise[jlh24] a new car design, you know it has
lost any definite
meaning.
Eventually its author[jlh25] abandoned it under criticism in
favour of notions
and
terms that were more specific, but "paradigm" is now ensconced in
popular
parlance,
surviving both author and intended theoretical
usage. The difficulty[jlh26]
now with
the term for a specialist in the philosophy and
history of science
is
that
calling a theoretical change a "paradigm shift" has become little
more than
a
metaphor. It describes only an impression and implies only a subjective
assessment.
The
basic and central notion of memetics is, of course, denoted by the term
meme,
Richard Dawkins' (1977) term for what is transmitted in culture that is
analogous
to the biological gene. "Meme" is in danger[jlh27] of suffering the same fate
as
"paradigm". It is used to denote, variously, neural structures,
cultural
artefacts,
practices, economic systems, religions, concepts, phenotypic traits,
self-awareness,
and epigenetic predispositions. Memes are thought by some to
control
behaviour, by others to be acquired through a choice
or act of will. The
term
gets applied to all levels of social and cultural structure, from minimal
semantic
entities like phonemes, through more molecular entities like phrases
and
snatches of music, to entire traditions and world views. In this blooming
buzzing
confusion, the usefulness of memes as a
category is being lost or
degraded.
It
wouldn't be the first time this sort of confusion has wrecked an emerging
discipline
- gene, the very term on which "meme" is modelled, has a history of
shifting
definition and debates in which antagonists argued past each other for
more
than sixty years. It took the modern evolutionary synthesis and the
discovery
of the structure of DNA to resolve it fully, and still, "gene" covers
a range[jlh28] of theoretical phenomena requiring
the more exact terminology of codons,
cistrons,
introns, exons, operons, regulators and base pairs. Even today,
biologists
use this term differently and inconsistently - what molecular
biologists
usually mean by it differs greatly from its meaning
in population
genetics.
A
theoretical term is usually generated to denote a causal nexus in the model
the theory describes2. On at least one recent account
(Suppe 1989, van Fraassen
1980) a
scientific theory is an attempt to either
isolate or idealize a system[jlh29] -
usually
a physical system - in such a way that its
dynamics can be reduced to a
manageable
number of variables[jlh30] (each of which is usually
represented by a
theoretical
term) related by a mathematical description, so that the model
generates
a restricted number of likely outcome states[jlh31]. It is often neutral with
respect
to many of the attributes of the entities and processes it covers:
Newton's
theory of falling bodies does not mention their
colour, for example;
the
equations of flow dynamics cover water, hydrocarbon liquids, and gases; and
information
theory covers transmission of bits by
electromagnetic radiation no
matter[jlh32] whether the medium[jlh33] is electrical, photic or magnetic.
One such
generalized scientific theory is the theory of adaptation and evolution
by
natural selection. Natural selection is a process that occurs over a range of
physical
substrate entities: viruses, single celled clonal organisms,
multicellular
plants, animals[jlh34] and fungi, and so forth. Certain variables need to
be
adjusted to deal with these very different phenomena - life cycle rates,
ecological
behaviour, reproduction modes and so forth - but the virtue[jlh35] of the
theory as a
model is that it is highly generalizable and widely applicable.
Recently,
for example, natural selection models have been applied through the
use of
computers to a range of real world problems,
and have been developed into
a class
of formal algorithms called Genetic Algorithms (cf. Holland 1995).
Problems
to which Genetic Algorithms have been applied include political
and
social
problems, through to hard engineering of complex systems like engines and
flow
dynamics.
To understand the meaning
of meme, we need to understand the history of some
debates
in evolutionary biology, and the ways in which evolution
and culture
have
been thought to be related. Even before Darwin published the Origin in
1859,
evolutionary reconceptualisations of human society and culture were
common.
The Lamarckian evolutionary tradition through Geoffroy, Grant and
Chambers
had drawn radical social conclusions based on their view of evolution
as
progressivist, universal and hierarchical (Desmond 1989). Not long before the
Origin,
Herbert Spencer developed his form of Hobbesian rugged individualism
based on
a Malthusian struggle for existence, ideas[jlh36] that found a parallel in
Darwin's
natural history work. But of interest to a
memeticist is the
application
of natural selection models to ideas, by
writers like Alexander
Bain,
Charles S Peirce, William James, Ernst Mach, and John Dewey, very soon
after
Darwinism was first promulgated through European intellectual[jlh37][1] society. In
many
ways, Dewey is one of the first true memeticists, declaring that we didn't
so much
solve problems as recover from them, appropriating both the Darwinian
evolutionary
metaphor and the epidemiological metaphor so popular today (Dewey
1909).
Over the years, various others have used natural selection as a metaphor,
or as an
analogy (the distinction is significant3 ), of conceptual and social
change,
including Medawar, Popper, Toulmin, and even some leading Darwinians
(cf.
Cziko 1995 for a review).
Eugenics
was a constant source of confusion and debate in the early synthesis,
with
Fisher and the "
proposing
that the primary role of natural selection was to trim away
deleterious
alleles and that the best way to organize society was to permit that
process
to act without impediment. Dobzhansky and others, largely in North
pool of
variety in populations, and that equality of opportunity[jlh38] would permit
whatever
alleles had relative advantage to be expressed (Beatty 1987). This was
more
significant than a clash of political or moral[jlh39] doctrines. Eugenicists
(Darwinian
eugenics was usually positive - encourage the fitter - than negative[jlh40]
- cull
the less fit - as in Spencerian social "Darwinism") held that
society, or
at any
rate "civilized" society, acted to lessen the effects of natural
selection,
while those who like Dobzhansky opposed eugenics tended to see
society
as either neutral or ancillary to natural selection in biology. The very
role of
natural selection itself was the subject of intense debate, culminating
during
the final years of the synthesis and the early 50s. It centred on an
extended
debate between Fisherians, who saw it as a universal and often
all-sufficient
mechanism of evolutionary change, and those who like Dobzhansky
followed
Sewall Wright in thinking that in small populations (demes) random[jlh41]
drift
and sampling error played a greater or lesser role in the evolution of
traits.
Even today this is still an issue. Dobzhansky, who through his early
education
in the tradition of Russian Darwinism which emphasized co-operation
and
began with Kropotkin, was well placed to argue for Sewall Wright's notions,
and by
the end of the 1950s, some admixture of drift and selection was accepted
by
nearly every evolutionary biologist.
The
point of this potted history is to show the
context in which the
meme-analogue
"gene" arose and was debated, and to set the scene for the
conditions
in which memes were developed as theoretical
entities; this will go
to the
question of the nature of memes and their theoretical role in
explanation.
Throughout the period of the development of Darwinism, it was
agreed
that there had to be hereditary factors of some kind because natural
selection
can only act if the traits of organisms that are selected are
transmitted
to future[jlh42] generations in a process of
differential reproductive
success[jlh43] based on what we now call
differential ecological success. But it took a
long
time for this to be clarified. Evolutionists often spoke of new traits
being
"for the good of the species" even though Fisherian genetics modelled
fitness
as an individual property[jlh44] of heritable traits in a
population. Indeed,
Fisherian
genetics treated genes in such an unlinked atomistic way that later
writers
like Mayr spoke derisively of "bean-bag" genetics, which treated
genes
as if
any single one of them could be separated out from the others and
inspected.
Although Mendelian genetics had already realized that genes were
often
linked in their effects, and that many genes affected each trait (
epistasis
) and some genes could affect many traits ( pleiotropy ), it was
unclear
what natural selection acted on - individual genes or the traits they
affected.
In his 1937, Dobzhansky adopted
denote
parcels of genes that were selected as a unit because they had evolved
together
to work well as a team, but there was a real epistemological difficulty
in
determining what genes selection actually selected.
In 1962,
the modern "units of selection" debate was inadvertently kicked off
by
a
naturalist, Wynne-Edwards, who explained the regulation by some gulls of
clutch
size (the number of eggs laid) during lean times as an adaptation that
could
only be for the benefit of the group, because individual fitness had to be
lower if
fewer progeny were produced. Wynne-Edwards used the notion of "group
selection"
which
behaviours:
moral groups did better than immoral groups,
and so their genes
would be
better represented later on than those of the others (to reinterpret
that
regulated clutch size survived ecological catastrophes better than those
that
didn't. It's an intuitively seductive idea, but this sort of reasoning was
thought
to be woolly headed and wrong[jlh45] by those evolutionary theorists
raised in
the more
reductive panselectionist tradition. David Lack argued against the
biological
specifics of Wynne-Edwards' thesis, but a pivotal outcome of this
book was
that it spurred George Williams to publish, in 1966, Adaptation and
Natural
Selection.
Williams
took an operationally reductive approach; that is, he refused to use
selectionist
explanations at any level higher in the biological hierarchy than
was
necessary. It is onerous, he thought, to explain group level phenomena in
sui
generis terms when explanation in terms of the components of the group and
their
properties will suffice. For selection of a group to occur (and contrary
to
popular reportage, Williams did not rule out the in-principle possibility of
group
selection, even identifying a case study), two criteria would need to be
satisfied.
One, the properties that were favourably selected would need to be
the
properties of the group, not the individuals that comprised it. Williams
illustrated
the difference by distinguishing between a group of fleet deer
(which
as a group may move slowly, though all its parts are fast moving) and a
fleet
group of deer (which may move quickly, as groups go, although its parts
are
slower than parts of slower groups). Fleet deer are individuals with
properties
of fleetness. Fleet groups of deer are groups with properties of
fleetness.
The second criterion that must be satisfied is that group properties
had to
be heritable: copies must be made if selection is to operate. Therein lay
the rub
for Williams: groups typically do not reproduce. But Williams went even
further:
neither are individual organisms usually copied. You are not a clone of
your
same sex parent. You may have your father's eyes, your mother's hair colour
and
wave, and be intermediate between them in your genetic predisposition to
height.
Mendelian factors are the basic unit of evolution,
according to
Williams,
and not all of them, either. "I use the term `gene' to mean that which
separates
and recombines with appreciable frequency", he said (1966: 20) and he
further
defined an evolutionary gene (that is, one that is selectively
important)
as
"...any inherited information for which
there is a favorable or unfavorable
selection bias equal to several or many times
its rate of endogenous change"
(1966: 25).
In set
theoretic terms: Mendelian factors (M) are a proper subset of heritable
separating
and recombining units of information (G), and include as a subset
selectively
biased - that is, evolutionary (E) - factors: . A Venn diagram of
this
relationship shows how he appeared to view it:
Ten
years later, Richard Dawkins (1977) introduced the "selfish[jlh46] gene" metaphor
based on
Williams' "evolutionary gene". But the way he did so obscured the
point
Williams
was making (not deliberately, for Dawkins had other fish to fry) - not
all
genes are evolutionary genes. Given that only genes can be evolutionarily
relevant,
what portion of those genes actually are? Williams is a bit of a
panselectionist4
and he tends here to brush past questions of random
drift and
founder
effects. His answer to the question is that a gene is evolutionary just
insofar
as it is subject to selection that exceeds mutation. This is a
definition,
not a discovery. If it's favourably or unfavourably selected and
heritable,
it's an evolutionary gene. We are now on the threshold of memes.
Williams
himself[jlh47] realized this, noting that gene was
a cybernetic abstraction,
and
later describing the notion of a "codical domain" of evolution, wherein the
transmitted
structure, no matter what its physical
substrate, is a codex
(Williams
1992). In other words[jlh48], it's a message[jlh49] that is transmitted, and which
is
subjected to the same theoretical models as any other kind of message
transmission,
i.e., Shannon-Weaver information constraints. This means that
genetic
replication is one instance of a class of phenomena in Message World -
and memes, like genes, are another.
Dawkins'
original introduction of the term "meme" in The Selfish Gene
mentioned
in
passing snatches of tunes, crazes and fads, but the paradigmatic example he
gave, no
doubt due to his personal experience[jlh50] of it, was a scientific notion
passed
from scientist[jlh51] to scientist.
I shall return to this point later, but some
properties
of scientific notions are of immediate interest. Typically,
scientific
ideas are either evocative metaphors, like de
Candolle's "struggle
for
existence" that inspired
latter
that concerns us here, for when metaphors reach the end of their
evocation,
they must be turned into formal models anyway in order to be tested
against
quantifiable phenomena. A formal model like Boltzmann's thermodynamic
entropy[jlh52] is a far cry from Heraclitus'
notion of flux, and it does a great deal
more
conceptual work. The significance of Dawkins' example is that one can, to a
relative
degree of exactness, determine whether and how far a part or whole of a
model
has spread to another scientist or textbook, or
whatever one takes to be
the
cultural equivalent of the phenotype[jlh53] - for reasons[jlh54] I hope become clear, I
shall
refer to this as the phemotype, and the total distribution of co-adapted
memetically
constituted traits within a lineage the phemorph of that lineage.
The
neologisms are strained, barbarous and ugly, but I hope they will add some
clarity
to what is being discussed. In short, scientific examples can be
quantified
both in terms of their frequency in a lineage of scientists, and
their
relative rates of increase or decrease. This susceptibility to analysis is
essential
for modelling change in terms of natural selection, and evolution in
general.
3 The
Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman, Song of the
To apply
evolutionary models outside biology, you need to know what evolution as
such is,
no matter what the domain it is occurring in.
There have been many
attempts
within biology to generalize evolutionary modelling, for it is a point
worth
remembering that even biological evolution is
not all of a kind. Evolution
occurs
over single and multicellular organisms, over animals
and plants and
fungi,
and over various kinds of bacteria and viruses. It applies to sexual,
clonal
and parthenogenic reproduction, to heredity using DNA, RNA and even
cytological
structure. Generalist species (eurytopes) and specialist species
(stenotopes)
both evolve in widespread and continuous ecologies, and in
localized
and isolated ecologies, and so on. Evolution is not simple in biology,
and so
biologists have worked to make it as general a model as possible to cover
all
cases. There is clearly some common thread in all these phenomena, and most
find
some or all of the explanation in natural selection5. As Weismann's and
Wallace's
heirs perceive natural selection, it is the differential success of
the
genotype due to the ecological success of the phenotype it creates. The
causal
arrow is essentially one way: genes cause phenes but not the reverse. As
Cziko
(1995), following Donald Campbell, puts it, genes are selected but not
instructed.
Despite all the progress[jlh55] since Weismann on the nature of biological
heredity,
his Central Dogma has stood almost without modification6. It is
therefore
important to determine whether there is an analogue in culture for
these
central distinctions of genotype and phenotype
and whether memes are ever
instructed,
or only ever selected, as genes are. And if memes
are instructed,
does
this "Lamarckism"7 of culture obviate the need for a memetic analysis?
Although
it's worth remembering that
is, he
accepted that the units of heredity ("pangenes") are instructed, this
does not
really help us answer the question, for we already have
non-evolutionary
Lamarckian models of culture and the justification for taking
an
evolutionary perspective rests on the efficacy of Darwinian, perhaps
Weismannian,
models. We need to understand the ontology of a
Darwinian process
to come
to any resolution.
Dawkins
(1982) distinguished between genes as replicators - things that are
duplicated
with a high degree of fidelity[jlh56] - and bodies of organisms as the
vehicles
of genes. Vehicles reproduce, but only genes replicate. Some writers,
including
David Hull (1980, 1987, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c) took exception[jlh57] to
Dawkins'
characterization of bodies as mere vehicles of genes - they were, in
his
opinion, much more than passive and controlled robots8.
(1974)
attacked explanatory[jlh58] reductionism in genetics, arguing[jlh59] that reducing
evolutionarily
significant traits to genes was unsatisfactory both in terms of a
failure[jlh60] of isomorphic relations (mapping)
and also of underdetermination -
things
happen at metagenic levels that are not, and never could be, the results
of the
sum of the properties of the genes9. He therefore rejected Dawkins'
passive
notion of bodies and the phenotype, and
substituted instead the more
ecologically
and economically active notion of an interactor.
view of evolution is of a cycle of replicators coding for
interactive traits,
which
through their interactive success acquire (or
fail to acquire) the
resources[jlh61] needed for further replication. On
strong
comeback, and the reproduction of organisms is a necessarily interactive,
rather
than a replicative, process. This cycle generates lineages of descent,
which
exhibit themselves in biology as species in the short term and as
phylogenies
and other taxonomic classes in the longer term10.
historical
individuals, that happen to be made up of many organisms, have also
addressed
the general problem of what constitutes an
individual in biology and
evolution in
general (Hull 1987, 1988c, 1992, Ghiselin 1997). This also raises
its head
in memetics, and has not so far been addressed. Their view is that a
biological
individual, so far from being intuitively obvious[jlh62] (as it seems to be
if we
only consider obligately sexual vertebrates) is in fact a very fluid
category,
and their solution is that an individual is defined by its functional
role in evolution, that is, insofar as it is a unit of
selection (this applies
to gene
sequences as well as to organisms). So, the resultant evolutionary
ontology
is that replicators (replicanda in Ghiselin's terminology - structures
that are
replicated, Ghiselin 1987) generate interactors, which are the
evolutionary
individuals that are subjected to selection and whose economic
success or failure biases the regeneration of the replicanda.
