As an example, John D. Gottsch discusses the transmission, mutation and selection of religious memeplexes and the theistic memes contained. [50] Theistic memes discussed include the "prohibition of aberrant sexual practices such as incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, castration, and religious prostitution", which may have increased vertical transmission of the parent religious memeplex. Similar memes are thereby included in the majority of religious memeplexes, and harden over time; they become an "inviolable canon" or set of dogmas, eventually finding their way into secular law. This could also be referred to as the propagation of a taboo. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” – Oscar Wilde

In a chapter of the book, the author asks herself whether it is possible to find something that plays in the theory of cultural evolution the same role that DNA plays in the theory of genetic evolution. The author is right in thinking that this is an important question, but she does not seem to understand why this is so and, thereby, she gives the wrong kind of answer. Our cultural life is full of things that seem to propagate virus-like from one mind to another: tunes, ideas, catchphrases, fashions, ways of making pots or building arches. In 1976 I coined the word meme (rhymes with cream) for these self-replicating units of culture that have a life of their own. been developed to this end (e.g. Dawkins 1982, Rindos 1985, 1986, Dennett 1991, 1995, Barkow et al. 1992, Plotkin 1994). For culture to Benitez Bribiesca, Luis (January 2001). "Memetics: A Dangerous Idea" (PDF). Interciencia: Revista de Ciencia y Technologia de América. 26 (1): 29–31. ISSN 0378-1844. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 September 2018 . Retrieved 11 February 2010. If the mutation rate is high and takes place over short periods, as memetics predict, instead of selection, adaptation and survival a chaotic disintegration occurs due to the accumulation of errors.

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Keywords: Behavioural Contagion; Coevolution; Emotional Contagion; Evolution; Imitation; Meme; Memetics; Selectionism; Social Contagion; Social Learning Researchers in this tradition do what serious memeticists should have done. They attempt to base their theory of cultural change on empirically grounded assumptions about cultural transmission, cultural innovation, and population processes, and they test their models by looking at whether they have any genuine predictive power. These models are sometimes not as explanatorily successful as one would hope. But despite the difficulties, this approach -- in stark contrast with memetics -- is a productive research programme and keeps generating interesting results.

Sterelny, Kim; Griffiths, Paul E. (1999). Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology. University of Chicago Press. p.456. ISBN 9780226773049. The word ‘meme’ was coined in Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Although, more than forty years on, most people associate memes with the notion of Internet memes, it is helpful to return to Dawkins’ original definition to understand the theory of memetics and its differences from other theories of cultural evolution. Aaron Lynch attributed the robustness of religious memes in human culture to the fact that such memes incorporate multiple modes of meme transmission. Religious memes pass down the generations from parent to child and across a single generation through the meme-exchange of proselytism. Most people will hold the religion taught them by their parents throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy, for instance, or demonizing infidels. In Thought Contagion Lynch identifies the memes of transmission in Christianity as especially powerful in scope. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of heaven to believers and threat of hell to non-believers provide a strong incentive for members to retain their belief. Lynch asserts that belief in the Crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity amplifies each of its other replication advantages through the indebtedness believers have to their Savior for sacrifice on the cross. The image of the crucifixion recurs in religious sacraments, and the proliferation of symbols of the cross in homes and churches potently reinforces the wide array of Christian memes. [40]Huxley, T. H. (1880). "The coming of age of 'The origin of species' ". Science. 1 (2): 15–20. doi: 10.1126/science.os-1.2.15. PMID 17751948. S2CID 4061790. Although Richard Dawkins invented the term meme and developed meme theory, he has not claimed that the idea was entirely novel, [23] and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. [24] He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival. [21]

Kristeva, Julia. 1986. Word, dialogue, and novel. In Toril Moi (ed.), A Kristeva reader, 34–62. New York: Columbia University Press. Search in Google Scholar Urbancic, Anne. 1994. Urban semiotics: Where is downtown? Signifying Behaviour 1(1). 23–34. Search in Google Scholar A decade into the future, and hiphop has thrown its code indiscriminately into the meme pool—it is immanent, endemic, ubiquitous.

Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man (pp. 136–179). Chicago: Aldine. Memes first need retention. The longer a meme stays in its hosts, the higher its chances of propagation are. When a host uses a meme, the meme's life is extended. [36] The reuse of the neural space hosting a certain meme's copy to host different memes is the greatest threat to that meme's copy. [37] A meme that increases the longevity of its hosts will generally survive longer. On the contrary, a meme that shortens the longevity of its hosts will tend to disappear faster. However, as hosts are mortal, retention is not sufficient to perpetuate a meme in the long term; memes also need transmission.