Talk:Meme/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

US Pronunciation

Is this word really pronounced to rhyme with "gem" in the US? I've never heard the word before, so I wouldn't know.--Tea and crumpets 00:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard it pronounced like that. Looks like it was added as a hoax on 08:26, 3 April 2007 by someone with the IP address 68.60.42.209. That same IP added the same alternative pronunciation to Wiktionary on 08:02, 3 April 2007. When the "gem" line was removed from the Wikipedia page on 08:39, 13 April 2007, that same IP address replaced it, citing what would appear to be their own edit of the Wiktionary entry! So, until we can get an independent cite, it doesn't belong there.Tyrrell McAllister 22:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I pronounce it to rhyme with "gem". It's been a long time. I don't know where I first heard it.

It's pronounced mee-mee. Ernestrome 13:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm thoroughly American, and I've only heard it pronounced meem, to rhyme with 'seem'. - Someone

Thoroughly Australian, and also only ever heard it pronounced to rhyme with 'seem'. Every dictionary searched by dictionary.com lists the pronunciation as being a single syllable. Furthermore the first entry gives the IPA pronunciation /mim/. - Someone else

The entry says that it was meant to rhyme with "gene" -- so \meem\ (like seem) seems to be the correct pronunciation. Jim Sowers

Repin Norview to the end

Why is this in the article? This is listed as a meme phrase, but an internet search shows no hits.65.79.30.55 18:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section

The entire criticism section looks as if someone just tossed it of the top of their head. It consists of straw men and other misconceptions, as well as some criticisms that are downright incoherent! ('It just doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy' should not count as a valid criticism to be addressed!)

In any case I know too little about the current opinion of Memetics to create a valid criticism section from scratch, although the facts that a) at best it is a proto-science, and b) it has attracted flak from some of the vocal religious would be the logical starting point. As it is a proto-science, criticism from other scientific disciplines can be regarded as 'not-invented-here' until such time as it *does* become a science or is entirely discredited.

Memetics is not a protoscience. It is a hybrid field of sociology and cybernetics.--Scorpion451 17:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Too Long and lacks coherent criticism section

This article is too long, and could be broken up into seperate sections. One on "memes", one on "memetics" etc. There is also way too much information relating to culture, which could be placed in a "cultural memes" section. I read the article wanting to understand the theory of memes, but was instead presented with what seemed like a non-NPOV article that merely espoused examples of memes, without going into the essence of what a meme is. Under current definitions almost anything could be a meme inluding the theory of meme's itself, which would make it completely nonsensical and also a tautology or even fatal theory. What about Thomas Kuhn's and Paul Feyeraband's work that shows that scientific knowledge, itself, is dependent on the culture of groups of scientists rather than on adherence to a specific, definable method. Thus whatever paradigm that is the dominant zeitgeist in science (for example genetics), tends to use language of that discipline to explain away phenomena outside of that discipline. Where the article does say there is criticism it does not list the actual criticism but tends to ignore it and skim over it. In the mean time, someone should clean up the article removing redundant parts, perhaps breaking it up. I will try working on providing a comprehensive criticisms section, using critical theories from philosophy, science, sociology of ideas and language.

Excellently put, but who are you? Dieter Simon 18:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, why don't you have a go. You sound like the person who could do just what you said the article needs. So, we invite you to do what you said should be done. Dieter Simon 23:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the process of working on a massive rewrite of this article, but it will take some time, I'm currently reading the Journal of Memetics, which is the only scientific journal dedicated to the subject that i know. I am very interested in this theory and it's relation to social organization, cultural evolution, and biological evolution(that is darwinian reasoning for the evolution of beneficial memes, if such reasoning exists.) Of course wikipedia is not the place for original research, but these things are covered comprehensively in this journal so far, as well as various Dawkins essays and books. Solidusspriggan 00:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll help on the "criticisms" part. This article is biaised, the concept of meme is far from being accepted in the scientific community, its main mean of development (the Journal of Memetics), is dead, and the whole concept, while extremely popular, was unable to provide nontrivial predictions. I see 3 main problems with memetics; the definition of meme, the mechanics of memetics and the absence of nontrivial predictions based on memetics (one of the most important thing in science). I'll come back with some references on those criticisms. PhDP 20:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"Under current definitions almost anything could be a meme inluding the theory of meme's itself" - All theories are memes.