Plotkin (1994)
characterized
generalized selective processes as generate-test-regenerate
cycles,
and this helps to clarify the matter (figure
1). An individual is formed
at the
level of testing, which feeds back into the generation[jlh63] stage. An
inclusive
hierarchy of individuals can be formed if generation
to regeneration
cycles
occur at higher levels11. In biological terms, this accounts for why
colonies
of organisms like eusocial insects behave as individuals with respect
to
selection, and also why clonal lineages (genets) behave evolutionarily as
individuals
even if they are spatially distinct (ramets).
Figure 1. A generalized hierarchy of
g-t-r (generate-test-regenerate)
cycles in an evolutionary process. Star =
Replicators relative to
testing/selection bias at that level or
higher
The
Hull-Dawkins Distinction, as it came to be called, gained almost immediate
and
bipartisan support across the selectionist debate - both Eldredge (1989) and
Williams
(1992) accepting that replicators and interactors are the active and
general
entities in Darwinian evolution (interestingly,
both made the now almost
obligatory
passing comments about these terms also applying to culture.)
Dawkins'
"memes" (like
replicators,
which, if they are to function in cultural evolution
analogously to
genes,
must be transmitted with fidelity, and must
cause some interactive traits
that in
turn will cause a differential replication of the memes.
This also helps
us with
the question whether memes are instructed or
selected; that is, whether
they
arise in response to environmental needs[jlh64] (are "learnt") or are
generated
randomly
with respect to the prevailing social ecology ("random
trial[jlh65] and
error").
Unexpressed memes (memes
not "visible" to the environment[jlh66] through their
products)
cannot be selected, and so the likelihood of them being prescient or
anticipatory
is reduced, since we would need to have already selected some memes
as
likely candidates for success in order to
predict which ones will work in
practice12.
Before a meme can be assessed as "likely to succeed[jlh67]", it must
already
have passed some tests. We therefore get a regress - any
"instruction"
of a
meme is either a case of transmission followed by selection, or it is a
case of
transmission of an already selectively tested meme13. The Central Dogma
remains
unshaken for memes, even if some mechanisms of
instruction are shown to
occur,
for even learning[jlh68] is a selection process (Cziko 1995,
chapters 11-12) at
some
level.
Figure 2. Memes arise as effects of a
g-t-r cycle. Star = Meme relative
to testing/selection bias at that level
or higher
Some may
object that memes must be stored in neural
patterns in order to be
considered
memes, and that replication through texts,
electronic media, and
performances,
etc., are only secondarily memetic if they affect and are stored
in a
central nervous system. In figure 2, it can be
seen that some selectively
biased
cultural phenomena can exist as the emergent properties of social systems
larger
than the individual, and persist without being replicated at time frames
far
longer than an individual life span. Methodological individualism, as it is
called,
rejects this in favour of a more parsimonious view, just as genic
selectionists
like Dawkins reject any form of group selection (Williams' views
notwithstanding).
But on the Ghiselin-Hull view of individuality in selection,
group
selection is not only a possibility but an established reality, for viewed
appropriately,
any organism is a group of related lineages
(Buss 1987) and any
gene
sequence a related group of molecules, and so on. Consider an historical
event
like the Thirty Years War or an institution like a religion. Political and
religious
patterns of behaviour in that war need not be stored as neural
patterns,
and each of the memes of a religion need not
reside in at least one
brain,
for some of these memes are emergent properties
of the entire system of
acting
individuals, and of which they may indeed all be entirely unaware14. Were
Protestants
aware of the linkage between capitalism and their theology during
the rise
of modern capitalist economies, for example? If so, why did it take a
sociologist
to point it out explicitly? You pays your money[jlh69] and you takes your
choice, for the
methodological individualist debate has a long history
of
controversy
in sociological disciplines that continues till this day. However,
the view
I am advocating here is neither individualist, nor holist, but a view
known as
" emergentism " (Nagel 1961): the doctrine that the properties of a
collective
whole arise from the relationships between the properties of the
components.
Simply understanding the componential properties, without
understanding
the connections between them does not enable us to model the
higher
level thing they comprise.
So, what
are phenotypic cultural traits, the phemotypes as I have called them?
One
answer, and the right[jlh70] one I think, has been given
variously by
(1960,
1974, 1987, 1988),
name a
few, is that selection acts on behaviour, or, in the language[jlh71] of the
logician,
on interpretation of the information contained in a meme. Just as a
gene
must be expressed in order to be selectively biased, a meme must also find
expression
in some way. While we often use a verbal shorthand when we say that a
gene is
selected at a certain coefficient, the biologist should never forget[jlh72]
that
genes are just the starting point of a biochemical process which undergoes
selection
at a range of hierarchical levels, from the
processes of transcription
in the
cell to the processes of ecological interaction in an ecosystem (figure
3).
Figure
3. Individuals and replicators in a biological hierarchy
Sidebar: interactors and replicators
The terms interactor and replicator,
being substantive nouns, give the
impression that there are natural kinds
of things that interact and
replicate. Ghiselin (1987, 1997: 147)
has argued that a better term for
the Hull-Dawkins Distinction would have
been between replicanda and
interactors, that is, between those
things that get replicated and those
things that are economically biased for
a range of reasons.
When we
understand
that replication is the passing on of a message,
it doesn't
really matter
what the medium, or substrate, of the message is, and the
notion that there has to be some
privileged replicator, like nucleotides
or neural columns, becomes unnecessary.
It is less obvious that
interactors are also a
functionally-defined class, but if anything
interacts (and correlates closely with
replicators) then it is an
interactor. It could be the organism, but it could be some subsystem of
an organism
like a class of immunological peptide, or the immune system
itself, or a visual system, or it could even be a group of organisms
like a hive. There are no privileged
interactors or replicators, in
biology or culture. We would do well to
remember[jlh73] Mill's caution:
"The tendency has always[jlh74] been strong to believe[jlh75] that whatever received
a name must be an entity or being,
having an independent existence of
its own. And if no real entity
answering to the name could be found,
men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but that it was
something peculiarly abstruse and
mysterious."
(Cited in Gould 1981: 320)
This modifies
them as things, that is, as entities.
Plotkin, on the other hand,
resists the "entification" of
interactors (personal communication). I do
not think that
class of entity, such as an organism, just as long as it is an
individual (
properties. Individuals are entities,
but there is no need to restrict
individuality to one level of
entitivity, so long as the relevant
interactive properties are properties
of that entity and not of the
system
of which it is a component. However, interactors are entities
even if they are not a specific kind of
entity.
Similarly,
memes are selected at many levels through their
expression in
behaviour,
including verbal, practical, instrumental and intellectual,
and this
behaviour
need not be the behaviour of individuals; it can be the behaviour of
languages,
institutions, societies and even traditions. Consider
(1974)
hierarchy of selectionist knowledge[jlh76] processes15:
1. Genetic adaptation
2. Nonmnemonic problem
solving
3. Vicarious locomotor devices
4. Instinct
5. Habit
6. Visually supported thought
7. Mnemonically supported thought;
Observational learning and imitation
8. Socially vicarious exploration
9. Language
10. Cultural cumulation
11. Science
At level
7, minds construct models to test and select alternatives - and at this
level memes are now active and give rise to trial and error without the
selective
costs[jlh77] to genetically- and biologically
based interaction. Memes must
result
in some outcome that can achieve success or
not, on the basis of which
they
persist over other memes, to be selected at
all. The details of
schema
are not important here, but memes must arise at
some level of information
processing
complexity, and must affect outcomes[jlh78] at levels higher than that. And
the
converse is also true. Of any cultural process that involves transmission
and
selection, there must be memes that
"constitute" phemotypes at that level.
Take two
examples - a personal attempt to try out a hitherto unlearnt linguistic
form and
a scientific theory. When one is learning a first language,
syntax and
semantics[jlh79] are underdetermined. A child[jlh80] cannot know, except through trying
out
combinations
and seeing the results, whether a certain "hypothesis[jlh81]" about the
use,
structure and referents of a word, phrase or syntactical structure is
correct.
For example, consider how children[jlh82] first learn[jlh83] regular declensions of
noun
plurals and regular conjugations of verb tenses, and are then corrected by
more
competent speakers when they use a regular form of an irregular noun or
verb -
"I swimmed", "he runned", and so forth. Not only is there
an internal
selection
process going on through increasing experience
of success, but in a
formal sense, these irregular abstract constructs of language are defined
through
the role that they play in the trial and error.
Of course, language in
itself
is not a solitary pursuit, but in individual learning,
the trial and
error
selection process is (figure 4, cf. Cziko 1995, chapter 11, Ghiselin 1997,
chapter
9).
Figure 4. A selective hierarchy of language, following Ghiselin 1997
Back to
Dawkins' scientific notions: whatever Mendel, or
internally
intended their theories to mean or cover, until the elements of their
theories
- supporting data, formalizations, explanatory
rationales and so forth
- were
published (literally, made public), discussed, tested, and above all in
further
scientific work, they weren't scientific theories as such. What's more,
their
theories contained memes of which they were not
aware, because they only
developed
when selection pressures were applied to them. "Action at a
distance",
or
"survival of the fittest", became memes
so far as they needed to be defended
and
supported in the scientific debate when challenged. It is the hallmark and
defining
characteristic of science that it is presented
and tested in the public
domain
of fellow professionals; and this process modifies theories. Elements of
them are
quietly or noisily rejected, abandoned or simply never followed up
(Laudan
1977). What are the memes of a theory, then? They are those elements of
it that
are subjected to selection through testing and co-adaptation with the
rest of
the theory and of the wider field of the
scientific culture (Wilkins
forthcoming).
Theories, like Whitman, contain multitudes (and can therefore
contradict
themselves), but scientific work consists in large part in exploring
the
ramifications of a model, in order to eliminate contradictions, either in
terms of
self consistency and coherence, or in terms of
agreement with method
and
observation.
In the
special case of memes in scientific theories,
whether or not Dawkins
intended
it, it becomes clear that in a general evolutionary model a replicator
is
defined by (1) being transmitted intact, and (2) being subjected to
selection.
Many things are transmitted in culture that are not selected, and
many
things are selected that do not get transmitted16. I conclude that a meme
is
something (the "smallest" something you can identify) that gets
replicated
and
selected in culture as a unit and therefore offer the following short
definition
of "meme".
A meme is the least unit of sociocultural
information relative to a selection
process that has favourable or unfavourable
selection bias that exceeds its
endogenous tendency to change.
Exceeding
endogenous change simply means that it gets transmitted intact more
than it
gets transmitted mutated (Dawkins' condition of fidelity);
in other
words, it is
more information than noise. Compare this with Williams'
evolutionary
gene above.
A single
memetic interactive trait, I shall call it the pheme by analogy with a
phene or
Mendelian character, is the expression through some behavioural
regularity
of a meme at the level of selection. "Behavioural" here refers to
interactive
activity at the level of expression, and so includes mental[jlh84]
behaviour,
individual behaviour, group behaviour, and so forth (figure 2).
However,
the behaviour must be both causally effective in terms of acquiring
resources and
must be in some manner empirically quantifiable. One question that
memeticists
should ask of any analysis is "what are
the resources"? A scientific
theory may
gather resources of researchers' time, grants
and lab space,
publication
space in the appropriate journals[jlh85], and from what I can gather,
postgraduate
students appear[jlh86] to be a prized resource.
mechanism
is that individual scientists seek to acquire credit[jlh87], either through
innovation,
or more probably (since innovation is rare) by inclusion in a
successful
research project[jlh88] through citation and extension of
results. An idea
in an
individual mind will need to gather attention space, memory[jlh89] resources, and
time, in
order to out compete other ideas. Without an
answer to the question of
what resources?, and they must be measurable, any memetic
account is merely
anecdotal.
Sidebar: phenotypes, phemotypes and
classification
A phenotype
in biology, and especially in taxonomy, is the whole array
of organismic characters of an organism, and is distinct from its
genotype. In the taxonomic debate
between cladism and pheneticism
described in
privileged features that are phenetic
characters (
1992) - anything that can be measured
might be used to classify
organisms and reconstruct phylogenetic
relationships. This argument
applies just as well to reconstructions
and classifications using
genetic sequences as it does to skull
shape and the presence or absence
of feathers. Some taxonomists think
that the best way to identify
species is to make use of non-adaptive
characters on the grounds that
these are less likely to be the result
of convergent evolution. The
popular belief that it is the entire phenotype that is the interactor in
evolution
is, in my view, wrong. Interaction occurs at
the level of the
trait, and the "engineering"
fitness of an organism - how well it makes
a living overall - is the product of
its various interactive traits. The
analogy I wish to make is that memes result in behavioural regularities
that have interactive properties, that
is, which result in social
successes and failures. The phemotype
is the array of the phemes that
are the causal outcome of memes in an individual or group. Phemotypes
are the basis for grouping social
phenomena, that is, for classifying
memetic ensembles into religions,
communities, traditions and programs.
Once we
have identified a meme in a particular process, though, that is not the
end of
the explanatory story. Memetics covers what is
common to the spread of
strategies,
musical phrases, linguistic practices, ideas
and theories, but it
does not
exhaust the research. Again the parallel with
genes is instructive.
Having
identified that there are factors that are inherited which cause
ecologically
significant traits, geneticists moved on to identifying the
physical
processes and their effects, which turned out to be extremely complex,
with
genes that code for traits ranging from the sorts of proteins that a cell
expresses,
to genes that regulate other genes, to genes that contribute to a
range of gross
morphological traits at every level of the organismic structure.
Identifying
memes will assist in identifying the sorts of
cultural phenomena
that are
functionally transmitted, but we should expect that these will in turn
become
causes of phenomena in another level of analysis.
4 The
lineages and ecologies of culture
Any
chain of descent will create a lineage over time and space if ancestral
entities
terminate at some stage. Given that the obverse of a replicator is an
interactor,
an economic entity that competes in a formal sense
with other
interactors
for the same resources, we need to identify the
resources, the
ecologies,
of memes. On the face of it, memetic resources include neurological
and
behavioural time and space, much like a program[jlh90] can tie up the CPU cycles
and
screen space of a computer, but they must also extend to the more highly
derived
necessities of social life, including such things as credit,
currency,
and so
forth. Selection processes define not only the replicators (the memes)
and the
individuals, but also the active and relevant resources
of the ecology
and
economy of social life. The interplay between these facets of memetic
evolution leads
to successful and persistent lineages, as well as transitory and
unsuccessful
ones.
The nature of and reasons
for lineages in biological evolution is a
complex
matter. Debates
about the "Species Problem" and the relationship between
"horizontal",
or "non-dimensional" conceptualizations of species - known
generally
as biological species concepts - and "vertical" or
"phyletic"
conceptualizations
of lineages over evolutionary time - paleontological,
evolutionary
and phylogenetic species concepts - have been ongoing since at
least
the modern synthesis, and indeed is sometimes held as the defining debate
of the
modern synthesis of evolution (Dobzhansky 1937,
Mayr 1970, Mayr and
Provine
1980). One thing that is generally agreed upon is that ancestor
descendent
lineages that do not regularly recombine ( reticulate ) at a scale on
the
order of one generation are not species, but
are within-species lineages or
something
else; for example, what Eigen (1993) calls quasispecies in the case of
viruses.
In other words, species are those largest
collections of biological
lineages
that do regularly recombine, and which do not themselves recombine with
other
lineages17. However, socio-cultural lineages appear
to exchange memes on
an
almost unconstrained basis. Practices, metaphors, and ideas
transfer from one
cultural
lineage, culture or tradition to another with consistent[jlh91] ubiquity.
Autochthonous
cultures the world over have adopted a range of
cultural artefacts
from the
dominant western culture, for example, and this pattern of dominant
cultural
invasion recurs through recorded and archaeological history.
This
reticulate
evolutionary pattern is touted as one of the major disanalogies
between
cultural and biological evolution. If cultural
transmission is so fluid
and
free, it is thought, what use is the transfer of biological to cultural
categories
and modes of analysis? I shall argue that this
objection rests on an
incorrect
assumption[jlh92] about biology, founded on our
metazoan, vertebrate, and
mammalian
prejudices, and that even if it were true, it would not undermine the
memetic
enterprise.
Other
than accepting the conclusion of this argument from disanalogy and
abandoning
memes as useful theoretical entities, there are
three alternative
responses
to the difficulty it raises for memetics. The
first is to shift
ground,
and to treat memes epidemiologically; that is,
using a metaphor of
disease
rather than of evolution. Treating memes as pathogens, and trying to
analyse
the vectors and pathogenic dynamics of memes,
is a strategy adopted by
Goodenough
and Dawkins (1994), Lynch (1996) and others (cf. Dennett
1995:364-368).
"Mind virus" is itself a tolerably
good meme. The second approach
is to
restrict memetic analysis to domains like the
sciences, where there is a
strong
selective pressure[jlh93] and a good record of the spread of
scientific ideas,
and where
lineages tend, within certain limits[jlh94] and until recently, to be
relatively
isolated and sui generis. The third is one that I have not seen
explicitly
presented but which is implicit in the work of
1988c).
This is to see that evolution produces a
continuum of results from
entirely
isolated lineages with the "bridgeless gaps" so beloved of Mayr
resulting
from obligate sexual recombination through to moderately hybridizing
lineages
like those of flowering plants and ferns, to regularly recombining
lineages
- rarely if ever present in zoological biology but frequent in
bacterial
phylogeny and some forms of culture. Each of these approaches has its
merits.
