Re: virus: Conservative views

KMO (kmo@c-realm.com)
Sat, 13 Mar 1999 11:03:38 -0800

Hi Kristy,

I'd highly recommend that you read "The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History" by Howard Bloom. In terms of readability, it's much better than anything Dawkins has written with the possible exception of "River Out of Eden." In it, Bloom makes a very good case for group competition and selection. Bloom theorizes that memes were originally an epigenetic marker that allowed people with common genes to identify one another and allow human superorganisms to maintain coheasiveness in the absence of clearly identifiable physical markers of genetic identity.

I realize that this is more of an arrow pointing in the direction of an answer to your question than an actualy answer, and I hope you'll forgive me for not devoting more time and energy to it. Many of the people on this list, including Richard, David, and Reed have all read "The Lucifer Principle," and if you ask them nicely, maybe they'd add some detail or make corrections to the sketch of an answer that I gave to your question.

Take care.

-KMO

Zloduska wrote:
>
> KMO wrote:
>
> >I'd wager that there is a genetic predisposition for racism. I also
> >agree with Dawkins in that we don't have to follow the programming from
> >our selfish genes.
>
> Really? How so? I don't agree that racism involves genetics at all, but
> maybe after I hear your reasons I'll change my mind. Right now, I think
> that's an odd (but intriguing) assertion.
>
> ~kjs