عربي

When tracking the evolution of various dynasties of the human species we sometimes encounter articulate junctures leading to a very different ramification from what preceded. While the remains of skeletons of each dynastic evolution unveiled successive organic differences, the following dynasties did not uncover such differences. Ever since the modern human, known as “Homo sapien” who dates back to 25,000 years and who exposed some organic differences with the previous dynasties, no important clear organic evolutions have since taken place. In fact, our skeletons are barely different to those of the Aurignacian and Magdalenian ones even though there are unlimited cultural differences between us. It is evident that the evolution turned from biological to cultural, and the human being entered a new period in civilization where culture became primary in the process of evolution.

Cultural evolution, previously known as social evolution, is not a novel idea (Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer), but what is new is the decline of the biological evolution and the advance of the cultural evolution. If we look back to the past and compare it to the evolutionary track in the modern era, we note that cultural developments had the same effect as biological leaps in the organic evolution. This highly important replacement in the evolution mechanism is one of the major scientific discoveries in the second half of the twentieth century.

Culture makes the human being unique among all creatures. The cultural replacement is similar to the biological one and with time becomes. And language is a clear example. Take Arabic for an instance it has much developed and changed since what we call “jahiliah” to the extent that we no more understand it.

Since the Jahiliya, languages have evolved far more rapidly than the genetic evolution. Every life evolution evolves around replication elements, the DNA. Today, there are new kinds of replicators; they are like biological genes and are replacing them at a rapid pace.

The contemporary Darwinian scientist Richard Dawkins labeled these inherited cultural ideas “memes”. The word “meme” is of Greek origin and means imitation and much more mimicking. They could be ideas, melodies and experiences. They are characterized by the fact that they multiply when they move from one person to another, as much as like the biological genes. While genes spread via sperms and ova, memes spread from one mind to another through tradition and imitation. The scientist N.K. Humphrey even considered these memes as living creatures. When a teacher sows a fertile idea in a student’s head, he or she is in fact polluting their mind with a parasite that transforms the mind into a tool for transmission and propagation, similar to a parasite infection which genetically hits the brain.

Genes have played a unique role in biological evolution and multiplication over millions of years. When conditions become convenient for new kinds of replications to duplicate, the new replicators take control and start a new evolution type of its own.

It is clear that some “memes” are more successful in duplicating, “natural selection” in the organic evolution. In this regard, there are three important factors: the “meme” lifespan, its fertility, and its ability to duplicate.

Fertility is more important than age for some replicators. If the “meme” is a scientific theory for example, its propagation depends on its reception degree by the scientists. Some “memes” propagate very quickly but for a short term and then die.

Another factor is related to the changes that take place during the propagation of a certain theory, especially the misinterpretations scientists try to give it so that it suits their ideas.

We can summarize the general possibilities for the “memes” propagation as follows:

There are receptors that can receive all the new “memes” as they are and re propagate them. At the end, they will contribute in offering the receptor a strategic edge. The importance of this privilege depends on the quality of the cultural evolution it represents, its lifespan, fertility, imitation facility, and duplication.  

Other receptors receive the new “memes” but amend them and re propagate them in an altered way knowing that it may or may not offer them a full or partial strategic edge depending on the degree of its evolution, development, and utility.

Finally, there are receptors that do not receive the new “memes” and therefore do not profit from their horizons.

In the first two cases, we are facing a variety of moving “memes” as if they are the beginners of new and different cultural dynasties that are competing for development. However in the third case, we are facing a cultural dynasty in danger of extinction depending on the importance of the fertility of the moving “memes” which reject them.

Our eyes are upon the Arab world where a third of the population is illiterate, one third of them are women. Openness to the “memes” is too limited. In contrast, Spain translates an average of 920 books for every million people compared to one book for every million in the Arab world. And when it comes to scientific research in the Arab world, it is a shame to mention that it does not exist at all. In a lecture I gave at the National Conference for Statistics on programming and planning in 1991, I wondered if we Arabs are passengers in the train of the future or just bystanders waving goodbye handkerchiefs. I hope the answer to this question doesn’t replicate it self within the next coming two decades.

2008 - ISSUE 77