The
first response, the epidemiological model of memes,
takes into account the
rapidity
of transmission and mutation (relative to the observers[jlh95]) of certain
varieties
of cultural items like vernacular speech and fashions, and the
varieties
of strategies they evolve to invade cultural agents and populations.
This
view does not, however, obviate the need for an evolutionary, selectionist,
account
of the pathogens (cf. Ewald 1994). It's a matter
of perspective. Being
hosts to
so many pathogens, parasites and symbiots, humans tend to conceptualize
disease
as sub-generational and populational events in a relatively short time
scale.
Nevertheless, epidemics and pandemics like malaria have evolutionary
effects
on humans, resulting in evolutionarily stable genetic equilibria like
the
maintenance of sickle cell heterozygosity in regions affected by the
transmission
of the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum by some species of
the
Anopheles maculipennis mosquito group18. But we also often overlook the fact
that,
from the perspective of the pathogens, humans and other animal hosts are
just
another part of their ecosystem, and our immune systems act as selective
environments
affecting their evolution. It's also a matter of degree: viruses,
for
example, mutate much more rapidly than the gametes of a metazoan, but this
is a
difference in rate rather than kind. There is a bias imposed on us by
virtue of being
multicellular, animals, and living at the time
scale we do.
Evolution
has no such bias. The equations governing (or describing) epidemiology
are
re-castings of the Fisherian and Wrightean equations covering (or
describing)
natural selection (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981), which is what
we
should expect if we see epidemiological phenomena from the pathogenic
perspective
and not from the host's19. What this signifies for memetics is that
meme
epidemiology needs to clearly distinguish
between human minds and memes as
entities
that generate their own separate lineages. More on this shortly. For
now, it
is worth observing that meme lineages may not be so obvious
as we think,
and that
cross-lineage borrowing, which occurs within biology as well as
culture,
may be less frequent than seems the case when we view memetic evolution
from the
perspective of the host minds.
The
second response, the narrow conception, is to restrict the application of
memetic analysis to those cultural phenomena which are
phenomenologically
isolated,
well recorded, or in which there is a clear selective pressure
such as
in
technological, scientific or economic change. There is some merit to this:
but it
is a heuristic merit rather than a theoretical limitation. It is a bit
like the
situation facing early genetics. Genes were, in the heyday of the
Mendelian
revolution, theoretical entities that some of a positivistic bent
considered
mere instrumental constructs. Positivists held (and hold) that
theoretical
constructs have no ontological import. "Genes" were useful in
calculation
and modelling, but it was illegitimate to infer that any such
biological
entity existed. In retrospect, this made a metaphysical virtue of a
methodological
necessity. Once the science, and ancillary
sciences and
techniques
such as x-ray crystallography, had developed further, physical
genetic
entities were discovered and described, but this was not open to the
early
Mendelian researchers, and in fact attempts to describe the physical
properties
of genes by Weismann and others resulted in failure
and open
speculation.
Had this positivistic operationalist approach been taken seriously,
the
molecular structure of genes might never have been investigated and
discovered20.
It might be a good strategy to begin with the more accessible
areas of
research like the history
of a science, and to develop methods and
models
that can be extended later as more problematic cases come within
theoretical
reach. In the same manner, biological concepts like "species" are
often
developed in relatively clear-cut cases like sexually recombining animals
and
plants, and then extended into cases of parthenogenic, polyploidal, clonal,
viral
and other "eccentric" lineages. We must, of course, beware of biting
off
more
than we can chew, but also of not closing off any further avenues of
research.
Memetics, like any science, must evolve
gradually.
The
third response I'll call the generalist conception. This is to more broadly
characterize
biological evolution. As
outlandish
that an example of it cannot be found in biology somewhere. For
example,
take the cases of reproduction modes and speciation: memetic evolution
appears
to be more like the evolution of plants, which
have an estimated 30-40%
rate of
reticulation, and fungi and single celled organisms, with monoparental
or
clonal reproduction, than it is like zoological evolution
with which most non
biologists
are familiar. Nearly half of all flowering plants are the result of
joined
lineages rather than split lineages, and nearly all fern species. Amoeba
undergo
a process called conjugation where genes are exchanged every few
generations,
although the rest of the time they split aparentally. Amazingly,
even
viral RNA can be exchanged through crossover of transcriptase in
superinfected
cells21. Evolution is still cleverer than we are. These
idiosyncratic
forms of individual, phenotype, lineage and
evolutionary behaviour
are
nevertheless covered by the various theories of evolution22. The
generalization
of evolutionary theory accommodates these
"eccentric" cases just
as well
as it does the paradigmatic case of animal evolution
on which it was
first
founded. Natural selection is an emergent process acting on ecologically
interacting
replicators, and obligately sexually reproducing individual
organisms
are just a special case, even though they are the most obvious
and
easily
investigated form of evolution for us.
Therefore,
it would seem that natural selection can model cultural lineages even
if they
do not happen to form tightly integrated populations of recombining
entities.
But we need to investigate a posteriori whether any particular kind of
cultural
lineage is tightly integrated like an animal species or not, and not to
assume
that there is, in fact, such a disanalogy. Some are, some are not. Of
those
that are not, selection may be a major cause of change or it may not. This
is an
empirical argument, not an axiomatic derivation. In other words, we should
challenge
the major premise of the disanalogy argument in each case. The issue
of
"quasi-species" (Eigen 1993) in obligately clonal bacteria and
viruses
illustrates
this. In principle, and intuitively, every time a clone or virus
generates
a mutant, one gets an entirely new strain. We might expect that
strains
would indefinitely diverge to fill the entire space of ecological niches
available.
In fact what happens is that viruses tend to cluster[jlh96] about the
"wild-type"
phenotypic mean (which may not even exist in a single geneome),
forming
analogues to recombinant species. Natural selection accounts for this as
well as
it does for sexual, biparental species.
While on
the topic of cultural lineages and species, let us consider the matter
of
speciation mode. There is a raging debate about whether sexual species
speciate
through allopatry (geographical isolation) or sympatry (geographical
and
ecological coexistence) or some intermediate state ( parapatry ) (Mayr 1970,
Gibbons
and Morell 1996)23. This resolves to the question whether natural
selection,
as well as being responsible for allele[jlh97] frequencies within a breeding
population
and for adaptation overall, is also responsible for creating
lineages.
Those who, like Mayr, opt for the allopatric and parapatric modes
alone,
consider that isolation followed by selectively neutral or decoupled
drift is
responsible for speciation, and they tend to see selection as an
ancillary
process to speciation rather than a reason for
it. Sympatric
speciation
is a litmus test of whether one thinks selection is the main or even
the only
mechanism of evolution. If species can diverge
in the same ecological
territory,
it must be because selection causes multiple modes in the one
population,
leading eventually to more than one species as the modes chase
different
adaptive peaks. If correct, this means that selection can cause
speciation,
and the traits of species that differentiate them are adaptive. If
one
denies this happens, or that it happens very much, then what differentiates
species
can be adaptively neutral or even maladaptive. Nobody presently thinks
that
selection can be dispensed with even in cases of speciation by
hybridization
of plants, which occurs in a single generation
or even repeatedly
(
polyploid speciation), but the differences in the degree of the attributed
importance
of selection points to a deep division in modern evolutionary
thought,
and this is very important for memetics if memetics is based on
selectively
significant cultural transmits.
Wright's
notion of structured and relatively insulated breeding populations -
called
demes - to characterize research groups.
According to him, scientific
research arises
first within relatively co-operative demes of scientists -
groups
within which more variation is tolerated and selection pressures are less
severe
than in the wider discipline. This permits new theories to be developed
and
articulated to the stage where they may be able to survive rigorous
criticism
by rival groups when published. Intriguingly,
unanimity
of opinion within the deme, but merely a desire[jlh98] to increase one's
credit by
sharing in the conceptual inclusive fitness of the deme: reputation[jlh99] is
everything
in science.
science is a
well developed model of conceptual change, one of the most
articulated
memetic models yet presented, and it can be extended into other
domains.
For example, although
itself
in this way, it can be thought of as an evolutionarily stable strategy
for science to adopt - with a balance between public
debate and private support,
conceptual
transmission in science is able to develop a
great deal more novelty
and yet
retain more strongly tested ("more fit") ideas
than was possible in the
late
medieval guild tradition from which it sprang. Neither a selectively
moderate
social ecology nor a naked selective environment
where new ideas are
never
given a chance[jlh100] could provide the sort of adaptive growth[jlh101] science has
achieved.
Obviously, periods of stagnation in a discipline may be due to changes
in these
parameters (for example, transmission rates) and connecting them in a
model
based on a generalized evolutionary and ecological process is an important
first
step to a full memetic analysis of science. Mutatis mutandis, the same is
true of
memetic theory in general. If we are to understand how memes
diversify
into
relatively stable lineages like religious traditions, the structures within
which
novelties arise and the selective pressures to which they are exposed are
crucial24.
Ecological
succession is another analogue of value. It is well recognised in
biogeography
that niche[jlh102] occupiers in an ecosystem can often
fend off adaptively
superior
invaders; the dominance of a given (say) grazer species in a locale may
be due to
it being there first rather than its overall adaptive excellence. We
should
expect that ecological succession, which is complex in biology, will be
equally
or more complex in culture, but there may be fruitful avenues to explore
here. To
understand and employ these analogues, we also
need an analogue for
"ecology"
and "ecosystem" for a given socio-cultural domain. The ecology of
science, for
example, is not nearly as simple as the falsifying crucial
experiments
that Popperian cycles propose. The resources
for which a social or
conceptual
structure competes will usually be fairly broad even if, as in the
case of
a scientific idea, storage and processing space and time in an active
central
nervous system is the basic resource.
5
Memetic individuals
With the
clarifications and mental tools introduced
above, we are now able to
ask
context.
What is a memetic individual? What is subjected to selection in
culture?
What gets "coded for"?
When
Juliet bitterly but eloquently complained how Romeo's social relationships
were
messing up their love life, she made the interesting observation that being
a
Montague, and being the person she loved, were two distinct states (apparently
she had
more of an interest in some of Romeo's biological aspects). The
instantiation
of the cultural relationship "is a Montague" in a particular
biological
organism, denoted by the name Romeo, is a case
where an individual is
something
other than the sum of his own memes. The
converse argument was given
by the
idealist philosopher FH Bradley in 1876, in a landmark essay in ethics,
"My
Station and its Duties". Here Bradley wishes to establish that one's
social
location
and relations determine one's moral
responsibilities. To do this,
Bradley
argues that what we are as social beings, as moral
agents, is determined
by the
community of which we are part. An Englishman is not his biology25. In
each
case, Juliet and Bradley recognize the distinction, often overlooked by
meme
enthusiasts, between the biological and the memetic. Memes don't
necessarily
make you more biologically fit, nor are they necessarily going to
make you
less fit. Memes aren't fit themselves simply because they make you live
healthier
lives. Memes are fit only insofar as they are propagated successfully;
forget the
effects they have on biology. In Toulmin's (1972) under appreciated
book, he
says of biological and cultural evolutionary processes that they are
decoupled.
This is not to say that the two realms do not meet and affect each
other,
for clearly they do; it is to say that no matter
how you might be able to
conceptualize
cultural phenomena in biological terms (socio-biology), you can
independently
conceptualize them in social terms (memetics). To lift a phrase of
Williams'
(1992) there is a dearth of shared descriptors between the entities of
biology
and the entities of culture. Sometimes they may, indeed, be the same
objects
or processes, but you have to describe them differently in each analytic
realm.
No end
of confusion has been caused by ambiguous specification of the
socio-cultural
analogues of phenotype and genotype. An early
criticism of
model of
models (Heyes 1988, Tennant 1988) was that scientific memes
failed to
constitute
scientists in the same way that genes constituted organic
individuals.
By the same token, critics argue that selection against memes fails
to
result in the death[jlh103] or restricted fertility of
scientists, and so natural
selection
is an inappropriate way to model scientific theory
change. Another
recurring
criticism of evolutionary pictures of culture is that unlike organisms
and
their genes, cultural agents choose which memes
they adopt, and that they
modify
their memes in the light of experience. Cultural change would be
Lamarckian,
say critics, if it evolved at all. These two attacks on memetics -
the
aphenotypic disanalogy and the cultural lamarckism criticism -- are closely
intertwined,
and have to be discussed together.
Using
the relatively clear case of science as an
example, we can see that any
one scientist can adopt differing memetic stances over
time. When Einstein was
learning
physics, he was probably taught the axiomatic observer independent
Newtonian
theories of the day. He later changed his mind about that. When the
physicist
Schrödinger got interested in biology, he entered into the canons and
data of
a new discipline (for him). Here are two exemplary cases of memetic
acquisition
- the replacement or supplementation of one set of memes
with a
whole
new set. Yet, neither Einstein nor Schrödinger became different organisms
with
these memes. Moreover, had either of these
scientists undertaken a
non-scientific
hobby requiring much technical knowledge and experience, such as
angling,
oil painting[jlh104] or cabinet making, the likelihood
is that they would be
able to
keep them relatively distinct from the professional standards and
methods
of physics. So, how can a "physicist" be caused to come into being by
memes, in the
same way that a blackbird is caused by a blackbird genome?
I
tacitly answered this question by inserting the word "professional"
above (cf.
Wilkins
forthcoming). A human organism who is a member
of a culture, language
group,
class and so forth, only achieves professional status or competency upon
completing
some portion of a "developmental" process of acquiring and exercising
the
relevant memes. A scientist,
to return to our example, must acquire the
standards,
knowledge base and experience
of the particular discipline (physics)
and the
sub disciplines (for example, high energy physics). There is an aspect
or
profile to every scientist that is (a)
constituted by memes, and (b) within
the
distribution curve of traits exhibited by the lineage (the phemorph). As a
scientist, an organism is distinct from other cultural profiles he
or she
instantiates,
and the profile is a separate class of entity from any biological
organism of
species H. sapiens or any set of traits that the organism
exhibits
by virtue of being a member of the species. Bradley
considers the thought
experiment[jlh105] of raising the same biological organism now an Englishman in another
society,
or on a desert island. Clearly, says Bradley, not in these words, the
properties
of Englishness are derived from the relational and (non-biological)
developmental
processes of living in English society and having a locus there.
In our
terms, "being English" is a memetic profile derived from the
acquisition
of
Englishness memes. We therefore have to be
careful of the denotation of the
terms
"scientist", "Englishman",
"capitalist" and so on. The
scientist-as-organism is a distinctly biological entity, distinct
from the
cultural
entity scientist-as-Englishman, or scientist-as-capitalist, which
depend
for their specification on the memetic profile of the scientist
proper,
the scientist-as-professional. In the context of a
professional lineage such as
a science, or other intellectual
pursuits or social practices such as accounting
or rap dancing,
the memetic individual is the competent member of the lineage,
which is
developed by the lineages' professional or cultural properties to
create a
profile within the human (biological/neurological) individual organism.
With
appropriate adjustments, the notion of a memetic individual can be
generalized
from the case study of science into other
discernible cultural
institutions
and traditions. In the limiting case, where the cohesion of a
lineage
is very loose, memetic individuality may be partial or fragmentary (like
being
good at using a yoyo), but if memes constitute
anything at all, they
constitute
the profile of a memetic individual.
Memes,
like genes, can only "code for" a norm of reaction. All cultural as
well
as
biological traits are distributed over a population curve, with the mean and
the mode
correlating to the memetic selection bias. As
scientists
even with identical theoretical commitments interpret their views
exactly
the same way, and it is an oft repeated half joke, half complaint, that
there
are as many views in a research program as there are practitioners,
sometimes
even more. Neither memes nor genes determine
all aspects of the
properties
of the entities they constitute. What they do determine are the
degrees
of freedom and they bias and constrain the outcomes
of the
so-constituted
system. In thermodynamic phrasing, they specify
the field of
states such
memetic systems have a propensity to attain. Do they do this through
a
process analogous to the Weismannian Central Dogma, with a one way germ
lineage,
or through something analogous to a Lamarckian pangenesis (
chapter
12) with the environment instructing the memes? Is the question even
relevant?
Cultural and biological evolution are going to
be different in the
frequencies
of the kinds of processes they undergo. Perhaps culture does exhibit
Lamarckian-style
inheritance through the sort of environmental instruction that
has a
never, or rarely, occurs in biological evolution.
One outcome of this
would be
that variation would come more frequently and more intensively than in
a purely
Weismannian process, which has to await random
mutation or use stored
variation
from earlier mutation in order for selection to have something on
which to
operate (Fisher 1930). It would, however, still be Darwinian evolution
even if
inheritance were Lamarckian. Lamarckian evolution,
however, is a
different
sort of process altogether, driven by perceived need to achieve
foreseen
outcomes; (see7). Lamarckian inheritance is not
inconsistent with a
Darwinian
model of memetic evolution. Lamarckian evolution would totally
demolish
the foundations of memetic theory, and leave us
with more traditional
forms of
cultural analysis. However, I do not think that
the case has been made
that memes are even acquired through instruction in the
Lamarckian sense, and
refer
readers to Cziko's (1995) discussion for further consideration.
