Dawkins and Incurable Mind Viruses? Memes, Rationality and Evolution R. S. Percival ABSTRACT Dawkins tries to establish an analogy between computer viruses and theistic belief systems, analyzing the latter in terms of his concept of the meme. The underlying thrust of Dawkins' argument is to downplay the role of truth and logic in the survival of theories and to emphasize humankind's helpless liability to incurable infection by doctrines that Dawkins regards as absurd. Dawluns supplies a list of "symptoms of mind-infection. hut on closer investigation these characteristics are found to be either rather vveak protection against criticism or 4inte virtuous. Dawkins relies on a crude justificationism that could past as well be called a mind-virus. Applying Dawkins" own selection of the general characteristics of a good meme protector and propagator leads to the conclusion that his particular theistic examples would actually impair copyability. Scientific theories are better examples of mines with high longevity, fecundity, and fidelity. A Darwinian analysis of wishful and fearful thinking as useful to hypotheses-testing and goal-seeking organisms undermines Dawkins' attribution of absolute irrational stubbornness to theists. To counterbalance Dawkins' emphasis on the propagation of the absurd. I rehabilitate the Socratic emphasis on the importance of truth and logic in rhetoric, interpreted broadly as the theory of the successful propagation of a message. I use Popper's notion of situational analysis, and an evolutionary persoecttye to argue that rational standards of a message enhance its copyabibty. I further apply Popper\ notions ot Work!, 2, and 3 to metrics, this helps us see the perpetuation of a doctrine as a logical task I. hstrod ARTICLES Can a theoretical system be reproduced through a population of human minds regardleys of its correspondence to reality and human reason? In Dawkins' paper is God a Computer Virusr 41993), he argues that doctrines such as theism. faith, holy mysteries. etc. are like computer viruses in that they are disruptive errors whose ubiquitous presence is due simply to their exceptional capacity to induce their carriers to replicate them. Just as a biological virus subverts the machinery of the cell to make copies of itself or a computer virus subverts the machinery of the computer to make copies of itself, so absurd theones about the world can spread remarkably well through human brains by exploiting two of their outstanding features. Human brains, 110111111111111111011111011111.011.1111111.111MNIE0it S Pwrivol_ _ . . . . . . . ,•f m u t . . . . g a l • S ,tepoL, • 4 .4 (airari•s 19114s IA1 hew ter A A N a m ult tel l i tadOCIA36 M O ( ( O a rtatrocsa 241 rP k*" 244 - R. S. PERCIVAL especially young ones. are both ready and able to copy information and also obey instructions embodied in the information. Dawkins' theory can be put briefly this way, Absurd doctrines will survive and spread to the extent that they: (1) instruct, command or otherwise motivate the carrier to copy them.and (2) incorporate or associate with attitudes. lifestyles, or instructions that avoid, repress, or make irrelevant undermining evidence and rival doctrines. Some theories, Dawkins asserts (1976t1990, p. 198), can exploit blind faith, so that absurdity not only enhances an idea's copyability but makes it secure against counterevidence: "Another member of the religious meme complex is called faith. It means blind trust in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence." Dawkins is not alone in the attribution of absolute stubbornness to certain types of doctrine. Thus, Kolakowski (1978. p. 452) writes. "Not only in the 'socialist bloc,' where the authorities used every means to prevent information seeping in from the outside world, but also in the democratic countries. the Communist parties had created a mentality that was completely immune to all facts and arguments 'from outside.' i.e., from 'bourgeois' sources." The supposition that there are "mind-viruses" is part of Dawkins' general theory of memetic evolution. In The Selfish Gene (1976/ 1990), Dawkins developed the theory that with the emergence of the human brain a new type of replicator came into existence. He called this the meme. a general term which includes ideas, theories, designs, tunes, fashions, etc. Dawkins thinks that trying to explain culture in Darwinian terms is worthwhile, but that not all cultural phenomena can be reduced to genes and their evolution. The Darwinian process of selection is a much more general notion than that, and it can be applied to the evolution of memes. He makes very plain that memetic evolution can be quite independent of our genetic evolution. The meme for celibacy, for instance, Dawkins argues, is clearly independent of genetic evolution: it hardly increases the genetic reproducibility of those humans who replicate the meme. What is important for Dawkins is that once brains developed the capacity and tendency for imitation (perhaps but not necessarily to imitate genetically fit behavior of adults), memes that were neutral or even maladaptive could get spread about. Ruse (1986. p. 178) says that "All beliefs have their roots in adaptive advantage." But even fatal memes can survive if their carriers pass them on before they die: or a meme, such as the Chinese policy of limiting births to one per family, may simply lower the fertility of those who adopt it, giving no individual a genetic advantage. To reinforce Dawkins' point, even if the spontaneously generated new memes where originally conducive to genetic reproducibility, errors in imitation (replication) could produce variants subject to other non-genetic criteria of selection. Memes adapted to one use may be adopted for quite another use. [Editor's Note 1: See my Note at the end of Verhulst's article in this Issue for references on "pre-adapation," or the use of traits evolved for one adaptation in other, quite different ones-noticed by Darwin.