"which would make it completely nonsensical" - Please explain how this follows?Kernow 02:15, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "self-contradictory" would be better than "nonsensical". For meme extremists like Blackmore, the meme is neutral, so not good or bad, true or false, or even useful. And they believe that all of culture and all theories consist of memes. But if the idea of the meme is itself a meme, then it follows that it is not good, true or useful. Fine, but meme extremists believe the opposite, they believe that the idea of the meme itself is good and true and useful. Hence the contradiction. If the claim that all of culture consists of memes is dropped, this difficulty vanishes.Brymor 17:00 16 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a misunderstanding of Blackmore's position. She's just saying that there is nothing inherently good, bad, or useful about something being a meme. That doesn't mean that there are not good memes, bad memes and useful memes; only that you can't determine whether they are good bad or useful by simply determining if they are memes. So there is nothing at all self-contradictory about asserting that the "meme" meme is both good and useful. Leeborkman 06:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of Meme Theory

There is much well founded criticism of Memes out there. Notably:

Darwinizing Culture : The Status of Memetics as a Science http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192632442/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_2/103-1056305-1539030?%5Fencoding=UTF8

and

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465084672/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/103-1056305-1539030?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155

I have amazon extracts from the relevant chapters and am attempting to put some sort of critique together. I rather suspect that this may be somewhat controversial, does anyone suggest a correct way forward? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ChurchOfTheOtherGods (talk • contribs) 10:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC2)

Thanks to ChurchOfTheOtherGods for above references - v good:

From Adam Kuper - Dawkins using terms loosely

If memes are the answer, what is the question? The question that memes are designed to address evidently concerns culture, but culture is itself a notoriously question-begging notion. And culture is supposed to provide the answers to another very big question, which is in what way human beings may be unique. "Most of what is unusual about man can be summed up in one word: culture", Dawkins wrote, continuing, with a perhaps disingenuous insouciance, "I use the word not in its snobbish sense, but as a scientist uses it" (Dawkins 1989: 189). Unfortunately, he does not specify how a scientist uses the word, and little wonder. In truth, there is no single, unsnobbish, scientific conception of culture.

and using dodgy references

Dawkins even suggests that memes drive suicide epidemics, arguing that "a suicidal meme can spread, as when a dramatic and well-publicised martydom inspires others to die for a deeply loved cause" (Dawkins 1982: 111). In support, he cites Gore Vidal, 1955. This turns out to be an early novel by the American writer, about a messianic cult. Dawkins would surely be apoplectic if a social scientist were to cite Hitchcock's film The Birds to make a point about ornithology. 134.115.68.21 10:57, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Memes are not similar to Darwinism in the way that stronger genes out survive weaker ones. It is more of a constant influence of the ideas being transmitted. The strength of the lines of communication or amount of communication is what influences memes to survive. Darwinism reflects on how genes are passed on through offspring. Memes are passed from one individual to the next, not necessarily offspring genetically. It is only passed onto offspring by communication not through heredity. For example, a child raised by white supremists have the meme of racism passed on through communication not heredity. The child grows up and now shares the similar views or weltanschauungs. More times than not there is an exterior factor that influences the transmittal of memes. I don't think Dawkins was making a correlation to memes in the way of Darwinian genes being passed on through heredity as it is being suggested. This is a common misconception of the meme theory. Have you read these books? What are the disputes that they are arguing? It appears the main point from the amazon link states that the only thing in dispute is the fact that memes spread themselve and not the entire meme theory. The way memes spread themeselves is a fraction of the meme theory and it does need to be explored further. But this doesn't disprove the entire theory.--Gnosis 14:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The Biologist Dawkins does not understand religion and criticises his own prejudices about it. However, it has provided him with a concept the "meme" that has some use. Unfortunately he does not discriminate between various types. He is also unaware of the existence of a much better concept, namely the "Psychon". These are socio-psychological units, not like genes in Biology, but more like bacteria or viruses. Three types have distinguished, named cultons, theons and satons according to their different source and function. Cultons as the name suggests are cultural ideas and behaviour patterns. Theons refer to units of real experience and satons refer to delusional ideas that cause much social disorder and outbreaks of social hysterics.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Altway (talk • contribs) 04:57, December 19, 2006

Lack of philosophical appeal

This entire section is based on a misunderstanding of the term "gene". Whoever wrote this is referring to a microbiologist's gene (i.e. a cistron, a visible region of DNA) whereas the analogy is to an evolutionary biologist's gene (i.e an abstract replicatory unit of information).