It is my
opinion that cultural inheritance is not particularly creative, and
that
most "novelty" is in fact the recombination of pre-existing memes in novel
ways:
there is little that is new under the sun. Neither do I think that the
rate of
creativity rises in times of stress[jlh106] or great change. I speculate that
what
changes, and gives the appearance of memetic novelty, are such factors as
selective
pressure coefficients, "migration"
rates, and density dependent
recombination
rates that vary from the "usual" background rates. Problems can
persist
for long periods even in the face of urgent need, and unless the
appropriate
combination of memes occurs, more or less at
random26, they do not
get
solved. This takes us back to the question of the demonic structure of
culture
- too great an isolation and a more optimal memetic combination is
unlikely;
too little isolation, and combinations are unlikely to be stable
enough
to undergo selection, and will be swamped. The one major disanalogy
accepts
between biological and cultural evolution, and
with which I agree, is in
the rate,
but not the kind, of reticulate phylogeny; that is, in the merging and
crossover
of memes between lineages. Again this is not so
much a difference of
kind as
of degree. As noted above, cultural evolution
resembles that of
bacteria,
plants and fungi more than that of animals -
Marvell's "vegetable
love"
that grows "vaster than empires" is perhaps the better analogy,
although
on an
evolutionary time scale, culture is anything but "more slow".
It might
help to visualize the analogy I am proposing by giving examples in a
table of
the analogues between biological and cultural entities and processes,
mapped
to the Hull-Dawkins and Ghiselin-Hull ontologies (Table 1, cf. Ghiselin
1997 for
a review).
Entity (e) or process (p) Biological Memetic
Science Language Economics
Interactor (e) Phenotype or trait
Phemotype or Pheme Experiment or
Observation Linguistic behaviour
Replicator (e) Gene Meme Theory or
Hypothesis Language element27 Account,
resource
Character (e) Mendelian Trait (phene)
Pheme Method, Result Linguistic
practice Business practice
Lineage (e) Species, phylum Tradition,
institution Research program
Regional dialect, language group Business, industry
Economy (e) Ecological system Culture Disciplinary community28 Language
community Market sector, fiscal system
Reproduction (p) Organismic reproduction
Constitution of new profile
Degree, training Language acquisition
Establishment of new enterprise
Individual (e) Organism, kin group,
colony Memetic individual Scientist
Language speaker Economic agent
Substrate29 (e) Organic molecules Neural
networks
Code (p) DNA alphabet Semantic Semantic
and mathematical Grammar and
vocabulary Currency
Encoding medium
(e) Amino acids, proteins Neural structures, practices
Neural structures, journals, books[jlh108], institutions, disciplinary
associations Neural structures, written[jlh109] material, recordings, etc. Neural
structures, computers, books, ledgers, receipts, bank files, etc.
Table 1
Examples of general evolutionary analogues (e=entity, p=process)
It must
again be stressed that these are only some of a number of possible sets
of analogues,
and what functions as an interactor at one level may function as a
replicator
at another, so that a pheme for one level may be a meme at another,
and vice
versa.
6
Conclusion and prospectus
6.1
Conclusions: My conclusions are as follows. Memes are those units of
transmitted
information that are subject to selection biases at a given level of
hierarchical
organization of culture. Unlike genes30, they are not instantiated
in any
exclusive kind of physical array or system,
although at base they happen
to be
stored in and expressed from neurological structures31. Many memes reside
as
neural net structures in the central nervous systems of humans, but many also
emerge
at a higher cultural level. All memes have
neural substrates, but not all
are
encoded in those substrates. Memes are also situated in a variety of larger
semantic
structures, behavioural regularities, and cultural substrates. They are
identified
in virtue of their selective roles. Memes must
be expressed in a
cultural
ecology in order to be selected, but it is the class of behaviours
rather
than the behaviours themselves that are memes.
Memes do not control
behaviour
(including mental behaviour) rigidly, but bias
and constrain it to a
norm of
reaction. Memes are the replicators of cultural evolution
and the
structures
that bear the cultural properties they express as are the
interactors,
in the language of the Hull-Dawkins
Distinction. They are, as
once
entitled a paper (1987), genealogical actors[jlh110] in ecological roles. Packages
of
memetic interactive properties - phemes - constitute the phemotype of memetic
individuals,
or memetic profiles, that are not coextensive with the descriptors
of the
biological individuals in which they are instantiated, and cultural
evolution is
neither identical to nor derived from biological evolution.
Memetic
inheritance
may be, but probably isn't, analogous to Lamarckian inheritance, but
in any
event, memetic evolution is Darwinian. Memes
form ancestor descendent
chains
of populations that ramify and reticulate with frequencies differing from
biological
phylogeny, but the differences appear to be
within the extremes of
the
parameters of biology. The models developed for biological evolution and
ecology
need to be understood more broadly than just vertebrate animal evolution
and
applied as they are suited to culture, in order to determine the general
evolutionary
properties of both domains.
6.2
Methods: The methodological future of memetics
lies in the use of techniques
drawn
from information theory, modern taxonomy and
computer science. By
interpreting
memes as messages, we can make use of
Shannon-Weaver entropy (cf.
Brooks
and Wiley 1988), cladistics (Wiley, et al 1991), and connectionist
mathematics
as implemented in the Artificial Life program (
each of
these requires quantification of the data or input, it is important to
be able
to commensurably map the memetic elements and to measure the selection
biases
they undergo. If, as I have argued, a meme exists in virtue
of biased
transmission
rates, then there is no smooth reduction of memetic structures from
cultural
behaviour to atomic memes, just as there is no
smooth reduction from
phenotypic
traits to single genes. The researcher seeking to explain a singular
historical
shift of memetic frequencies must iteratively refine the data until
it
becomes clear what is being transmitted at a level and how it is being
expressed.
The problem of classification lies at two ends
of the scale -
identifying
cultural traditions as they exist now and over time, and identifying
elements
of those traditions as they persist and recombine. Although this sounds
subjective,
it need not be. Behavioural regularities indicate that something
objective[jlh111] has been spread, and even if the
underlying memes cannot be formulated
in some
universal logical language, the structure of memes can still be
identified
in the same way as Mendelian genes and molecular sequences, through
the use
of consensus maps and by noting when their absence or presence makes a
difference.
The
analytic tools available to us are legion, having been developed in biology
over a
century or more. They include Wagner groundplan methods (unrooted
character
similarity trees based on presence-absence matrices), Hamming Distance
measures
(the sum of the number of simple differences between two memes)32,
cladistic
reconstruction using parsimony[jlh112] methods, 33 and pattern recognition
methods
that use neural networks and other connectionist models. Eventually,
these
and other methods will no doubt be incorporated into a body of canonical
techniques
within the memetic enterprise, and I expect they will be generalized
as
methods applicable in a range of social
disciplines. The methods being
developed
for complex adaptive systems theory at the
Santa Fe Institute are also
likely
to become important for memetics as well as other research
dealing with
complex
adaptive phenomena (Casti 1994). However, if we lack clarity on the core
ontology
of a selection process in culture, the data to which we could apply
these
methods will be subjective and the explanations that we derive from them
are in danger of being entirely vacuous.
Acknowledgements
I am
indebted to Mario Vaneechoutte and Mark Mills for critical comments on an
earlier
draft of this paper, and the referees for subjecting the submission to
strong
selective pressures on style and content. I must also thank the late
David
Rindos for encouragement. Major stylistic improvements are due to the
attention
of Vladimir Brusic, though he is not to blame for any remaining
infelicities.
Glossary
of technical terms used
allele
An alternative gene at a particular locus.
allopatry
The state of populations living apart from
each other (literally "other
homeland"). Hence, allopatric
speciation.
Central Dogma
Weismann's hypothesis
that gametes ("germ cells") are passed on independently
to what happens to the organism's body.
cladistics
Taxonomic classification that reconstructs
the order of the appearance of
evolutionary novelties from their present
distribution. Also known as cladism.
cladogenesis
The origination of a new species by the
splitting of a single lineage into
two. See speciation.
co-adaptation
The process of local adaptation of genes and
their effects to each other, so
that they function well as a unit.
conjugation
In some single celled organisms, the
occasional exchange of genes in otherwise
aparentally reproducing organisms.
deme
A small population that is relatively
isolated from the larger species or
tradition and has its own distinct genetic or
memetic characteristics.
emergentism
The metaphysical position that properties
arise from the relations of objects
that are not properties of the objects
themselves.
epistasis
Linkages in the effects of genes, such that a
single gene may affect many
traits or a single trait may be affected by
many genes.
evolutionary gene
"[A]ny inherited information for which
there is a favorable or unfavorable
selection bias equal to several or many times
its rate of endogenous change"
(Williams 1966: 25)
evolutionarily stable strategy
A strategy coded for by genes or memes that does better when interacting with
copies of itself than alternative strategies
do, and which will tend to become
the sole or dominant strategy of a population
that will not then be
susceptible to invasion by other strategies.
facultative
Of an organism,
the possibility to adopt variant lifestyles, one of which is
the norm.
founder effect
The evolution
of a new lineage based on the sampling errors[jlh113] of the small
starting population, which may be of
different proportions to the original
populations.
gamete
The sex cell of each parent, which recombines
to produce the zygote, such as
sperm and egg, or spore.
gene
The fundamental physical unit of heredity
that transmits information from one
cell to another and thus to successive
generations.
Mendelian gene: a unit of heredity that
causes a single phenotypic character
or trait.
Molecular gene: a sequence of nucleotides
(DNA, tRNA or rRNA) that functions
as a unit during transcription and which is
transmitted whole.
Evolutionary gene: see evolutionary gene.
genet
All the clonal entities that share a
genotype.
genome
The complete complement of the genetic
material in a cell or carried by an
individual.
genotype
The genetic constitution of an individual,
often referring to genetic basis of
some particular characters.
heterozygosity
Carrying two different alleles from each
parent at a locus.
individual
A relatively well bounded and functionally
coherent system comprised of
components and their relationships. The formal
opposite of a class or
universal type.
interactor
"[A]n entity that interacts as a
cohesive whole with its environment in such a
way that this interaction causes replication
to be differential" (
408).
lineage
"[A]n entity that persists indefinitely
through time either in the same or an
altered state as a result of
replication" (
meme
The least unit of socio-cultural information
relative to a selection process
that has favourable or unfavourable selection
bias that exceeds its endogenous
tendency to change.
memetic profile
The array of phemes that constitutes a
memetic individual.
memetic individual
A competent member of a memetic cultural
lineage, which is developed by the
lineages' professional or cultural properties
to create a memetic profile
within the human (biological/neurological)
individual organism.
methodological individualism
The philosophical belief that collectives and
their properties are just the
sum of the individuals and their properties
that comprise them, especially in
social and historical explanation.
mnemone
Donald Campbell's term for a conceptual
replicator, roughly equivalent to
meme.
norm of reaction
The distribution curve of the phenotypic
effects of a gene in a population.
obligate
Of a parasite, the forced mode of living or
the necessary host. In general,
the lifestyle that an organism is forced to adopt.
pangenesis
body were supposed to throw off
"gemmules" that were carried to the
reproductive organs, and which carried
information about the body's experience
to the next generation.
This view was discredited by August Weismann in the
1880s.
panselectionism
The view that all characters of an organism have an adaptive reason
for
evolving.
parapatry
The state of living in adjacent regions with
or without some overlap
("bordering homeland"). Hence,
parapatric speciation.
parthenogeny
Asexual reproduction through unfertilized
eggs of a lineage that evolved from
a sexually reproducing ancestral state. Adj.
parthenogenic.
pheme
A single memetic interactive trait which is
the expression through some
behavioural regularity of a meme at the level
of selection. It is the least
type of selectively biased behaviour relative
to a culture.
phemorph
The normal distribution curve of traits
exhibited by a cultural lineage.
phemotype
The array of the phemes that are the causal
outcome of memes in an individual
or group.
phene
A Mendelian character or trait. Adj.
phenetic.
pheneticism
Taxonomy based on the groupings of phenes,
without respect to evolutionary
lineages.
phenotype
The observable features of an organism, which develop according to its genetic
code
(genotype). Adj. phenotypic.
pleiotropy
The state in which one gene affects two or more phenotypic traits not
otherwise directly related.
polyploidy
The fusion of three or more complete sets of
chromosomes, sometimes from
distinct species, usually in plants.
quasi-species
Manfred Eigen's term for clusters of related
clonal organisms that mimic
species in the way they remain similar.
ramet
An entity that is one of a number of
genetically identical organisms.
random drift
Sewall Wright's model of random allele
frequency changes in small populations
without the operation of natural selection.
reductionism
Explanatory reductionism: the philosophical
doctrine that a complete
explanation of a complex whole is given by
enumeration of the components of
that whole and their properties, especially
in scientific explanation.
Genetic reductionism: a form of explanatory reductionism that has developed
into a research
program, which holds that all phenotypic
properties of
organisms and their evolution
can be understood in terms of genes and their
fitness levels.
replicator
"[A]n entity that passes on its structure
largely intact through successive
replications" (
reticulation
The recombination of distinct phylogenetic
lineages. See speciation.
selection
"[A] process in which the differential
extinction and proliferation of
interactors cause the differential
perpetuation of the relevant replicators"
(
spandrel
Gould's and Lewontin's (1979) term for a
trait or structure that is a
necessary by-product of some other adaptive
feature, and which is not
therefore explained in terms of selection in
favour of it.
speciation
The process of the evolution
of a new species, through splitting from an
existing species ( cladogenesis ). Also used
of hybridization of existing
species to form a third ( reticulation ).
species
The largest collections of (sexually
reproducing) biological lineages that do
regularly recombine, and which do not
themselves recombine with other
lineages.
sympatry
The state of coexisting in the same region
("same homeland"). Hence, sympatric
speciation.
use-inheritance
Also called soft inheritance (Mayr 1982:
691). A view held by
chapter V) that "use ... strengthens and
enlarges certain parts and disuse
diminishes them, and that such modifications
are inherited". Sometimes called
"Lamarckian inheritance", although
Lamarck was not the first to propose this
view, which is a folk belief of long
standing. In
pangenesis, use-inheritance is responsible
for modifying the frequency and
novelty of variation, and therefore evolution. Fisher (1930) discusses the
problems of use-inheritance for Darwinian evolution, and the arguments against
it.
Notes
1.
Technical terms are linked to definitions in the glossary and discussed,
where
relevant, in the body of the paper.
2. That
is, it represents something causally significant in the theory, like an
electron.
3. An
analogy between two domains depends on a common etiology. A metaphor can
only
suggest limited[jlh114] and vague similarities. For
instance, the term "analogy" in
phylogeny
refers to convergently evolved traits through adaptation to similar
conditions
of life. If selection of culture is an analogy, it has theoretical
weight;
if a metaphor, we can abandon or modify it when we find it difficult to
apply.
4. And
Dawkins is a lot of a panselectionist. Panselectionists tend to find
selective
explanations for every feature of organisms, for instance asking what
the
adaptive significance of the human chin is, when chins are just the result
of two growth fields interacting.
5. By
"evolution" I mean the generation of variations and adaptation. I am not
committing
myself to the claim that natural selection is, or is not, responsible
for new
species through cladogenesis.
6.
Weismann was the first researcher to show that gametes (he called them
"germ
cells")
are passed on independently of what happens to the organism's
body. His
Central
Dogma, as it became known, was an attack on use-inheritance, the time
honoured
belief (shared by
Richards,
1992: 172) that those features of an organism
that are most needed and
most
used will be more frequently inherited. Even after the period of the
development
of Mendelian genetics, the Central Dogma was not universally
accepted
by biologists until the middle[jlh115] of this century and the molecular
revolution
in genetics.
7. The
term "Lamarckism" is very ambiguous in the way it is used in biology.
Much
historical injustice to Lamarck was done by those who called themselves
"neo-Lamarckians"
in the late nineteenth century. Only two sense
of "Lamarckism"
are
relevant to this paper: use-inheritance (see previous note), also known as
the
inheritance of acquired characteristics; and the belief that novelties
evolve
to meet the needs (sometimes interpreted as the
desires) of the organisms
when
their environment changes. A third form often
and more historically
accurately
referred to is that evolution is progressing to
some form of
perfection.
The charge that evolution of culture is
Lamarckian (cf. Gould 1993:
216,
1997: 222) generally refers to use-inheritance (for rebuttals, see
1988:
452-457, Cziko 1995).
8. More
recently, Ghiselin, with whom Hull collaborated on the so-called
individuality
thesis, has reviewed the arguments both have made against the
"entification"
of replicators, including noting that genes, in the population
(or
Mendelian) genetics sense, can include
deletions, that is, the loss of a
sequence
can have population level effects. In his view, this is a reductio ad
absurdum
of Dawkins' genetic reductionism (Ghiselin 1997: 143-148).
9. But
it is worth noting that they can be the product of the properties of
genes.
In algebra, sums are linear and additive, while products are non-linear
and
multiplicative. Non-linear products can be extremely complex, and are
so-called
because their functions do not result in a straight line on log log
graphs.
The
Kolmogorov theorem shows that between any two arbitrarily large sets there
can be
at least one mapping so long as there is an intermediate set of links, an
important
result for connectionist systems research.
