Vibr8gKiwi

I dunno if someone is already doing this but a few days ago I thought I'd use google's page count to track the controversial "brights" meme. Every day (that I remembered) I did a google search on "the brights" and tracked the number of pages it turned up on. Here are the results so far by date:

8/07: 3560 pages
8/08: 3620 pages
8/11: 3810 pages


Actually I started tracking eariler with just "brights" until I discovered the above search looks to work better as it's more specific. Anyway here's the results for "brights" by date:

8/05: 49000
8/06: 49400
8/07: 49200 (dunno why it went down, but it did)
8/08: 49300
8/11: 50400

I would suspect that if/when the meme catches on, the page count will start increasing in an exponential curve rate. Those of you that hate the term would probably want the growth to stay flat to linear. I guess we'll see what happens.

viscousmemories

I wish someone had done this for "the Raelians" last year. I'll bet the results were quite similar.

Rusting Car Bumper

This argument is flawed because frequency does not equate to meaning.

In fact, so called "meme" theories have a long way to go before being called legitimate science. At this point its rehashed philosophy which is, at this point, pseudoscience.

DC

Vibr8gKiwi

I'm not making an argument. I am simply tracking the frequency of the term, which as far as memes go is what matters. Memes are about replication--meaning, truth, content, etc. are mostly irrelevant (except where they help or hinder replication). Consider what is the "meaning" of a gene?

Also I don't care if memes are actual science or not--the raw idea is sufficient for this case.

viscousmemories

So the meme is successful even if it merely propogates, regardless of whether or not the intention of the originators is fulfilled? So even if "the Brights" is eventually documented in linguistic archives as a silly, failed attempt at improving the image of naturalists, as long as the number of people who use it keeps increasing, it has succeeded?

Vibr8gKiwi

Absolutely. The raw measure of the success of a meme is ONLY mere propagation. Though if someone specifically designed a meme (as has happened in this case), that person might consider their design a failure if their designed side-effect didn't work out. But that isn't relevant to the success of the meme in general (except of course to the designer and those that might have wanted the designed side-effect).

If someone designs a virus or organism, it could be "successful" and spread well regardless if intended effects occur or not.

Rusting Car Bumper

Sounds like meme theory is unfalsifiable.

DC

Vibr8gKiwi

Sounds like a different topic to me. Perhaps someone else wants to discuss it with you in another thread.

Rusting Car Bumper

You are right. I will shut up about meme theory in this thread.

DC

Vibr8gKiwi

No problems.