The genes that Dawkins discusses are not "a one-dimensional series" nor can they be viewed "through a microscope". I suggest replacing this section with a section discussing the very common confusion over what a gene is in the evolutionary sense. Kernow 18:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

A gene as an "abstract replicatory unit of information" is, in fact, what this section concerns, they are one dimensional, in the sense that they are all the same thing: "genes." they are visible through a microscope since genes are understood as being encoded in the DNA.

--Lucaas 18:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't really understand your point but...genes "are visible through a microscope since genes are understood as being encoded in the DNA". In this sense memes are visible as they are understood as being encoded in the brain. An evolutionary biologist's gene is to DNA what a meme is to the brain. Kernow 19:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how one could say "memes are encoded in the brain", is Walt Whitman's poetry encoded in the brain? are ethics encoded in the brain? are wars encoded in the brain? You can answer yes, it is ok, you can still be ethical; or can you? So little is know of the brain it would be presumptious to assume that memeticists assume that it's all "encoded in the brain." Have you never heard of books or "encoding in books." When is the last time you used a microscope to read a book?

--Lucaas 01:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this aspect of the article needs to come way earlier in the discussion and be made a lot more clear. The difference between an evolutionary biologist's notion of gene and a gene as a cistron (thanks for teaching me the technical term) is far from obvious, even for those of us interested in natural sciences. Is the evolutionary biologist's gene just the abstraction over the concrete instantiations in the individual DNA cistrons? In this respect it is also unclear to me whether the people who write about memes are keeping that distinction clean. Take Kate Distin, who writes about memetic DNA and cultural DNA; is she now being appropriate with respect to the evolutionary biology notion or has she crossed the line back into the cistron-land of the analogy?

--70.243.83.106 15:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Alleged lack of rigor

This section is also flawed and should probably be deleted:

"Memetics, by contrast, has no such model for the storage and transmission of memes." - Storage is in the brain and transmission is by language.

"Memeticists typically assume that memetic 'phenotypes' equate with memetic 'genotypes'" - This is not true. The equivalent of 'genotype' (as with genes) is where the information is stored, i.e. in the brain. The equivalent of 'phenotype' (as with genes) is how this information interacts with its environment, i.e. the behaviour this meme causes.

"This assumption seems like a serious — and to critics, fatal — weakness in memetics relative to its genetic model." - It would be if such an assumption existed. Kernow 19:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Awkward Referencing Style

I find the method used to cite references in the Meme page unhelpful and unscholarly.

The text does not consistently number the references.

When the text does give numbers to references, they do not correspond to those in the Reference section.

In the References section, the referencer has given numbers to the references out of sequence from their citation in the text. For only one example, reference #s 1 & 2 indicate works by Henson, which follow reference #3 (work by Dawkins), whereas the text cites the work by Dawkins first.

Seems like any contributor can use any one of a number of referencing methods.

Those ‘problems’ give the text a non-scholarly look. Should we undertake to rework the referencing method?

TonySebas 23:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, no coherent citation styles are used at all. The introduction alone is thick with assertions of varying verifiability. There's too much even to tag as needing verification.

How much editing can be tolerated at once? This thing needs bulk reorganization and citation, and I'm willing to take a crack at it, but not if it's going to be instantly reverted on the grounds of some thin violation of wikipedia's arbitrary protocols.

Thornrag 23:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Memes & non-human animals

Has any thought been put towards the transmission of memes from, to and between non-human animals. Much of our technology was probably inspired by animals e.g. Aeroplanes from birds, but most of this information is a physical characteristic of the animal rather than a mental construct. However, when one animal learns a behavioural response from another, this is surely a form of memetic transmission. It is also likely that a number of human memes (not necessarily still 'alive' today) were aquired from watching the learned behaviour of an animal. Kernow 01:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Memetics encompasses "copy the instructions" not "copy the process". A chimp can show another how to fish for termites, but he cannot write instructions for it, or share it without doing it.