These Kolmogorov mappings
are
non-linear products, and applied to genes and memes
the theorem means that
while
there is no simple reduction from interactive characters to genes/memes a
mapping
relation does exist, even if it is extremely complex.
10. See
Rosenberg's 1994 discussion and clarification of the Hullian entities as
they
apply to biological processes, and also his discussion of Hull's problem of
reductionism.
See also Ghiselin 1997.
11. To
avoid unnecessary confusion, it should be noted that any number of
hierarchies
can occur in a single domain like biology or culture. There may be a
genetic
hierarchy leading to species, but there may also be a hierarchy leading
to
ecological patterns, and these need not be the same hierarchy. (Eldredge
1989)
This figure and the following figures are not intended to represent the
hierarchy
of that domain, but only one of a possible many.
12.
However, this does not deny that a selection process based on a mental model
of the states of affairs can occur in an individual mind. In
terms of figure 2,
the memes here are the entities that are selected in a mental environment,
that
is, what
makes sense to the thinker, and which when
expressed will become memes
in a
higher level process [cf. Dennett 1995, chapter 12].
13. One
possible exception to this bifurcation is when
a meme is a spandrel,
that is,
a by-product of some other meme that is selectively favoured, and with
which it
inevitably must be transmitted (Gould and Lewontin 1979, Gould 1997).
14. This
resembles the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of false consciousness in some
ways,
but with no presumption that any part of society will instantiate a "true
consciousness"
of social reality.
15.
Discussion in Cziko 1995: 140-149.
16. For
example, a practice may spread just because it is selectively neutral.
Junk DNA
can be transmitted because it does not generate products that are
"visible"
to selection. Kimura's theory of neutral DNA
shows that biassed
transmission
without selective advantage is a biological reality. And any trait
at the
interactor level can be selected for or against, in a sense,
even if it
is not
heritable. A blacksmith may do well biologically because of his strength,
but that
will not (necessarily) be bequeathed to his progeny.
17. As
we shall see below, this is not a complete picture; but it captures the
initial
intuitions of taxonomists.
18.
Interestingly, identifying the five or six distinct, but hitherto
unrecognized
(cryptic), species of A. maculipennis was accomplished through
analysis of
their being vectors for P. falciparum or not (Cain 1954).
19. I am
of the philosophical school of thought that laws and equations merely
describe
dynamic patterns rather than govern phenomena (instrumentalism), but
that is
not germane to this essay. See Rosenberg 1994 for a discussion of
instrumentalism
and biology.
20.
Because the resources required are rather
significant, which is an
interesting
memetic point.
21. This
is not a mistake[jlh116], despite its contradiction to
textbook biology. The
result
was announced in a recent paper (Boerlijst, Bonhoeffer and Nowak 1996).
22. It
is worth remembering that Darwinian, or rather synthetic, evolution, is
modelled
by a number of theories (common descent, natural selection, sexual
selection,
biogeographic distribution, Mendelian genetics), and should not be
considered
a single theory on its own.
23.
Allopatry is the state of populations living apart from each other
(literally
"other homeland"), sympatry that of coexisting in the same region
("same
homeland"), and parapatry of living in adjacent regions with or without
some
overlap ("bordering homeland"). When speciation occurs in these states,
then it
is called allopatric speciation, and so forth. Many now think that
parapatric
speciation occurs, but the frequency is still at issue.
24.
Dobzhansky's concept [1937] of "co-adaptation" (a term initially used
by
Darwin,
I believe) is significant at this point of the
argument. If memes at
first
arise within restricted domains, all they need at this early stage to
adapt[jlh117] to are the other memes within the deme, or some part of it. Co-adapted
memes may play a
role in storing memetic variation until the fitness of variants
rises to
significant levels. Moreover, it would explain why apparently
maladaptive
memes can persist in a tradition. In the end,
the final selection
event is
extinction, and maladaptive memes may persist
because they are fitter
within a
tradition than on their own, even if they make the lineage phemotype
less
adaptive overall.
As an
example, consider the meme of common property
in the fideist traditions
such as
the Mennonites and the Shakers. This meme was a core belief and
tradition
in these communities, and was well adapted to the rest of the memes
shared
by the communities, but it was maladaptive during the most aggressive
period
of the rise of modern industrial capitalism, and these communities
eventually
faded away.
25. An
early shot at proto-sociobiological notions, although I think Bradley
underestimates
how much biology affects one's place in a culture. Imagine the
role of
a Chinese child growing up in Victorian
England.
26.
Random with respect to the selection process, that is.
27.
Phonemes, words, syntactical structures, etc.
28.
Funding for research is peer reviewed, even if
it derives from governments,
and so
the primary economic resource is standing in that community, cf. Hull
1988c.
29.
Supporting physical entities of the code.
30.
Genes also include and require RNA of various kinds, so even this
generalization
is not absolute.
31. At
least, until artificial intelligences become a reality.
32.
Interestingly, Hamming Distance was first formulated in the context of
information
theory, and adapted for use in genetics after
the molecular
revolution.
See Gabora forthcoming for a treatment of Hamming Distance in
memetics,
but one that I think is overly reductionist.
33.
Cladistic reconstructions rely on an absence of reticulation, and so should
be used
with care in the memetic context. Cf. Wiley et al 1991.
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©
JoM-EMIT 1998
Back to Volume 2 - Issue 1
intellectual
=* It is only the INTELLECTUALly lost
who ever argue. (Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
*
OPTIMISM, n: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,
including what is UGLY, everything good, especially the bad, and everything
RIGHT that is WRONG. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed
to the misCHANCE of falling int (provlaws)
* The
avoidance of TAXES is the only INTELLECTUAL pursuit that carries any reward. (John Maynard Keynes) (provlaws)
history = A people without HISTORY is like wind on the buffalo grass. (Sioux Proverb) (provlaws)
* HISTORY teaches us that men and nations behave WISEly once they have exhausted all other alternatives. (Abba Eban) (provlaws)
* However gradual the course of HISTORY, there must always be the day, even an hour and minute, when some significant ACTION is performed for the first or last TIME. (Peter Quennell ) (provlaws)
* Human HISTORY becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. (H.G. Wells) (provlaws)
* The HISTORY of every country begins in the HEART of a MAN or WOMAN. (Willa Cather ) (provlaws)
* War makes rattling good HISTORY; but peace makes poor reading. (Thomas Hardy ['The Dynasts', 1904] ) (provlaws)
* We LEARN from HISTORY that we do not LEARN from HISTORY. (Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel ) (provlaws)
* We LEARN from HISTORY that we do not LEARN from HISTORY. (Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel ) (provlaws)
problem = Complex PROBLEMs have sIMple, easy to UNDERSTAND WRONG ANSWERS. (Grossman's Law) (provlaws)
* Inside every small PROBLEM is a large PROBLEM struggling to get out. (Second Law of Blissful Ignorance) (provlaws)
* Inside every small PROBLEM is a large PROBLEM struggling to get out. (Second Law of Blissful Ignorance) (provlaws)
* MEETING, n: An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or group not represented in the room must solve a PROBLEM. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* Our PROBLEMs are man-MADE, therefore they may be solved by man. No PROBLEM of human DESTINY is beyond human beings. (John F. Kennedy) (provlaws)
* Our PROBLEMs are man-MADE, therefore they may be solved by man. No PROBLEM of human DESTINY is beyond human beings. (John F. Kennedy) (provlaws)
* Our PROBLEMs are man-MADE, therefore they may be solved by man. No PROBLEM of human DESTINY is beyond human beings. (John F. Kennedy) (provlaws)
* Our PROBLEMs are man-MADE, therefore they may be solved by man. No PROBLEM of human DESTINY is beyond human beings. (John F. Kennedy) (provlaws)
* Some people approach every PROBLEM with an open mouth. (Adlai Stevenson) (provlaws)
* The PROBLEM is not that there are PROBLEMs. The PROBLEM is expecting otherWISE and thinking that having PROBLEMs is a PROBLEM. (Theodore Rubin Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.) (provlaws)
* The PROBLEM is not that there are PROBLEMs. The PROBLEM is expecting otherWISE and thinking that having PROBLEMs is a PROBLEM. (Theodore Rubin Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.) (provlaws)
* The PROBLEM is not that there are PROBLEMs. The PROBLEM is expecting otherWISE and thinking that having PROBLEMs is a PROBLEM. (Theodore Rubin Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.) (provlaws)
* The PROBLEM is not that there are PROBLEMs. The PROBLEM is expecting otherWISE and thinking that having PROBLEMs is a PROBLEM. (Theodore Rubin Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.) (provlaws)
* The PROBLEM is not that there are PROBLEMs. The PROBLEM is expecting otherWISE and thinking that having PROBLEMs is a PROBLEM. (Theodore Rubin Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.) (provlaws)
* When Solomon said that there was a TIME and a place for everything he had not encountered the PROBLEM of parking an automobile ( --Bob Edwards) (provlaws)
* When WORKing toward the solution of a PROBLEM, it always helps if you know the answer. (Rule of Accuracy ) (provlaws)
nature = A father is a banker provided by NATURE. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
* A PAINTER told me that nobody could draw a TREE without in some sort becoming a TREE; or draw a CHILD by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a TIME his MOTIONs and plays, the PAINTER enters into his NATURE and can then draw (provlaws)
* All ART is but immitation of NATURE. (Seneca) (provlaws)
* Art arises when the secret vision of the ARTIST and the manifestation of NATURE AGREE to find new shapes. (Kahlil Gibran ) (provlaws)
* CONSISTENCY is contrary to NATURE, contrary to life. The only completely CONSISTENT people are the dead. (Aldous Huxley ['Do What You Will', 1929] ) (provlaws)
* EXPERIENCE is the comb that NATURE gives us when we are bald. (Belgian proverb) (provlaws)
* In NATURE there are neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences. (Robert Ingersoll ['Some Reasons Why', 1881] ) (provlaws)
* NATURE does nothing uselessly. (Aristotle) (provlaws)
* NATURE gives you the face you have at twenty ( Coco Chanel) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* Sit down before fact as a little CHILD, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses NATURE leads, or you will LEARN nothing. (Thomas H. Huxley ) (provlaws)
* The only calendar I need is just outside my window. With eyes to see and ears to hear, NATURE keeps me POSTed. (Alfred A. Montapert) (provlaws)
* The only calendar I need is just outside my window. With eyes to see and ears to hear, NATURE keeps me POSTed. (Alfred A. Montapert) (provlaws)
* The voice is a second sigNATURE. (R. I. Fitzhenry) (provlaws)
* This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of NATURE instead of a feverish SELFISH little clod of ailments and grievances COMPLAINing that the world will not devote itself to making you hap (provlaws)
theory = DEMOCRACY is the THEORY that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard ( -- H.L Mencken ) (provlaws)
* If the facts do not conform to the THEORY, they must be disposed of. (Maier's Law) (provlaws)
* The human species, according to the BEST THEORY I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. (Charles Lamb ['Essays of Elia', 1823]) (provlaws)
* The human species, according to the BEST THEORY I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. (Charles Lamb ['Essays of Elia', 1823]) (provlaws)
* The idea that the more aesthetically pleasing a THEORY is, the better it is. Naturally this criterion does not stand up to the real test -- whether or not predictions of a given theory agree with observational tests -- but considering that it is a purely (provlaws)
* The ORGANISM is a THEORY of its ENVIRONMENT (Weimer) (provlaws)
* The scientific THEORY I like BEST is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline LUGGAGE ( --Mark Russell) (provlaws)
understand = A FOOL finds no PLEASURE in UNDERSTANDing but delights in airing his own OPINIONS. (Miscellaneous Proverb) (provlaws)
* A FOOL finds PLEASURE in evil conduct, but a MAN of UNDERSTANDing delights in WISDOM. (Miscellaneous Proverb) (provlaws)
* Complex PROBLEMs have sIMple, easy to UNDERSTAND WRONG ANSWERS. (Grossman's Law) (provlaws)
* Home is not where you live, but where they UNDERSTAND you. (Christian Morgenstern) (provlaws)
* Home is not where you live, but where they UNDERSTAND you. (Christian Morgenstern) (provlaws)
* I can't UNDERSTAND why people are frightened of new IDEAS. I'm frightened of old ones. (John Cage) (provlaws)
* I don't mind what LANGUAGE an OPERA is sung in so long as it is the LANGUAGE I don't UNDERSTAND ( --Edward Appleton) (provlaws)
* I don't mind what LANGUAGE an OPERA is sung in so long as it is a LANGUAGE I don't UNDERSTAND. (Sir Edward Appleton ) (provlaws)
* I don't UNDERSTAND the appeal of Spuds McKenzie. He's always surrounded by beautiful WOMEN. Now, I'm single, and I know the pickin's can be mighty slIM, but you have to be really desperate to date out of your own species. (Susan Norfleet) (provlaws)
* I UNDERSTAND the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a MAN carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the manMADE sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig. (Alfred Hitchcock) (provlaws)
* It is not necesssary to UNDERSTAND things in order to argue about them. (Caron de Beaumarchais) (provlaws)
* It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not UNDERSTAND it but they absolutely LOVE the noise it makes. (Sir Thomas Beecham) (provlaws)
* JOURNALIST, n: A professional whose JOB it is to explain to others what it personally does not UNDERSTAND. (Lord Northcliffe) (provlaws)
* Nothing sways the STUPID more than arguments they can't UNDERSTAND. (Cardinal de Retz) (provlaws)
* Tell me and I'll FORGET. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll UNDERSTAND. (Native American Proverb) (provlaws)
* To UNDERSTAND the HEART and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. (Kahlil Gibran ) (provlaws)
* To UNDERSTAND your PARENTS' LOVE, bear your own CHILDREN. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* You don't UNDERSTAND anything until you LEARN it more than one way. (Marvin Minsky) (provlaws)
agree = A BAD AGREEment is better than a good LAWSuit. (Italian Proverb ) (provlaws)
* A lean AGREEment is better than a fat LAWSuit. (German Proverb) (provlaws)
* Ah! Don't say that you AGREE with me When People AGREE with me I always feel that I must be WRONG ( --Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* Ah! Don't say that you AGREE with me When People AGREE with me I always feel that I must be WRONG ( --Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* Art arises when the secret vision of the ARTIST and the manifestation of NATURE AGREE to find new shapes. (Kahlil Gibran ) (provlaws)
* COMPROMISE, n: An AGREEment whereby both parties get what neither of them wanted. (Anon.) (provlaws)
* If you can find something everyone AGREEs on, it's WRONG. (Mo Udall) (provlaws)
* KNOWLEDGE must be gained by ourselves. Mankind may supply us with the facts; but the results, even if they AGREE with previous ones, must be the WORK of our mind. (Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
* My IDEA of an AGREEABLE person is a person who AGREEs with me ( -- Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
* The fellow that AGREEs with everything you say is either a FOOL or he is getting ready to skin you. (Kin Hubbard) (provlaws)
* When music fails to AGREE to the ear, to soothe the ear and the HEART and the senses, then it has missed its point. (Maria Callas ) (provlaws)
evolution = Any explanation or definition is itself a MEME, with its own history and evolution. Earlier, less adapted, forms of biological explanation, for example, try to abstract from the problems of the new arising in time - but have, consequently, more limited su (provlaws)
* character elimination is irreversible . EVOLUTION is not REVERSIBLE; i.e., structures or functions discarded during the course of evolution do not reappear in a given line of organisms. The hypothesis was first advanced by a historian (Dollo’s law) (provlaws)
enemy = An open ENEMY is better than a FALSE FRIEND. (Greek Proverb ) (provlaws)
* And he who has one ENEMY will meet him everywhere. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (provlaws)
* Be thine ENEMY an ant, see in him an elephant.. (Turkish Proverb ) (provlaws)
* If thine ENEMY offend thee, give his CHILD a drum ( --Chinese Curse) (provlaws)
* If your sergeant can see you, so can the ENEMY. (Murphy's Sixth Military Law) (provlaws)
* Money can't buy FRIENDs, but you can get a better class of ENEMY ( --Spike Milligan) (provlaws)
* Money leant to a FRIEND must be recovered from an ENEMY. (German Proverb) (provlaws)
* One ENEMY can harm you more than a hundred FRIENDs can do you good. (German Proverb) (provlaws)
* Tact is the knack of making a point without making an ENEMY. (Howard W. Newton) (provlaws)
* Tact is the knack of making a point without making an ENEMY. (Howard W. Newton) (provlaws)
* Tell nothing to thy FRIEND that thy ENEMY may not know. (Danish Proverb) (provlaws)
* The ENEMY of my ENEMY is my FRIEND. (Arab Proverb) (provlaws)
* The ENEMY of my ENEMY is my FRIEND. (Arab Proverb) (provlaws)
* There is no such thing as an insignificant ENEMY. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
* Use your ENEMY's hand to catch a snake. (Persian Proverb) (provlaws)
* When there is no ENEMY within, the ENEMIES outside cannot hurt you. (African Proverb) (provlaws)
reason = Anger is never without a REASON but seldom a good one. (Benjamin Franklin ) (provlaws)
* If nobody uses it, there's a REASON. (Rule of Reason) (provlaws)
* If you see no REASON for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself. (Native American Proverb (Minquass)) (provlaws)
* Let him make use of instinct who cannot make use of REASON. (ENGLISH Proverb) (provlaws)
* Only one who devotes HIMSELF to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this REASON mastry demands all of a person. (Albert Einstein ) (provlaws)
