Evolution and Literature Web Paper 2

Memes are ideas, behaviors, or styles that spread from person to person within a culture. In a way they signify the evolution of culture. Genes transmit biological information, whereas memes transmit ideas, and information about belief. The meme is a unit for carrying out cultural ideas which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other phenomena. Memes are the cultural analogues to genes because the self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.
 
Memes can be selected for over many years through religion and ritual:

“'The finished book doesn't interest me,' he said, only the book that is being written, 'the book to come.'”*

            It seems like something from a science fiction novel, a parasite infecting and effectively controlling the mind and behaviors of others. The video illustrates the ant’s absolute loss of control over its body, even sacrificing itself in order to serve a foreign purpose that was implanted into its mind (to ensure the reproduction of more of the lancet flukes). The concept of mind controlling can definitely cause people to feel uneasy but some might dismiss this case since it occurs in species other than humans, however, a disguised perpetrator exists within our society where it is actually welcomed… 

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The Art of Persuasion Through Abuse

            In “Darwin’s Dangerous Ideas,” Daniel Dennett equates the theory of evolution with a universal acid that cannot be contained and “eats through virtually every traditional concept” (Dennett 1995). As a premedical student aspiring to become a future physician, I was eager to discover the erosive effects of this universal acid on the medical field.

ames Hercher

Evolution in Lit

Web Paper #2

Intellectual Flexibility Inspired by Daniel Dennett

 After I had asked whether the words “ain’t” or “snuck” were actually words, my third grade teacher told me to look them up in the dictionary. She said that if I found them, they were words. If not, then they were improper. Simple as that. Is this, however, an incorrect way at viewing words? Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, was the very first comprehensive (as comprehensive as we are aware of) compilation of words in the English language. The commencement of the dictionary helped to shape the world of literature, professional publications, and writing. The dictionary, upon its every-decade renewal, deems words as useful and true if they are included within its published and meticulously edited pages.

Coral A. Walker

March 4, 2010

BIO/ENG 223

Dalke & Grobstein

Webpaper #2

Evolving Identities: A Focus on Immigrant Stories