Also, in the future please leave your posts at the bottom of the page, not at the top. thanks - KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

"The term "meme", refers to any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods." It does not mention anything about instructions here. Although I do not have my copy of The Selfish Gene to hand, I was under the impression that memes referred to any imitation of behaviour, of which instructional/linguistic information represents only a small part. However, in case you are right, I will temporarily coin the new term "non-instructional meme" to refer to this replicatory information. Mimicking another animals behaviour is obviously replicatory, there is a chance of mutation, and these mutations can lead to differential survival of the behavioural process. Therefore we would expect these non-instructional memes to have evolutionary properties. Kernow 13:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Strongly advise you do not "coin the term" unless you are planning on publishing a paper outside of Wikipedia, due to the WP:NOR policy. KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:53, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I am planning on publishing a paper outside of Wikipedia. I believe non-instructional memes are a type of meme rather than a distinctly different evolutionary process. However, the usage of this term may be useful for explanaition to those who misunderstand what the term meme actually includes. Kernow 15:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, I would advise that you read Wikipedia policies before referring to them, it helps prevent later embarrassment. "Like most Wikipedia policies, No original research applies to articles, not to talk pages or project pages" - WP:NOR Kernow 15:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I have read the policies, and am well aware of what they state. You posted you were going to "coin a phrase" on a Wikipedia article talk page, which is for discussion of how to improve the article. As you did not state this was a tangential comment concerning activities elsewhere, naturally I assumed you were using this page for its intended purpose. As I am now aware you were not, I am unconcerned about your coined phrase. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Well it's nice to know about your lack of concern. Does anyone who knows what a meme is have any comments on my original post?Kernow 02:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

"The term meme refers to any piece of information transferable from one mind to another." - How does written information, or similar information stored in other ways, relate to this? If I write down an idea, does it go from being a meme (in my mind) to not being a meme (on paper) until someone else has read it? This is subtley different from direct transmission in that mutation can occur between both my mind and the paper, and between the paper and the minds of whoever reads it.Kernow 02:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

(reduce) This page is for discussion relevent to improving the article "Meme" not for discussion about memes. Please find a forum for this. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh - and the answer is a qualified yes. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

If memes can exist within animals or other non-human storage systems then surely this is relevant to the article.Kernow 16:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Not unless you can find a source per WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:CITE, as anything else would violate WP:NOR. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The source would be whatever the source is for the first sentence of this article, "The term meme refers to any piece of information transferable from one mind to another". Kernow 17:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

In reference to your comment earlier about instructional memes not applying to animals, does not the honey bee's waggle dance instruct other members of the colony as to how to find food? Kernow 14:18, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Debate moved from "to do" box

I moved it out. Too cluttered, not the place for ongoing discussion. What follows was unsigned discussion.Kaisershatner 15:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll find a better place for this later, OK? Memetics was/is 'controversial' only because it hit the wall of the existing meme(plexe)s. It hit the resistance of all the other memetic constructs that were just doing what they do -- replicating. There's nothing inherently controversial in memetics -- on the contrary, it is nothing but a re-application of an old and rather widely recognized philosophical approach that has been found to work very well in explaining, and even predicting, natural process, indeed life itself.

I don't see the point of explainging 'why it looks like pseudo-science to many', because there's nothing pseudo about the idea of the meme nor the science of memetics itself. Yes, it is in it's infancy (although I'd rather say it's sprouting), and there should be some silly directions tried and a wasted resource or few -- that's how science works -- personally, I wonder why someone has spent the time on the ethymology of the word 'meme' when Dawkins very clearly tells us why and where he takes the word from and what he means with it ... but my skepticism, nor yours, doesn't make memetics pseudo, nor controversial.

I found this article in all its musing-ness quite fantastic! A big thank you and lots of respect for whomever contributed this. There were some places that resonated a bit ill with how I perceive / use the idea of memes, and I hope to come back and give my 2 cents. Oh, I don't think it's 100% fair to attribute Dawkins but not Blackmore.

TODO: Sharpen intro

The article throws a ton of flood on a first time reader's head. It seems to me that most quit without any idea of what meme is. Several people I sent link didn't understand it.