* RESEARCH is an organized method for keeping you REASONably dissatisfied with what you have ( --Charles Kettering) (provlaws)
* The BEST REASON I can think of for not running for president of the UNITED STATES is that you have to shave twice a day. (Adlai Stevenson) (provlaws)
* The only REASON I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again ( --Erma Bombeck) (provlaws)
science = COMMAND, n: In computer SCIENCE, a statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* DEMOCRACY is the ART and SCIENCE of running the circus from the monkey cage ( -- H.L Mencken ) (provlaws)
* Every great advance in SCIENCE has issued from a new audacity of the IMAGINATION. (John Dewey, from The Quest For Certainty ) (provlaws)
* He who sacrifices his conSCIENCE to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* SCIENCE, n:An orderly arrangement of what at the moment APPEAR to be facts. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* The most beautiful thing we can EXPERIENCE is the mysterious. It is the source of all true ART and all SCIENCE. He to whom this eMOTION is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. (Alber (provlaws)
* There is no pillow so soft as a clear conSCIENCE. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
research = Basic RESEARCH is what I am doing when I don't know what I'm doing. (Wernher von Braun ) (provlaws)
* practice of RESEARCHers filing away studies with NEGATIVE OUTCOMES. Negative outcome refers to finding nothing of statistical significance or causal consequence, not to finding that something affects us negatively. Negative outcome may also refer to findi (provlaws)
* RESEARCH is an organized method for keeping you REASONably dissatisfied with what you have ( --Charles Kettering) (provlaws)
political = BOUNDARY, n: In POLITICAL geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary RIGHTs of one from the imaginary RIGHTs of another. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything That points clearly to a POLITICAL career (-George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
* I belong to no organized POLITICAL party -- I am a Democrat ( --Will Rogers) (provlaws)
choice = DESTINY is no matter of CHANCE. It is a matter of CHOICE: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. (William Jennings Bryan ) (provlaws)
* Faced with the CHOICE between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the PROOF ( --John Kenneth Galbraith) (provlaws)
* When you have no CHOICE, mobilize the spirit of courage. (Jewish Proverb) (provlaws)
advertise = An EPITAPH is a belated ADVERTISEment for a line of goods that have been permanently discontinued ( -- Irvin SCobb ) (provlaws)
* If you don't ADVERTISE yourself you will be ADVERTISEd by your loving ENEMIES ( -- Elbert Hubbard ) (provlaws)
* If you don't ADVERTISE yourself you will be ADVERTISEd by your loving ENEMIES ( -- Elbert Hubbard ) (provlaws)
danger = A little SINCERITY is a DANGERous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal ( --Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* Banking establishments are more DANGERous than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson) (provlaws)
* Do not stand in a place of DANGER trusting in miracles. (Arab Proverb ) (provlaws)
* He that will not sail till all DANGERs are over must never put to sea. (Thomas Fuller ) (provlaws)
* He who waits for a dead man's shoes is in DANGER of going barefoot. (Danish Proverb) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* The most DANGERous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map. (Murphy's Third Military Law) (provlaws)
* When I hear music, I fear no DANGER. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest TIMEs, and to the latest. (Henry David Thoreau) (provlaws)
* When WRITTEN in Chinese, the word "CRISIS" is composed of two characters. One represents DANGER and the other represents OPPORTUNITY. (John F. Kennedy ) (provlaws)
* When WRITTEN in Chinese, the word "CRISIS" is composed of two characters. One represents DANGER and the other represents OPPORTUNITY. (John F. Kennedy ) (provlaws)
range = Assortative MATING is when sexually reproducing organisms tend to mate with individuals that are like themselves in some respect. In evolution, ASSORTATIVE mating has the effect of expanding the RANGE of variation. character displacement (assortative mati (provlaws)
* ASSORTATIVE MATING is when SEXually reproducing organisms tend to mate with individuals that are like themselves in some respect. In evolution, assortative mating has the effect of expanding the RANGE of variation. character displacement (assortative mati (provlaws)
system = Being busy does not always mean real WORK. The object of all WORK is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, SYSTEM, planning, INTELLIGENCE, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doin (provlaws)
* History is a vast early warning SYSTEM. (Norman Cousins) (provlaws)
* The old SYSTEM of having a BABY was much better than the new SYSTEM, the old SYSTEM being characterized by the fact that the MAN didn't have to watch. (Dave Barry) (provlaws)
* The old SYSTEM of having a BABY was much better than the new SYSTEM, the old SYSTEM being characterized by the fact that the MAN didn't have to watch. (Dave Barry) (provlaws)
* The old SYSTEM of having a BABY was much better than the new SYSTEM, the old SYSTEM being characterized by the fact that the MAN didn't have to watch. (Dave Barry) (provlaws)
* Whenever a SYSTEM becomes completely defined, someone discovers something which either abolishes the SYSTEM or expands it beyond recognition. (Brooke's Law) (provlaws)
* Whenever a SYSTEM becomes completely defined, someone discovers something which either abolishes the SYSTEM or expands it beyond recognition. (Brooke's Law) (provlaws)
states = Great Britain and the UNITED STATES are nations separated by a common LANGUAGE ( -- George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
* The BEST REASON I can think of for not running for president of the UNITED STATES is that you have to shave twice a day. (Adlai Stevenson) (provlaws)
* The UNITED STATES is a nation of LAWS: badly WRITTEN and randomly enforced. (Frank Zappa) (provlaws)
animals = ANIMALS are reliable, many full of LOVE, true in their affections, predictable in their ACTIONs, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to. (Alfred A. Montapert ) (provlaws)
* ANIMALS are reliable, many full of LOVE, true in their affections, predictable in their ACTIONs, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to. (Alfred A. Montapert ) (provlaws)
* The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its ANIMALS are treated. (Gandhi ) (provlaws)
virtue = Beauty without VIRTUE is as a flower without PERFUME. (FRENCH Proverb ) (provlaws)
* FIDELITY, n: A VIRTUE particular to those about to be betrayed. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* First secure an independent INCOME, then practice VIRTUE. (Greek Proverb) (provlaws)
* The only reward of VIRTUE is VIRTUE; the only way to have a FRIEND is to be one. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (provlaws)
* The only reward of VIRTUE is VIRTUE; the only way to have a FRIEND is to be one. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (provlaws)
* VIRTUE is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. (Confucius) (provlaws)
ideas = DARING IDEAS are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may stART a WINNING game. (Goethe ) (provlaws)
* I can't UNDERSTAND why people are frightened of new IDEAS. I'm frightened of old ones. (John Cage) (provlaws)
* The BEST way to have a good IDEA is to have lots of IDEAS. (Linus Pauling) (provlaws)
* The BEST way to have a good IDEA is to have lots of IDEAS. (Linus Pauling) (provlaws)
intellectual =* It is only the INTELLECTUALly lost who ever argue. (Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* OPTIMISM, n: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is UGLY, everything good, especially the bad, and everything RIGHT that is WRONG. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the misCHANCE of falling int (provlaws)
* The avoidance of TAXES is the only INTELLECTUAL pursuit that carries any reward. (John Maynard Keynes) (provlaws)
opportunity = Do not lengthen the quarrel while there is an OPPORTUNITY of escaping. (Latin Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Equal OPPORTUNITY means everyone will have a FAIR CHANCE at being INCOMPETENT. (Laurence J. Peter) (provlaws)
* Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the PAST, the neglected OPPORTUNITY. (Omar Idn Al-Halif ) (provlaws)
* MARRIAGE, n: An institution which is popular because it combines the maxIMum of TEMPTATION with the minIMum of OPPORTUNITY. (George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
* OPPORTUNITY always knocks at the least opportune moment. (Ducharme's Precept ) (provlaws)
* There is no security on EARTH; there is only OPPORTUNITY. (Gen. Douglas MacArthur) (provlaws)
* There is no security on EARTH; there is only OPPORTUNITY. (Gen. Douglas MacArthur) (provlaws)
* When WRITTEN in Chinese, the word "CRISIS" is composed of two characters. One represents DANGER and the other represents OPPORTUNITY. (John F. Kennedy ) (provlaws)
* When WRITTEN in Chinese, the word "CRISIS" is composed of two characters. One represents DANGER and the other represents OPPORTUNITY. (John F. Kennedy ) (provlaws)
moral = ACADEME, n. An ancient school where MORALity and philosophy were taught. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* All the things I really like to do are either illegal, imMORAL, or fattening. (Alexander Wolcott) (provlaws)
* Moral INDIGNATION is, in most cases, 2% MORAL, 48% INDIGNATION, and 50% ENVY ( --Vittorio de Sica) (provlaws)
* On an occaision of this kind it becomes more than a MORAL duty to speak one's mind It becomes a PLEASURE (--Oscar Wilde, from The Importance of Being Earnest) (provlaws)
random = A plane is ruled with parallel lines 1 cm apart. A needle of length 1 cm is dropped RANDOMly on the plane. What is the probability that the NEEDLE will be lying across one of the lines? Answer: 2/PI. (Buffon needle problem) (provlaws)
* has n matches in each of two boxes. A match is picked from a RANDOM BOX till a box is found to be empty. What is the distribution of the number of matches remaining in the other box? This is equivalent to considering all (2n + 1)-STEP WALKS of upsteps U ( (provlaws)
* intuition that RANDOM events which occur in CLUSTERs are not really random events. (clustering illusion ) (provlaws)
success = Behind every SUCCESSful MAN there is a surprised WOMAN ( --Maryon Pearson) (provlaws)
* I believe in LUCK: how else can you explain the SUCCESS of those you don't like? (Jean Cocteau) (provlaws)
* If one advances confidently in the direction of his DREAMs, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a SUCCESS unexpected in common hours. (Henry David Thoreau) (provlaws)
* In Hollywood a marriage is a SUCCESS if it outlasts milk. (Rita Rudner) (provlaws)
* Life is a SUCCESSion of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. (Ralph Waldo Emerson ) (provlaws)
* Only he is SUCCESSful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest PLEASURE sustain him. (Henry David Thoreau) (provlaws)
* People of MEDIOCRE ability someTIMEs achieve outstanding SUCCESS because they don't know when to quit. Most men SUCCEED because they are determined to. (George Allen ) (provlaws)
* SUCCESS is never final. (Winston Churchill ) (provlaws)
* The DICTIONARY is the only place that SUCCESS comes before WORK. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* The SUCCESSful MAN is the one who finds out what is the matter with his business before his competitors do. (Roy L. Smith) (provlaws)
* Through perserverence many people win SUCCESS out of what seemed destined to be certain FAILURE. (Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
* You cannot SUCCESSfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to BUTTER. (Perversity of Nature Law) (provlaws)
wrong = After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the WRONG access cover has been removed. (de la Lastra's Law) (provlaws)
* Ah! Don't say that you AGREE with me When People AGREE with me I always feel that I must be WRONG ( --Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* An object at rest will be in the WRONG place. (Gerrold's Second Law of Infernal Dynamics ) (provlaws)
* An object in MOTION will be heading in the WRONG direction. (Gerrold's First Law of Infernal Dynamics ) (provlaws)
* Complex PROBLEMs have sIMple, easy to UNDERSTAND WRONG ANSWERS. (Grossman's Law) (provlaws)
* Do not WRONG or HATE your neighbor for it is not he that you WRONG but yourself. (Native American Proverb (PIMa) ) (provlaws)
* Do not WRONG or HATE your neighbor for it is not he that you WRONG but yourself. (Native American Proverb (PIMa) ) (provlaws)
* Everything goes WRONG all at once. (Quantized Revision of Murphy's Law) (provlaws)
* If an EXPERIMENT works, something has gone WRONG. (Finagle's First Law) (provlaws)
* If anything can go WRONG, it will. (Murphy's Law) (provlaws)
* If you can find something everyone AGREEs on, it's WRONG. (Mo Udall) (provlaws)
* In sIMple cases, presenting one OBVIOUS RIGHT way versus one OBVIOUS WRONG way, it is often WISEr to choose the WRONG way so as to expedite subsequent revision. (Fyfe's First Law of Revision - Corollary I) (provlaws)
* In sIMple cases, presenting one OBVIOUS RIGHT way versus one OBVIOUS WRONG way, it is often WISEr to choose the WRONG way so as to expedite subsequent revision. (Fyfe's First Law of Revision - Corollary I) (provlaws)
* It takes less TIME to do a thing RIGHT, than it does to explain why you did it WRONG. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Conceal a flaw, and teh world will imagine the worst.) (provlaws)
* It takes less TIME to do a thing RIGHT, than it does to explain why you did it WRONG ( --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) (provlaws)
* LOGIC is a systematic method of coming to the WRONG conclusion with confidence. (Manley's MaxIM) (provlaws)
* OPTIMISM, n: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is UGLY, everything good, especially the bad, and everything RIGHT that is WRONG. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the misCHANCE of falling int (provlaws)
* The absent are always in the WRONG. (ENGLISH Proverb ) (provlaws)
* The first pull on the cord ALWAYS sends the drapes in the WRONG direction. (Boyle's Other Law ) (provlaws)
* The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood that you are in the WRONG line. (The Queue Principal ) (provlaws)
* There's nothing WRONG with the average person that a good PSYCHIATRIST can't exaggerate ( --Toronto Star Newspaper) (provlaws)
* When a distinguished but elderly SCIENTIST states that something is possible, he is almost certainly RIGHT. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably WRONG. (Clarke's First Law ) (provlaws)
* When WOMEN go WRONG, men go RIGHT after them ( --Mae West) (provlaws)
selfish = This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of NATURE instead of a feverish SELFISH little clod of ailments and grievances COMPLAINing that the world will not devote itself to making you hap (provlaws)
* To be STUPID, SELFISH, an have good HEALTH are three requirements for HAPPINESS, though if STUPIDITY is lacking, all is lost. (Gustave Flaubert) (provlaws)
himself = A FOOL gives full vent to his anger, but a WISE MAN keeps HIMSELF under control (Miscellaneous Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Do you know what a PESSIMIST is? A MAN who thinks everybody as NASTY as HIMSELF, and HATEs them for it ( -- George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
* Every lion has to defend HIMSELF against flies. (German Proverb) (provlaws)
* Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing HIMSELF. (Leo Tolstoy) (provlaws)
* He that thinks HIMSELF the WISEst is generally the least so. (C.C. Colton ) (provlaws)
* He who trIMs HIMSELF to suit everyone will soon whittle HIMSELF away. (Raymond Hull ) (provlaws)
* He who trIMs HIMSELF to suit everyone will soon whittle HIMSELF away. (Raymond Hull ) (provlaws)
* If the thunder is not loud, the peasant FORGETs to cross HIMSELF. (Russian Proverb) (provlaws)
* It is impossible for a MAN to be CHEATed by anyone but HIMSELF. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (provlaws)
* It is not the critic who counts; not the MAN who points out how the strong MAN stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The CREDIT belongs to he MAN who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; wh (provlaws)
* It is not the critic who counts; not the MAN who points out how the strong MAN stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The CREDIT belongs to he MAN who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; wh (provlaws)
* Man is a make-believe anIMal - he is never so truly HIMSELF as when he is acting a part. (William Hazlitt) (provlaws)
* Man is least HIMSELF when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell the TRUTH. (Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* No MAN is FREE who is not master of HIMSELF. (Epictetus ) (provlaws)
* Only one who devotes HIMSELF to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this REASON mastry demands all of a person. (Albert Einstein ) (provlaws)
* The person who knows how to LAUGH at HIMSELF will never cease to be amused ( --Shirley Maclaine) (provlaws)
* The WISE MAN shapes HIMSELF to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* When a MAN assumes a public trust, he should consider HIMSELF as public PROPERTY. (Thomas Jefferson [letter,1807]) (provlaws)
* When a proud MAN hears another praised, he feels HIMSELF injured. (ENGLISH Proverb) (provlaws)
* You cannot teach a MAN anything.; you can only help him to find it for HIMSELF. (Galileo Galilei ) (provlaws)
words = Actions lie louder than WORDS. (Carolyn Wells ) (provlaws)
* In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for MALICE, MADness, folly, ENVY, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the WO (provlaws)
* Let no MAN deceive you with vain WORDS. (Biblical Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Poetry: the BEST WORDS in the BEST order. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge ) (provlaws)
* QUOTATION, n: The act of repEATING erroneously the WORDS of another. The WORDS erroneously repeated. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* QUOTATION, n: The act of repEATING erroneously the WORDS of another. The WORDS erroneously repeated. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* The word AEROBICS comes from two Greek WORDS: aero, meaning "ability to," and bics, meaning "withstand tremendous BOREDom." (Dave Barry) (provlaws)
* Use soft WORDS and hard arguments. (ENGLISH Proverb ) (provlaws)
* WORDS are, of course, the most powerful DRUG used by mankind. (Rudyard Kipling) (provlaws)
* WORDS must be weighed, not counted. (Polish Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Work and play are WORDS used to describe the same thing under differing conditions. (Mark Twain) (provlaws)