-PL] In any case, the right conditions for a Darwinian evolutionary process seem to be present. Ideas, fashions, tunes (memes in general) are subject to at least a degree of blind variation, differential elimination, and reproduction. uperficial criticisms of Dawkins' position point to the dissimilarities between ge there iscultural evolution, that culturalevolution is faster than genetic evolution, that e r e is more chance of hybridization in culture, and that the transmission of culture is Lamarckian (Hallpike, 1988). But these criticisms miss the point: what is being asserted is that the two processes are similar not identical; the general conditions are the same. As for the objection that cultural transmission is Lamarckian, one can cheerfully accept this, pointing out that each stage of a Darwinian process--variation, differential elimination, and reproduction-can contain both planned and blind elements. This is perhaps an appropriate place to offer a sketchy, bird's-eye view of how memetic evolution fits into an overall scheme of evolution. This will also enable me to indicate the role of purpose within the broad scheme. I think we can usefully distinguish four types of evolution, emerging in the following sequence. (This schema is meant for expository purposes, and not as a complete list of types of evolution. Worlds 1, 2, & 3 are Popper's terms for the domains of physics, psychology, and abstract entities such as theories and arguments.) Characterizing each type is a cluster o f mechanisms (operating according t o propensities)' o f blind variation, differential elimination, and reproduction. As Popper has argued, each type is emergent, in the sense that although the previous type made it possible, it has autonomous properties, laws, and relations unpredictable from the previous type. Although each type cannot be predicted from the older types, it can be understood as a solution to problems presented by the previous type. With the emergence of each type we witness the emergence of new units of selection and new modes and criteria of variation, selection and reproduction. Each type helps to set up the structure of the next type, a structure which then influences and constrains how the older types influence it. In "Of Clouds and Clocks," Popper (1965, in 1972) speaks of each new type as exercising "plastic" control over the older types. Cosmological evolution was completely blind until the emergence of goal directed action in organisms and later conscious purpose in the hominid brain. But the emergence of purpose does not exclude a Darwinian analysis. I must stress that the human brain thinks according to a Darwinian-like process with an admixture of design: (1) partly blind, partly designed variations; (2) partly blind, partly designed selection; (3) partly blind, partly designed reproduction. For example, a scientist may consciously search in a planned way for the solution to a consciously formulated problem, perhaps using the technique of "brain storming" to enhance variation, but the particular new trial hypotheses the scientist will produce are unforeseeable (blind); the scientist may plan to critically evaluate each trial solution, but the particular resultant criticisms produced or encountered are unforeseeable; the scientist may plan the application of the solution to new problems (reproduction), but exactly which particular problems it will be applied to and how it will fair the scientist cannot tell. ( I think this successfully counters with Zahar's assertion (1989, p. 23), that the progress of science is Lamarckian and not Darwinian.) Campbell (1960) points out that systematic methods of discovery or problem solving (e.g., Zahar's heuristics) are the result of earlier processes of blind selection and retention processes. Expanding this, one can say that even Lamarckian-like elements-designs, plans, instructions, and goals-are a result o f previous processes of blind variation, selection, and reproduction. (Popper 1) evolut ion of inanimate matter 2) phylogenetic and ontogenic evolution of the brain 3) phylogenetic and ontogenic evolution of the mind 4) memet ic evolution, selection occurring over the output of many brains Dawkins and Mind Viruses 2 4 5 ) W o r l d 1 ) W o r l d 1 I W o r l d 2 ) W o r l d

pw 248 - R. S. PERCIVAL On the other hand, I want to uphold the supreme importance of promoting a critical ethos-the institutions, attitudes, and methods that make possible both the maximum production of competing ideas and their severe criticism. 2. Mind-Virus Detection Kit Dawkins says that like the computer virus the successful "mind virus" will be difficult to detect. But there may be tell-tale signs. Just as there are computer virus detecting programs that look for symptoms of infection, so one might put together a list of symptoms that an infected mind might have. Dawkins suggests the following. • a compelling belief that "owes nothing to evidence or reason"; • t he person makes a "positive virtue" out of "strong and unshakeable" belief in the absence of evidence; because this belief refers to itself;otherwise awkward requests for the evidence for this virtue are undermined-at least in the eyes of the believer; • mystery per se is regarded as a good thing, something to be savored, not solved; again, this belief refers not only t o particular "mysteries" (such as Transubstantiation and the Trinity) but also to itself, and thus forms a psychological barrier not only to the criticism of a "mystery" but also itself: an extreme version of this is Tertullian's "certum est quia impossibile" (it is certain because it is impossible). Let's look at this last symptom in more detail. Dawkins is particularly concerned in his article (1993) with those memes, like Tertullian's creed, that are self referential, that enjoin or otherwise induce their carriers to protect them from criticism. Dawkins fails to mention that some of these characteristics are equivalent to Popper's "immunizing stratagems" and "ad hoc hypotheses"(Popper, 1934) and "reinforced dogmatisms" (1963). An immunizing stratagem is a reinterpretation of a theory or evidence in order to avoid refutation. An example is the reinterpretation of the Jehovah's Witnesses' prediction that the world would end in 1914 to mean that this was the year Jesus Christ was crowned in heaven (see Wells, 1988). An ad hoc hypothesis is introduced to cater to a particular anomaly, the result not adding to the theory's information content, and possibly reducing it. An example is provided by Velikovsky, according to whom the planet Venus was originally a comet which, after a catastrophic near-miss of the Earth, became trapped by the gravity of the solar system. Velikovsky predicted that all civilizations should have a record of this event. However, when no records of extraordinary events were found in the literature of many communities of the time, Velikovsky swept this difficulty aside by supposing that everyone at this time had suffered shock-induced amnesia. Lastly, Tertullian's creed is an example of what Popper calls a "reinforced dogmatism." Hegers dialectic, which even more explicitly repudiates the law of contradiction, is another example. These ideas are reinforced dogmatisms because they seem to disarm all possible ccorinticriasdmic' since any straightfor c r i t i c i s m o f a theory consists o f pointing to a tion between the theory and a description of the facts or to a contradiction withinthe theory itself. ward