I think - the introductionary part should be made as short and sharp as possible, to give new reader a solid understanding in the mimimum possible words. --Neonil 16:17, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would be cool if you could place your revision ideas here in talk first and get a consensus before changing the article. It's just that the opener text is usually the most sensitive part of the article. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 20:33, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I added it, in somehow raw form, in hope that somebody will edit it soon... Stevietheman, do you have a free minute? :)

I experience that people DO NOT UNDERSTAND meme concept and memetics from the article in the form as it is. I suppose people lose understending and then their interset somewhere very close to the start of the article. I hope we will solve it in some evolutionary way.......... Neonil 23:10, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm too tired to copyedit it this evening, but I'd like to suggest another section name: "In a nutshell". I think that's what you're driving at. At any rate, I may be able to take a look at it tomorrow if nobody else beats me to it. Cheers. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 02:53, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have a slight doubt... This would make this chapter seem not serious, while the goal is opposite. However it is up to you to change it in any way you think it seems proper, also its content would give an idea. Currently I changed the name to "Basic Introduction". But I hope it will experience successful mutations soon. :) Thanks! --Neonil 21:00, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The articles don't have to be deadly serious you know- touches of whimsy are allowed; see Invisible Pink Unicorn. --maru 21:14, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Please make the intro short and sweet. it scrambled my brain, i stopped reading, and i still don't know what the hell a meme is. I'm either stupid or this article sucks. My experience in Wikipedia tells me both are good possibilities. thanks Muchosucko 07:30, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please, Muchosucko, tell us more!!! I believe I understand the memetics, but.... I believe I DO NOT understand people who do not understand it. :( You may help us understand what you really read in our article. :) Neonil 01:51, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure the recent change is correct. In specific, I could swear that Dawkins was responsible for coining the term "meme". Where would we look to find authoritative confirmation of this? Alienus 16:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Here's a link that says Dawkins coined it, but I'm not sure if it's sufficiently authoritative: http://www.cybermeme.net/meme.html Alienus 16:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

And another: http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/2/2/review4.html Alienus 16:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I find the intro less than clear. To be frank, the whole article reminds me of Christian propaganda (begging the question of its own truth and authority when it should be arguing for that authority, for instance), which is very ironic considering that Dawkins is the father of memetics. But in the intro, could someone perhaps add something about the distinctive purpose of memetics? What are the advantages of using memetics rather than traditional tools of cultural anthropology, for example? At the moment the article makes it sound like "meme" is just more trendy, useless jargon. Chris64.131.157.221 20:16, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I've largely rewritten the intro and hope people will agree it reads more clearly now and gives a better idea of what memes are.WadeLondon 14:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have left a suggestion lower on this talk page and would appreciate feedback. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I feel like the introduction is still very vague. From what I have previously understood about memes, they are transfered though cultural interactions and are equivilent to the transmission vehicles. I may be wrong about that, but the intro still leaves it unclear.

Memetics

Let's not be overly enthusiastic here. It's not even certain that memetics is an accurate theory, or that it's even useful (if it is), or just extra terminology. Ephilosopher link --Maprovonsha172 14:31, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(Later note: This appears to be the working Ephilosopher link, and it is hardly a damning series of arguments like Maprovonsha172 implies elsewhere. --maru 21:14, 11 May 2005 (UTC))

By messing up your personal pages, and sigs, and posting the same anti-memetics message three times to different talk pages, you are not making friends, Maprovonsha. --maru 14:51, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

What's that supposed to mean? I'm just trying to make sure these pages live up to their claim to objectivity. I provided a link that shows that memetics is not a sure thing; as I said, it's yet to be seen whether memetics is a proto-science or a pseudo-science. There just isn't any telling. Meanwhile, if we use memetics terminology liberally throughout articles not directly relating to memetics we are underhandedly endorsing what may very well be a pseudo-science, or useless at best. I imagine memetic terminology will become what postmodern terminology has been for a while now-something someone can use to appear smart. If you have a problem with any of that, you say where. Don't tell me I'm "not making friends," that isn't constructive to say the least and could be (mis)interpreted as a threat. --Maprovonsha172 23:30, 6 May 2005 (UTC)~