experience = A MAN who loses his MONEY, gains, at the least, EXPERIENCE, and sometimes, something better. (Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
* A proverb is a short sentence based on long EXPERIENCE. (Miguel de Cervantes ) (provlaws)
* Ask the EXPERIENCEd rather than the LEARNed. (Arabic proverb ) (provlaws)
* By three methods we may LEARN WISDOM: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by EXPERIENCE, which is the bitterest. (Confucius) (provlaws)
* Deep EXPERIENCE is never peaceful. (Henry James) (provlaws)
* EXPERIENCE is a good school but the fees are high. (HeinRICH Heine ) (provlaws)
* EXPERIENCE is the comb that NATURE gives us when we are bald. (Belgian proverb) (provlaws)
* EXPERIENCE, n: What causes a person to make new MISTAKEs instead of the same old ones. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* Good JUDGMENT comes from experience; EXPERIENCE comes from bad judgment. That’s why it’s better to be lucky than SMART. "Give me a general who’s LUCKY," said Napoleon. (Dalgish’s law) (provlaws)
* HAPPINESS isn't something you EXPERIENCE; it's something you remember. (Oscar Levent) (provlaws)
* HAPPINESS isn't something you EXPERIENCE; it's something you remember. (Oscar Levent) (provlaws)
* IMAGINATION is a poor substitute for EXPERIENCE. (Havelock Ellis) (provlaws)
* It is the EXPERIENCE of living that is important, not searching for meaning. We bring meaning by how we LOVE the world. (Bernie S. Siegel, MD ) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* The most beautiful thing we can EXPERIENCE is the mysterious. It is the source of all true ART and all SCIENCE. He to whom this eMOTION is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. (Alber (provlaws)
* To deceive a diplomat speak the TRUTH, he has no EXPERIENCE with it. (Greek Proverb ) (provlaws)
* ZEAL, n: A certain nervous disorder afflicting the YOUNG and inEXPERIENCEd. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
phenotype = different PHENOTYPEs choose different NICHEs (Ludwig effect) (provlaws)
* EVOLVABILITY is a concept in that relates ability of a particular PHENOTYPE to be ROBUST to MUTATIONS. It can be more precisely defined as the relative frequency of "good" mutations to a phenotype. Evolvability is thought to be determined primarily by the (provlaws)
* Evolvability is a concept in that relates ability of a particular PHENOTYPE to be robust to mutations. It can be more precisely defined as the relative frequency of "good" mutations to a phenotype. Evolvability is thought to be determined primarily by the (provlaws)
progress = All PROGRESS is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its INCOME ( --Samuel Butler) (provlaws)
* Do not confuse MOTION and PROGRESS. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any PROGRESS. (Alfred A. Montapert) (provlaws)
* Do not confuse MOTION and PROGRESS. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any PROGRESS. (Alfred A. Montapert) (provlaws)
* Do not confuse MOTION and PROGRESS. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any PROGRESS. (Alfred A. Montapert) (provlaws)
* Do not confuse MOTION and PROGRESS. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any PROGRESS. (Alfred A. Montapert) (provlaws)
* Life is a PROGRESS, and not a station. (Ralph Waldo Emerson ) (provlaws)
* PROGRESS was all RIGHT. Only it went on too long. (James Thurber) (provlaws)
* The world's BEST PROGRESS springs. (Ella Wheeler Wilcox) (provlaws)
failure = DESTINY, n: A tyrant's authority for crIMe and a FOOL's excuse for FAILURE. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by FAILURE . . . than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. ( (provlaws)
* Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by FAILURE . . . than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. ( (provlaws)
* Half the FAILUREs of this world arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping. (Augustus Hare ) (provlaws)
* I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my FAILUREs are those that walk about the stage. (Noel Coward) (provlaws)
* Through perserverence many people win SUCCESS out of what seemed destined to be certain FAILURE. (Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
resources = The competitive exclusion principle, sometimes referred to as Gause's Law of COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION or just Gause's Law, states that two species that compete for the exact same RESOURCES cannot stably COEXIST. One of the two competitors will always have an (provlaws)
* The COMPETITIVE exclusion principle, sometimes referred to as Gause's Law of competitive exclusion or just Gause's Law, states that two species that compete for the exact same RESOURCES cannot stably coexist. One of the two competitors will always have an (provlaws)
obvious = An ECONOMIST is a MAN who states the OBVIOUS in terms of the INCOMPREHENSIBLE. (Alfred A. Knopf) (provlaws)
* ECONOMIST, n: A MAN who states the OBVIOUS in terms of the INCOMPREHENSIBLE. (Alfred A. Knopf) (provlaws)
* In any collection of DATA, the figure most OBVIOUSly correct, beyond all need of checking, is the MISTAKE. (Finagle's Third Law) (provlaws)
* In sIMple cases, presenting one OBVIOUS RIGHT way versus one OBVIOUS WRONG way, it is often WISEr to choose the WRONG way so as to expedite subsequent revision. (Fyfe's First Law of Revision - Corollary I) (provlaws)
* In sIMple cases, presenting one OBVIOUS RIGHT way versus one OBVIOUS WRONG way, it is often WISEr to choose the WRONG way so as to expedite subsequent revision. (Fyfe's First Law of Revision - Corollary I) (provlaws)
generation = Life is no brief candle to me. I is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future GENERATIONs. (George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
* One GENERATION plants TREEs, another gets the shade. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* That which seems the height of absurdity in one GENERATION often becomes the height of WISDOM in the next. (John StuART Mill) (provlaws)
* The persistence for several GENERATIONs of an environmentally induced trait. (dauermodification) (provlaws)
succeed = He who undertakes too much seldom SUCCEEDs. (Dutch Proverb) (provlaws)
* If at first you don't SUCCEED, destroy all EVIDENCE that you have tried. (Rule of Failure) (provlaws)
* If at first you don't SUCCEED, read the manual (Montgomery's MaxIM ) (provlaws)
* It is better to fail in originality than to SUCCEED in imitation. (Herman Melville) (provlaws)
* Let us be thankful for FOOLS But for them the rest of us could not SUCCEED ( -- Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* People of MEDIOCRE ability someTIMEs achieve outstanding SUCCESS because they don't know when to quit. Most men SUCCEED because they are determined to. (George Allen ) (provlaws)
* The MAN who SUCCEEDs above his fellows is the one who early in life clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers. (Earl Nightingale) (provlaws)
learning = "Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows." LEARNING - (Papert’s principle) (provlaws)
* In biology, the "Baldwin effect" is the result of the interaction of evolution with LEARNING by individual animals over their lifetime. It turns out that individual learning tends to enhance evolutionary learning at the species level. The effect is named (provlaws)
* In biology, the "Baldwin effect" is the result of the interaction of evolution with LEARNING by individual animals over their lifetime. It turns out that individual learning tends to enhance evolutionary learning at the species level. The effect is named (provlaws)
* Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new ADMINISTRATIVE ways to use what one already knows. LEARNING - (Papert’s principle) (provlaws)
* The Law of Effect, characterized by Edward L. Thorndike, denotes the motivation for individuals who tend to repeat and quickly LEARN those reactions which are accompanied or followed by a satisfying effect, and he tends not to repeat and, hence, not learn (provlaws)
money = A MAN who loses his MONEY, gains, at the least, EXPERIENCE, and sometimes, something better. (Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
* BUSINESS, n: The ART of extracting MONEY from another man's pocket without resorting to violence. (Max Amsterdam) (provlaws)
* COMMERCE, n: A kind of transACTION in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of MONEY belonging to E. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* Don't offer me ADVICE; give me MONEY (Spanish Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Honesty is the BEST policy -- when there is MONEY in it. (Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* I can remember way back when a liberal was one who was generous with his MONEY. (Will Rogers) (provlaws)
* I can remember way back when a liberal was one who was generous with his MONEY. (Will Rogers) (provlaws)
* I don't like MONEY, actually, but it quiets my nerves ( --Joe Louis) (provlaws)
* If you don't want to WORK, you have to WORK to earn enough MONEY so that you won't have to WORK (Ogden Nash ) (provlaws)
* If you want to feel RICH, just count all of the things you have that MONEY can't buy. (Anon. ) (provlaws)
* Nothing more clearly show how little GOD esteems his gift to men of WEALTH, MONEY, position and other wordly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them ( -- Jean De La Bruyere) (provlaws)
* One coin in the MONEY box makes more noise than when it is full. (Arab Proverb) (provlaws)
* Ready MONEY WORKs great cures. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
* The proposition that a change in the GROWTH rate of the MONEY suPply brings an equal percentage change in the INFLATION rate. (quantity theory of money) (provlaws)
* The RICH worry over their MONEY, the poor over their bread. (Vietnamese Proverb) (provlaws)
* The RICH would have to eat MONEY if the poor did not provide FOOD. (Russian Proverb) (provlaws)
* With MONEY in your pocket you are WISE, you are handsome, and you sing well too. (Jewish Proverb) (provlaws)
* You can't force anyone to LOVE you or lend you MONEY. (Jewish Proverb) (provlaws)
right = A MAN who does not plan long ahead will find trouble RIGHT at his door. (Confucius ) (provlaws)
* BOUNDARY, n: In POLITICAL geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary RIGHTs of one from the imaginary RIGHTs of another. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* BOUNDARY, n: In POLITICAL geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary RIGHTs of one from the imaginary RIGHTs of another. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* Chicken Little only has to be RIGHT once. (Firestone's Law of Forecasting) (provlaws)
* DEMOCRACY is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are RIGHT more than half of the TIME ( -- E.B White) (provlaws)
* DEMOCRACY, n: The recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are RIGHT more than half the TIME. (E. B. White) (provlaws)
* Even a clock that does not WORK is RIGHT twice a day. (Polish Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Everyone has a RIGHT to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology. (Clive James) (provlaws)
* If you don't have TIME to do it RIGHT you must have TIME to do it over ( --Anonymous) (provlaws)
* If you don't have TIME to do it RIGHT you must have TIME to do it over. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* In a social situation, the most difficult thing to do is usually the RIGHT thing to do. (Meyers Law) (provlaws)
* In sIMple cases, presenting one OBVIOUS RIGHT way versus one OBVIOUS WRONG way, it is often WISEr to choose the WRONG way so as to expedite subsequent revision. (Fyfe's First Law of Revision - Corollary I) (provlaws)
* Incoming fire has the RIGHT of way. (Murphy's Fourth Military Law) (provlaws)
* It is only with the HEART that one can see RIGHTly,; what is essential is invisible to the eye. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) (provlaws)
* It takes less TIME to do a thing RIGHT, than it does to explain why you did it WRONG ( --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) (provlaws)
* It takes less TIME to do a thing RIGHT, than it does to explain why you did it WRONG. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Conceal a flaw, and teh world will imagine the worst.) (provlaws)
* No one can be RIGHT all of the TIME, but it helps to be RIGHT most of the TIME. (Robert Half ) (provlaws)
* No one can be RIGHT all of the TIME, but it helps to be RIGHT most of the TIME. (Robert Half ) (provlaws)
* Nobody NOTICES when things go RIGHT. (ZIMmerman's Law of Complaints) (provlaws)
* One DRINK is just RIGHT; two is too many; three are too few. (Spanish Proverb) (provlaws)
* OPTIMISM, n: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is UGLY, everything good, especially the bad, and everything RIGHT that is WRONG. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the misCHANCE of falling int (provlaws)
* PROGRESS was all RIGHT. Only it went on too long. (James Thurber) (provlaws)
* So long as a MAN is ANGRY he cannot be in the RIGHT. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* The ability to ask the RIGHT question is more than half the battle of finding the answer. (Thomas J. Watson) (provlaws)
* The BEST things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of RIGHT just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common WORK as it comes, certain that dail (provlaws)
* The difference between the RIGHT word and almost the RIGHT word is the difference between lighning and the lightning BUG ( -- Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* The difference between the RIGHT word and almost the RIGHT word is the difference between lighning and the lightning BUG ( -- Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* The MEEK shall inherit the EARTH, but not the mineral RIGHTs. (J. Paul Getty) (provlaws)
* There is LUXURY in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a RIGHT to blame us. (Oscar Wilde ) (provlaws)
* When a distinguished but elderly SCIENTIST states that something is possible, he is almost certainly RIGHT. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably WRONG. (Clarke's First Law ) (provlaws)
* When WOMEN go WRONG, men go RIGHT after them ( --Mae West) (provlaws)
language = American is a very difficult LANGUAGE mixed with ENGLISH ( -- Anonymous) (provlaws)
* Great Britain and the UNITED STATES are nations separated by a common LANGUAGE ( -- George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
* I don't mind what LANGUAGE an OPERA is sung in so long as it is a LANGUAGE I don't UNDERSTAND. (Sir Edward Appleton ) (provlaws)
* I don't mind what LANGUAGE an OPERA is sung in so long as it is the LANGUAGE I don't UNDERSTAND ( --Edward Appleton) (provlaws)
* I don't mind what LANGUAGE an OPERA is sung in so long as it is the LANGUAGE I don't UNDERSTAND ( --Edward Appleton) (provlaws)
* I don't mind what LANGUAGE an OPERA is sung in so long as it is a LANGUAGE I don't UNDERSTAND. (Sir Edward Appleton ) (provlaws)
* I personally think we developed LANGUAGE because of our deep need to COMPLAIN. (Lily Tomlin) (provlaws)
* Man invented LANGUAGE to satisfy his deep need to COMPLAIN ( --Lilly Tomlin, actress, author and commedian) (provlaws)
forget = Cows FORGET that they were calves. (Russian Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Forget injuries, never FORGET kindnesses. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* If the thunder is not loud, the peasant FORGETs to cross HIMSELF. (Russian Proverb) (provlaws)
* If you are given a take-home exam, you will FORGET where you live. (Corollary to the Fifth Law of Applied Terror) (provlaws)
* If you are given an open-BOOK exam, you will FORGET your BOOK. (Fifth Law of Applied Terror) (provlaws)
* Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in MEMORY as the wish to FORGET it. (Montaigne) (provlaws)
* Tell me and I'll FORGET. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll UNDERSTAND. (Native American Proverb) (provlaws)
* To want to FORGET something is to remember it. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
remember = Distortion of one's perceptions of reality due to the tendency to REMEMBER one alternative outcome of a situation much more easily than another. (availability error) (provlaws)
* People REMEMBER UNCOMPLETED or interrupted TASKs better than completed ones. MEMORY (Zeigarnik effect) (provlaws)
knowledge = An investment in KNOWLEDGE pays the BEST interest. (Benjamin Franklin ) (provlaws)
* Behavior that is RATIONAL within the parameters of a simplified model that captures the essential features of a problem. LIMITED KNOWLEDGE IGNORANCE - (bounded rationality) (provlaws)
* Behavior that is rational within the parameters of a simplified model that captures the essential features of a problem. LIMITED KNOWLEDGE IGNORANCE - (bounded rationality) (provlaws)
* God sells KNOWLEDGE for labour -- honour for risk. (Arabic Proverb) (provlaws)
* If youth but had the KNOWLEDGE and old age the strength. (FRENCH Proverb ) (provlaws)
* KNOWLEDGE becomes WISDOM only after it has been put to practical use. (Anon. ) (provlaws)
* KNOWLEDGE must be gained by ourselves. Mankind may supply us with the facts; but the results, even if they AGREE with previous ones, must be the WORK of our mind. (Benjamin Disraeli ) (provlaws)
* Science has to be understood in its broadest sense, as a method for comprehending all observable reality, and not merely as an instrument for acquiring specialized KNOWLEDGE. (Alexis Carrel ) (provlaws)
* When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it--this is KNOWLEDGE. (Confucius) (provlaws)
* WISDOM is KNOWLEDGE which has become a part of one's being. (Orison S. Marden) (provlaws)
* WISDOM is KNOWLEDGE which has become a part of one's being. (Orison S. Marden) (provlaws)
child = A PAINTER told me that nobody could draw a TREE without in some sort becoming a TREE; or draw a CHILD by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a TIME his MOTIONs and plays, the PAINTER enters into his NATURE and can then draw (provlaws)
* Do not MISTAKE a CHILD for his symptom. (Erik Erikson ) (provlaws)
* Everyone who ever walked barefoot into his CHILD's room late at night HATEs Legos. (Tony Kornheiser) (provlaws)
* Give to a pig when it grunts and a CHILD when it cries , and you will have a fine pig and a BAD CHILD. (Danish Proverb) (provlaws)
* Give to a pig when it grunts and a CHILD when it cries , and you will have a fine pig and a BAD CHILD. (Danish Proverb) (provlaws)
* He who takes a CHILD by the hand takes a mother by the HEART. (Danish Proverb) (provlaws)
* If thine ENEMY offend thee, give his CHILD a drum ( --Chinese Curse) (provlaws)
* I've noticed that one thing about PARENTS is that no matter what stage your CHILD is in, the PARENTS who have older CHILDREN always tell you the next stage is WORSE. (Dave Barry) (provlaws)
* My husband and I are either going to buy a DOG or have a CHILD. We can't decide whether to ruin our CARPET or ruin our lives. (Rita Rudner) (provlaws)
* One thing they never tell you about CHILD raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your CHILD's name and how old he or she is. (Erma Bombeck) (provlaws)
