Well, of all the books to make into a musical, you’d think that Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene would be among the least likely. But it’s happened: as New Scientist reports, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is putting on that show, written by Jonathan Salway and Dino Kazamia.
How could this be done? Like so:
In the show a fusty Oxford professor, played by Salway, tries to lecture the audience on the fundamentals of evolutionary theory. Meanwhile, the Adamson family share the stage, going about their daily trials of life, unwittingly providing examples of the points he’s making. He frequently interrupts and explains to them why they’re feeling and behaving the way they are, and sporadically gets involved in their lives along the way. . .
. . . Another highlight is the battle of the sexes in which Dad and his “bit on the side” (we know she is because it’s written on her T-shirt), are having a date. He’s not sure how much to splash out on the meal because he doesn’t know if he’ll be getting what he wants in return. She orders the expensive fish dish to test his relationship potential. But then she’s worried about being too coy – maybe she should flirt a little, open up her shirt a little – but it backfires because then he wonders if she’s too quick and has done this with other men. The song ends with them singing in unison, “I can’t invest more till I’m sure that you’ll invest more in me.” Amongst this, the prof is explaining philandering versus faithful males and coy versus fast females.
Reviewer Mairi MacLeod renders a positive verdict, hedging only because of the over-concentration on memes (a concept that I see as tautological and unhelpful):
For cutting-edge evolutionary biologists, or for that matter for regular readers of New Scientist, the theory depicted in the show might feel slightly dated, with its talk of memes rather than culture evolution or multilevel selection. That said, the show is true to Dawkins’s book, and for this reason it would have been great had it appeared a few years back. But still, it achieves something remarkable – it imparts to the audience the fundamentals of the evolution of behaviour while delivering great entertainment.
The play runs until August 20 at Zoo Roxy in Edinburgh.
h/t: Seth
Let’s hope for YouTube version…
Bummer.. I get a 404 error at the New Scientist link.
Jerry your NS link didn’t work for me, but this one does: NS CultureLab
It gets 4 stars @ BroadwayBaby
I guess entertainment has to scrape barrel bottoms.
Infotainment Bob!
Good excuse for a return trip to Edinburgh…
just tell me where you think the first bit of matter csme from
why is your spam relevant to this thread?
I’m thinking it’s about time to start ignoring Me!Me!.
energy released from the big bang
Jerry, since you mention memes, I am sending a meme related quote from the Brazilian ‘Darwinian’ writer Tito Lívio de Castro written in 1888 (my translation):
“The mind is a terrain where ideas struggle to survive; and fight they do, for some are incompatible with others. If the soil has been previously prepared such that it does not nurture certain ideas, they may touch it lightly, but because of the asymmetry in resources, will be defeated in the struggle. A person educated in free critical thought, accustomed to the confrontation of facts and to their discussion, to observation, to experimentation, thus will specialize his mind. Only scientific ideas, and all them, only the possible and reasonable are able to derive nurture in his spirit. Miracles, theology, metaphysics, dialectics and recognized authority find no place to sprout.”
“Novo Meio, Nova Arte”
in Questões e Problemas, p. 96,
1913, São Paulo, Brazil
I took the above quote from Ana Maria Araujo de Almeida’s 2008 masters thesis in history (Federal University of Minas Gerais) on the life and works of de Castro.
He’s dead, but if he weren’t, the musical could star Gene Kelly.
The meme concept is a tautology? Um…no. Thanks for the link to a paywall, by the way.
not judging whether memes are essentially tautological or not, helpful or not, but I do agree with Nihlo that I’d like to read your paper on the subject, Jerry.
got a pdf somewheres?
Go to my university website (here) and, at the bottom, you can download the pdf by clicking on “The Self-Centered Meme” title.
thanks muchly.
that one goes in my collection.
“A meme’s success depends not on its
benefits to the carrier, but on its ability to be
replicated, retained and imitated.”
..and that, right there, tells me exactly why you you apply “tautology” and “unhelpful” to it.
without any self benefit to the carrier, memes will not be successful. To say they replicate because… they can replicate?
tautology.
I like how you explain it later:
IIRC the original concept of memes, I don’t think that Richard intended that memes really replicate without benefit to the carrier, and so there is little need to explain this beyond standard definitions of cultural evolution.
so I can also see why “unhelpful” is also added.
I probably would use “unneeded” myself, but that’s just me.
clarification, though…
Jerry, do you think Blackwell’s synthesis of the meme as she describes it is equivalent to the way Richard originally intended it?
It would not appear to be the same thing to me.
Thanks for eliciting this, Ichthyic! I was dying to read it.
It was a good read.
It basically rehashes, in much better detail, an argument I had with my own major adviser when Selfish Gene was still “new”.
I was but a lowly grad student, but now see I had the right of it back then.
I wish I could go and debate my old prof again, but alas, he’s no longer around.
🙁
Except in memory, our only lasting tribute. Sorta makes it tough to win an argument, though 😀
Seems to me we’re left with something called memes, that do proliferate through societies, but the analogy to genes is so imperfect as to be more obscurantist than helpful. Still a useful term as long as that baggage is thrown out. Or am I wrong?
Loved the classic Coyne humor in the last paragraph of the review.
“rather than culture evolution or multilevel selection.”
*clicks link*
FOOK! David Sloan Wilson, again.
*goes to wash brain*
There’s a reason, of course, that DSW always appears whenever there’s talk of multilevel selection models…
and it’s got nothing to do with the veracity of his position. It has to do with him being practically the ONLY one still pushing these models as viable in the larger scheme of evolutionary theory.
If they actually had any traction in reality, we would have adopted new models ages ago because they would have immediate application and predictive power IN THE FIELD.
they don’t.
so… tired… of… WILSON.
… it’s time “New Scientist” rename itself, given how much it takes liberties with the term “science”.
Might I suggest:
“New Age Scientist”
?
they could join forces with Huffpo and have a completely new age/woo pseudoscience and entertainment portal!
You’re on a roll! :- )
What’s all this fuss about a shellfish gene?!
So is this musical saying that women have evolved to be cheap whores and trade sex for fish dinners?
Does that include all the mothers of evolutionary psychologists?