One possible way to test memetics is to see if it can make predictions that no other theory makes, then test them - if they are falsified then memetics needs modification. If they stand up to testing for a while, then they may be a protoscience. At the moment, the whole memes thing just seems to be rhetoric to me. Autarch 11:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a common error, to suppose that memetics or any evolutionary disciplines are prescriptive rather than descriptive. Memetics cannot predict. But afterwards it may shed light on how some nuggets of culture came to be transmitted and transformed. This is a field in the history of ideas: one cannot analyse the Renaissance in ways that will predict a renaissance. --Wetman 18:28, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it does make predictions. It predicts that certain ideas will spread better if they have attributes known to be adaptative. There's a book called "Thought Contagion" that goes quite a bit in this direction. Alienus 19:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that you blanked a good portion of your Talk page, completely eliminating RickK's comments. That isn't the usual practice; normally we just move an overfull talk page to an 'Archive' page, and cut and paste as necessary- see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. I'm sure that was just because you are fairly new, and that it was not an attempt to hide some things, like more cynical and suspicious people might think.

As far as memetic terminology goes, that terminology is very widely accepted as useful for thinking about many behaivours- if it describes what is happening well, and provides insight, it is probably valid. Note also no-one appears to be providing support for your position.

And you may imagine what you like.

Very well- I shall tell you my problem. First, you appear to have had a spat with RickK. RickK is a good user, which casts some doubt on your integrity. Second, you write some articles which have since been deleted or converted into redirects. This in and of itself is not bad, is a learning experience, but not positive either. Also, you seem to have never heard of edit summaries. Bad wikiquette. Another thing: you blank part of your Talk page dealing with serious issues, with no summary, no archiving, no nothing. Not bad in and of itself, again, but definitely not good. Finally, you come to certain pages, and argue against them, and remove good information. That's bad. That is pratically trolling. I am hoping you are not a troll, but are merely inexperienced, and argumentative. Prove me right.

And your misinterpreting is not my problem; my meaning was clear. May I constructively suggest a reading of the FAQs? --maru 01:28, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll admit your hopes, then. I may have bad wikiquette but that doesn't figure into the discussion on memetics. I could have bad wikiquette, no integrity, no experience, and absolutely nothing going for me except for the fact that I'm right! All that is an argumentum ad hominem, taking people's attention away from the issue because you can't defend your pro-memetics position otherwise---and I'm not anti-memetics. But why are you defending posting memetic terminology all throughout theoretically objective arcticles which aren't directly concerned with memetics while memetics is still a controversial subject? Whether or not anyone wants to go to bat with me and admit that it still is controversial, again, is irrelevant. I don't suppose you even checked out the link I provided. If you had, you would know there is much reputable resistance to memetics and memetic terminology, believe it or not Meme Theory's accuracy and usefullness is still being debated. But, by using memetic terminology in 'objective' articles not directly related to memetics is clearly a tacit endorsement of the theory. --Maprovonsha172 14:30, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

We live in the real world, Map. 'Ad hominem attacks' are entirely valid data with which to adjust the strengths of our beliefs and probabilities- we aren't dealing with classical logic or syllogisms. Ex. antiglobal warming proponents have a much weaker case since it has been revealed that many of them are not exactly unbiased and uninterested parties, to say the least. Is that data ad hominem? Does it directly refute the anti-global warming case's data? No- but it is very relevant; that is how ad hominem attacks are useful. And you certainly are not 'anti-memetics'- you have proven that time and again in your edits and responses (or lack thereof.) You'll notice I have checked out your provided links- most of'em didn't work, and the one that did is hardly an authority or source of good anti-memetics arguments; and where exactly are you getting 'reputable resistence' from? As far as terminology goes, I shall state again, using it is not an endorsement of memetics- it is an endorsement of people's use of memetics terminology. --maru 21:26, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

An ad hominem attack is not 'data' but a form of argument, usually fallacious. The example you cite is an example of a circumstantial ad hominem, which can be valid - in this case it is - but not always. Autarch 11:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There are many articles in the Wikipedia with disputes like this. They are usually resolved by noting in the article (using sources) that there are people of significance who are skeptical of memetics and its treatment as a science (of course, this would need to be balanced with its proponents). However, adding this information doesn't give one license to rip out the other material on memetics, given that it's an NPOV, accurate description. There's grammatical ways to copyedit material that is in dispute without removing it entirely. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 16:16, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, but don't you see my point that it may very well contradict the NPOV policy? By using memetic terminology in an article we are tacitly endorsing memetics, because it is supposed to be an objective article and inherent in the wording would be a affirmation of the theory. You realize memetics is controversial, so you should be able to see why using their terms in articles not in any way related to memetics is inadvertently taking sides on a controversial issue. By the way, very little of what is to be said using memetic terminology couldn't be said another way, therefore it's gratuitous at best, and an underhanded affirmation of a pseudo-science at worst. --Maprovonsha172 17:51, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Now you are just being disingenuous- in what ways can you discuss ideas as entities subject to evolutionary forces, with behaivour analogous to that of 'selfish genes', which still has the explanatory power of memetic terminology? --maru 21:26, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

