20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The laryngeal nerve's haphazard course through the body
A favourite example, ever since it was pointed out to me by Professor J. D. Currey when he
tutored me as an undergraduate, is the recurrent laryngeal nerve.* It is a branch of one of the cranial
nerves, those nerves that lead directly from the brain rather than from the spinal cord. One of the
cranial nerves, the vagus (the name means 'wandering' and it is apt), has various branches, two of
which go to the heart, and two on each side to the larynx (voice box in mammals). On each side of
the n...Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Another example of poor biological design.
08 FEB 2011 by ideonexus
Is Beethoven's <em>Fifth Symphony</em> a meme, or only th...
Whether by coincidence or by memetic transmission, Beethoven is the favourite example for illustrating this problem. Brodie (1996) uses Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Dawkins (1976) uses the Ninth and Dennett (1995) uses both the Fifth and the Seventh. Dennet adds that the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth are a tremendously successful meme, replicating all by themselves in contexts in which Beethoven's works are quite unknown. So are they the meme, or the whole symphony?
If we cannot answe...We cannot specify the unit of a meme.