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From: "Collegium Budapest" <nanay(a)uclink4.berkeley.edu>
To: <koglist(a)cogpsyphy.hu>
Cc: <mafla(a)hps.elte.hu>
Subject: Nanay seminar
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:42:41 -0700
The Rector and the permanent fellows of Collegium Budapest invite you to the
following fellow seminar:
Bence Nanay
Genes, Memes, and Photocopied Pages.
Is Replication a Philosophically Interesting Concept?
11.00. am.
Thursday, May 6, 2002.
Seminar Room
Collegium Budapest
Szentharomsag ter 2.
1014
Abstract:
What do photocopied pages, DNA molecules, and memes, the units of
cultural transmission have in common? A simple answer to this question
would be that these entities are being copied in some way or another.
Philosophers of biology call these entities replicators. The concept of
replicator is intended to be a generalisation of genotype, so that
evolutionary explanation could be given for processes in which entities
other than genes are involved.
I question the importance of the concept of replication by suggesting
the possibility that the various definitions of replication either
cannot serve as the basis of evolutionary explanations or they are so
narrow that only the gene counts as replicator, which would make the
general category of replication useless. After analysing various
definitions of replication, it is argued that only one of these could be
used in evolutionary explanations, namely, the one that is involved in
so-called cumulative selection. Finally, I question that anything else
than genes may belong to this category. If the conclusion is correct,
this means that the very popular attempts to provide evolutionary
explanation for various phenomena, such as culture, neural development
or operant conditioning, lack the explanatory power they aim to have.