* One thing they never tell you about CHILD raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your CHILD's name and how old he or she is. (Erma Bombeck) (provlaws)
* Perhaps a CHILD who is fussed over gets a feeling of DESTINY, he thinks he is in the world for something important and it gives him drive and confidence. (Dr. Benjamin Spock) (provlaws)
* Sit down before fact as a little CHILD, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses NATURE leads, or you will LEARN nothing. (Thomas H. Huxley ) (provlaws)
* Sorrow is the CHILD of too much joy. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* SWEATER, n: Garment worn by CHILD when it's mother is feeling chilly. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
* TELEVISION has changed the American CHILD from an irresistible force to an immovable object. (Laurence J. Peter ) (provlaws)
* TELEVISION has changed the American CHILD from an irresistible force to an immovable object. (Laurence J. Peter ) (provlaws)
* The stories of CHILDhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of MEMORY from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived. (Howard Pyle ) (provlaws)
* There is always one moment in CHILDhood when the door opens and lets the future in. (Grahm Greene, from The Power and the Glory ) (provlaws)
* Who takes the CHILD by the hand takes the mother by the HEART. (German Proverb) (provlaws)
children = CHILDREN are a great comfort in your old age -- and they help you reach it faster, too ( --Lionel Kauffman) (provlaws)
* CHILDREN are a poor man's WEALTH. (Danish Proverb ) (provlaws)
* CHILDREN are entitled to their otherness, as anyone is; and when we reach them, as we someTIMEs do, it is generally on a point of sheer delight, to us so astonishing, but to them so natural. (Alastair Reid) (provlaws)
* CHILDREN are entitled to their otherness, as anyone is; and when we reach them, as we someTIMEs do, it is generally on a point of sheer delight, to us so astonishing, but to them so natural. (Alastair Reid) (provlaws)
* Debts are like CHILDREN: the smaller they are the more noise they make. (Spanish Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Don't try to make CHILDREN grow up to be like you, or they may do it ( --Russell Baker) (provlaws)
* Familiarity breeds contempt -- and CHILDREN. (Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* I take my CHILDREN everywhere, but they always find their way back home ( --Robert Orben) (provlaws)
* I want to have CHILDREN and I know my TIME is running out: I want to have them while my PARENTS are still YOUNG enough to take care of them. (Rita Rudner) (provlaws)
* I've noticed that one thing about PARENTS is that no matter what stage your CHILD is in, the PARENTS who have older CHILDREN always tell you the next stage is WORSE. (Dave Barry) (provlaws)
* Never raise your hand to your CHILDREN; it leaves your midsection unprotected. (Robert Orben) (provlaws)
* Providence protects CHILDREN and IDIOTS I know because I have tested it ( --Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in NATURE, nor do the CHILDREN of men as a whole EXPERIENCE it. Avoiding DANGER is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a DARING adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller) (provlaws)
* The pursuit of TRUTH and BEAUTY is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain CHILDREN all our lives. (Albert Einstein ) (provlaws)
* The trouble with CHILDREN is that they are not returnable. (Quentin Crisp) (provlaws)
* To UNDERSTAND your PARENTS' LOVE, bear your own CHILDREN. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* We do not inherit the EARTH from our ancestors; we borrow it from our CHILDREN. (Haida Proverb) (provlaws)
* Your CHILDREN need your presence more than your presents. (Jesse Jackson ) (provlaws)
* YOUTH is a wonderful thing What a crIMe to waste it on CHILDREN ( -- George Bernard Shaw) (provlaws)
learn = All things good to know are difficult to LEARN. (Greek Proverb ) (provlaws)
* Ask the EXPERIENCEd rather than the LEARNed. (Arabic proverb ) (provlaws)
* By LEARNing you will teach; by teaching you will LEARN. (Latin Proverb ) (provlaws)
* By LEARNing you will teach; by teaching you will LEARN. (Latin Proverb ) (provlaws)
* By three methods we may LEARN WISDOM: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by EXPERIENCE, which is the bitterest. (Confucius) (provlaws)
* Creative SEMANTICS is the key to contemporary GOVERNMENT; it consists of talking in strange tongues lest the public LEARN the inevitable inconveniently early. (George Will) (provlaws)
* EARTh and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever LEARN from BOOKs. (John Lubbock) (provlaws)
* EARTh and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever LEARN from BOOKs. (John Lubbock) (provlaws)
* I could never LEARN to like her, except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight ( -- Mark Twain ) (provlaws)
* If you can't LEARN to do it well, you should LEARN to enjoy doing it badly. (Ashleigh's First Law) (provlaws)
* If you can't LEARN to do it well, you should LEARN to enjoy doing it badly. (Ashleigh's First Law) (provlaws)
* Live with wolves, and you LEARN to howl. (Spanish Proverb) (provlaws)
* People come to Washington believing it is the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I LEARNed that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to an engine. (Richard Goodwin) (provlaws)
* Sit down before fact as a little CHILD, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses NATURE leads, or you will LEARN nothing. (Thomas H. Huxley ) (provlaws)
* The Law of Effect, characterized by Edward L. Thorndike, denotes the motivation for individuals who tend to repeat and quickly LEARN those reactions which are accompanied or followed by a satisfying effect, and he tends not to repeat and, hence, not learn (provlaws)
* The MAN who does not LEARN is dark, like one walking in the night. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* The world has to LEARN that the actual PLEASURE derived from material things is of rather low quality on the whole and less even in quantity than it looks to those who have not tried it. (Oliver Wendell Holmes ) (provlaws)
* We LEARN from HISTORY that we do not LEARN from HISTORY. (Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel ) (provlaws)
* We LEARN from HISTORY that we do not LEARN from HISTORY. (Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel ) (provlaws)
* We must LEARN our LIMITS. We are all something, but none of us are everything. (Blaise Pascal) (provlaws)
* We must LEARN our LIMITS. We are all something, but none of us are everything. (Blaise Pascal) (provlaws)
* You don't UNDERSTAND anything until you LEARN it more than one way. (Marvin Minsky) (provlaws)
* You teach BEST what you most need to LEARN. (Richard Bach ) (provlaws)
journals = JOURNALS in a field can be divided into three parts, each with about one-third of all articles: 1) a core of a few journals, 2) a second zone, with more journals, and 3) a third zone, with the bulk of journals. The number of journals is 1:n:n². Note: Brad (provlaws)
* JOURNALS in a field can be divided into three parts, each with about one-third of all articles: 1) a core of a few journals, 2) a second zone, with more journals, and 3) a third zone, with the bulk of journals. The number of journals is 1:n:n². Note: Brad (provlaws)
appear = Half the WORK that is done in the world is to make things APPEAR what they are not. (E.R. Beadle) (provlaws)
* SCIENCE, n:An orderly arrangement of what at the moment APPEAR to be facts. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* Speak of the devil and he APPEARs. (Italian Proverb ) (provlaws)
* The mark of a good ACTION is that it APPEARs inevitable in retrospect. (Robert Louis Stevenson) (provlaws)
* The more innocuous the modification APPEARs to be, the further its influence will extend and the more the design will have to be redrawn. (Fyfe's Second Law of Revision) (provlaws)
* TRUTH, n: An ingenious compound of desirability and APPEARance. Discovery of TRUTH is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a FAIR prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of TIME. ( (provlaws)
* Walk till the blood APPEARs on the cheek, but not the sweat on the brow. (Spanish Proverb ) (provlaws)
credit = It is not the critic who counts; not the MAN who points out how the strong MAN stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The CREDIT belongs to he MAN who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; wh (provlaws)
* It is not the critic who counts; not the MAN who points out how the strong MAN stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The CREDIT belongs to he MAN who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; wh (provlaws)
* The world is divided into people who do things--and people who get the CREDIT ( -- Dwight Morrow ) (provlaws)
* You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the CREDIT. (Ronald Reagan) (provlaws)
* You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the CREDIT. (Ronald Reagan) (provlaws)
memory = Any PROGRAM will expand to fill available MEMORY. (Laws of Computer Programming, V) (provlaws)
* Gratitude is the HEART's MEMORY. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
* It is only by not paying one's bills that one can HOPE to live in the MEMORY of the commercial classes. (Oscar Wilde) (provlaws)
* MEMORY is the greatest of ARTISTS, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary. (Maurice Baring) (provlaws)
* Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in MEMORY as the wish to FORGET it. (Montaigne) (provlaws)
* People REMEMBER UNCOMPLETED or interrupted TASKs better than completed ones. MEMORY (Zeigarnik effect) (provlaws)
* People remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. MEMORY (Zeigarnik effect) (provlaws)
* The palest ink is better than the BEST MEMORY. (Chinese Proverb) (provlaws)
* The stories of CHILDhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of MEMORY from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived. (Howard Pyle ) (provlaws)
* When GLORY comes, loss of MEMORY follows. (FRENCH Proverb) (provlaws)
* Yesterday is but today's MEMORY, and tomorrow is today's DREAM. (Kahlil Gibran) (provlaws)
program = Any given PROGRAM costs more and takes longer. (Laws of Computer Programming, II) (provlaws)
* Any given PROGRAM, when running, is OBSOLETE. (Laws of Computer Programming, I) (provlaws)
* Any non-trivial PROGRAM contains at least one BUG. (Laws of Computer Programming, VIII) (provlaws)
* Any PROGRAM will expand to fill available MEMORY. (Laws of Computer Programming, V) (provlaws)
* BUG, n: An aspect of a computer PROGRAM which exists because the PROGRAMmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the PROGRAM. (Not Your Average Dictionary) (provlaws)
* BUG, n: An aspect of a computer PROGRAM which exists because the PROGRAMmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the PROGRAM. (Not Your Average Dictionary) (provlaws)
* BUG, n: An aspect of a computer PROGRAM which exists because the PROGRAMmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the PROGRAM. (Not Your Average Dictionary) (provlaws)
* For every ACTION there is an equal and opposite GOVERNMENT PROGRAM. (Main's Law) (provlaws)
* If a PROGRAM is useful, it will have to be changed. (Laws of Computer Programming, III) (provlaws)
* If a PROGRAM is useless, it will have to be documented. (Laws of Computer Programming, IV) (provlaws)
* If builders built buildings the way PROGRAMMERS wrote PROGRAMs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. (Weinberg's Second Law) (provlaws)
* Program COMPLEXITY grows until it exceeds the capabilities of the PROGRAMmer who must maintain it. (Laws of Computer Programming, VII) (provlaws)
* The value of a PROGRAM is proportional to the weight of its OUTPUT. (Laws of Computer Programming, VI) (provlaws)
limits = Everyone takes the LIMITS of his own vision for the LIMITS of the world. (Arthur ScHOPEnhauer) (provlaws)
* Everyone takes the LIMITS of his own vision for the LIMITS of the world. (Arthur ScHOPEnhauer) (provlaws)
* The LIMITS of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the () (provlaws)
* We must LEARN our LIMITS. We are all something, but none of us are everything. (Blaise Pascal) (provlaws)
* We must LEARN our LIMITS. We are all something, but none of us are everything. (Blaise Pascal) (provlaws)
chance = DESTINY is no matter of CHANCE. It is a matter of CHOICE: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. (William Jennings Bryan ) (provlaws)
* Equal OPPORTUNITY means everyone will have a FAIR CHANCE at being INCOMPETENT. (Laurence J. Peter) (provlaws)
* I will study and get ready, and perhaps my CHANCE will come. (Abraham Lincoln) (provlaws)
* I will study and get ready, and perhaps my CHANCE will come. (Abraham Lincoln) (provlaws)
* In the field of observation, CHANCE favors the prepared mind. (Louis Pasteur) (provlaws)
* OPTIMISM, n: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is UGLY, everything good, especially the bad, and everything RIGHT that is WRONG. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the misCHANCE of falling int (provlaws)
* The CHANCE of the bread falling with the BUTTER side down is directly proportional to the value of the CARPET. (Jennings' Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity ) (provlaws)
growth = if different cities grow randomly with the same expected GROWTH rate and the same variance (Gibrat’s Law), the limit distribution of CITY SIZE will converge so as to obey ZIPF’s Law. (Gibrat’s law) (provlaws)
* The proposition that a change in the GROWTH rate of the MONEY suPply brings an equal percentage change in the INFLATION rate. (quantity theory of money) (provlaws)
death = and one comes winged with DEATH. (Scottish Clock Motto ) (provlaws)
* DEATH is a very dull, dreary affair, and my ADVICE to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it ( --WSomerset Maugham, author ) (provlaws)
* DEATH will be a great relief. No more INTERVIEWS. (Katherine Hepburn) (provlaws)
* Good men must die, but DEATH cannot kill their names. (Spanish Proverb) (provlaws)
* I would like to live in Manchester, ENGLAND. The transition between Manchester and DEATH would be unnoticeable. (Mark Twain) (provlaws)
* Life is but a moment, DEATH also is but another. (Dr Robert Schuller) (provlaws)
* Life is not separate from DEATH. It only looks that way. (Native American Proverb (Blackfoot)) (provlaws)
* Live your own life, for you will die your own DEATH. (Latin Proverb) (provlaws)
* Nothing is more sad than the DEATH of an illusion. (Arthur Koestler ) (provlaws)
* OPTIMISM, n: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is UGLY, everything good, especially the bad, and everything RIGHT that is WRONG. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the misCHANCE of falling int (provlaws)
* Poverty is DEATH in another form. (Latin Proverb) (provlaws)
painting = I don't like FOOD that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much TIME arranging and not enough TIME COOKING. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a PAINTING. (Andy Rooney ) (provlaws)
* PAINTING, n: The ART of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic. (Ambrose Bierce) (provlaws)
experiment = If an EXPERIMENT works, something has gone WRONG. (Finagle's First Law) (provlaws)
* No EXPERIMENT is reproducible. (Wyszowski's Law ) (provlaws)
* No matter what the EXPERIMENT's result, there will always be someone eager to: (a) misinterpret it. (b) fake it. or (c) believe it supports his own pet THEORY. (Finagle's Second Law) (provlaws)
* STATISTICAL ANALYSIS, n: Mysterious, someTIMEs bizarre, manipulations performed upon the collected DATA of an EXPERIMENT in order to obscure the fact that the results have no generalizable meaning for humanity. Commonly, computers are used, lending an add (provlaws)
stress = if a biological system is subjected to STRESS, it will act in such a way as to reduce the stress.www.merckmedicus.com/pp/us/hcp/thcp_dorlands_content.jsp (Le Chatelier principle) (provlaws)
* The STRESS applied to any solid is proportional to the strain it produces within the ELASTIC limit for that solid. The constant of that proportionality is the Young modulus of ELASTICITY for that substance. (Hooke's law) (provlaws)
written = The UNITED STATES is a nation of LAWS: badly WRITTEN and randomly enforced. (Frank Zappa) (provlaws)
* What is WRITTEN without EFFORT is in general read without PLEASURE. (Samuel Johnson [Seward's 'Biographia', 1799]) (provlaws)
* What is WRITTEN without EFFORT is in general read without PLEASURE. (Samuel Johnson [Seward's 'Biographia', 1799]) (provlaws)
* When WRITTEN in Chinese, the word "CRISIS" is composed of two characters. One represents DANGER and the other represents OPPORTUNITY. (John F. Kennedy ) (provlaws)
* When WRITTEN in Chinese, the word "CRISIS" is composed of two characters. One represents DANGER and the other represents OPPORTUNITY. (John F. Kennedy ) (provlaws)
actors = I never said all ACTORS are cattle; what I said was all ACTORS should be treated like cattle ( -- Alfred Hitchcock ) (provlaws)
* I never said all ACTORS are cattle; what I said was all ACTORS should be treated like cattle ( -- Alfred Hitchcock ) (provlaws)
* You can pick out ACTORS by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves ( -- Michael Wilding) (provlaws)
errors = Undetectable ERRORS are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable ERRORS, which by definition are lIMited. (Laws of Computer Programming, IX) (provlaws)
* Undetectable ERRORS are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable ERRORS, which by definition are lIMited. (Laws of Computer Programming, IX) (provlaws)
limited = Behavior that is rational within the parameters of a simplified model that captures the essential features of a problem. LIMITED KNOWLEDGE IGNORANCE - (bounded rationality) (provlaws)
* Behavior that is RATIONAL within the parameters of a simplified model that captures the essential features of a problem. LIMITED KNOWLEDGE IGNORANCE - (bounded rationality) (provlaws)
mistake = An EXPERT is someone who knows some of the worst MISTAKEs that can be made in his subject and who manages to avoid them. (William Heisenberg ['Der Teil und das Ganze', 1969] ) (provlaws)
* Do not MISTAKE a CHILD for his symptom. (Erik Erikson ) (provlaws)
* EXPERIENCE, n: What causes a person to make new MISTAKEs instead of the same old ones. (Anonymous) (provlaws)
* I never make the MISTAKE of ARGUING with people for whose OPINIONS I have no respect. (Edward Gibbon ) (provlaws)
* In any collection of DATA, the figure most OBVIOUSly correct, beyond all need of checking, is the MISTAKE. (Finagle's Third Law) (provlaws)
* Men heap together the MISTAKEs of their lives, and create a monster they call DESTINY ( --John Oliver Hobbes) (provlaws)
* The MAN who makes no MISTAKEs does not usually make anything. (Edward Phelps) (provlaws)
* To be in LOVE is merely to be in a state of perpetual anesthesia - to MISTAKE an ordinary YOUNG WOMAN for a goddess ( -- H.L Mencken ) (provlaws)