So, do we also have a problem with using ID terminology in an Intelligent design article and Christian terminology in a Christianity article? On top of that, "intelligent design" is very controversial. Are we to keep controversial ideas out of the Wikipedia? The Wikipedia affirms ideas that exist to a big extent in the wilds of human thought, whether they are scientific or pseudo-scientific. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 18:03, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

That's not what I'm suggesting at all. I only said that we shouldn't use memetic terminology in articles NOT pertaining directly to memetics or meme theory. But using it elseware is affirming its validity, which is why we wouldn't file intelligent design under science, let's say. But really, the analogy doesn't work because the loaded wording of memetics is what I'm getting at. --Maprovonsha172 18:52, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

"Now you are just being disingenuous- in what ways can you discuss ideas as entities subject to evolutionary forces, with behaivour analogous to that of 'selfish genes', which still has the explanatory power of memetic terminology? --maru 21:26, 11 May 2005 (UTC)" -- By explicitly describing the evolutionary activity that occured and/or is occuring. It took me a while (reading bottom to top), but I understand what Maprovonsha172 is talking about. The point he's making is that in articles not explicitly about memetics, memetic terminology not (yet) be used. If you want to describe the evolution through time of a specific thing an article is about, you do a simple historical description. Why would you use evolutionary terminology in an article on killer whales (for instance)? You wouldn't, though you could use it in another article on the evolution of killer whales (though this would probably be an article on the evolution of the killer whale genus, Cetaceans, the animal kingdom or life in general). Break out a new page and link to the new page if you really want to talk about memetic evolution of a specific term, movement, etc.... 24.22.227.53 19:42, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Self-replicator?

I've talked to many people who consider 'meme' an interesting metaphor, and many on Wikipedia have their own definition of meme (which could usually be substituted with the word fad), but meme theory as I have read makes clear one basic premise of all memetics: namely, that memes are 'units of imitation'(verbal, visual, etc.) which REPLICATE THEMSELVES.

I tried to wrap around this concept of self-replication, and in Susan Blackmore's book The Meme Machine I found their theoretical justification. Towards of the end of her book she presents her theory of the Selfplex. It seems only to make sense that there would be such things as 'memes', self-replicating units of imitation, if the Selfplex theory is true. Without it 'meme' is a metaphor, or substitute word for fad, or, quite possibly, an altogether unnecessary and pseudo-scientific neologism.

I know of no other explanation for memetic's insistence on 'self-replication' other than the theory of the Selfplex, in which Blackmore argues that the brain is the result of the coevolution of memes and genes. She claims that the concept of the self, as we know it, is itself a collection of memes, which has evolved in order to protect and increase susceptibility to other memes. This would mean that there is no you or me, that I am a person but not an 'I'. I would still be a person, meaning that I am a homo sapien sitting here typing this, but not an 'I', an innate persona or self that is Matthew, PCHS student, slacker/amateur philosopher. All that (all my likes and dislikes, proclivities, desires and fears which I attribute to MYSELF) would just be socially constructed, supporting the Selfplex, the meme that I consider myself. The Selfplex theory, as far as I know, however, isn't justified by any scientific experiments and cannot be proven true or false, so why are so many people accepting it whole-heartedly (just because it's interesting or they think they could impress someone by knowing such a comprehensive yet on-the-surface-technical idea, I imagine)?

In any event, the Meme article is still too POV. I'm not saying you can't say meme on Meme, obviously, I'm just saying that it shouldn't be presented as Gospel Truth for Christ's sake. ;)

Anyone want to defend Selfplex theory of the idea of memetic self-replication? Until it seems that we can be sure they're verifiable fact we shouldn't present them as such in supposedly NPoV articles. I'm going to put the NPoV template on meme because as I have said, it violates the NPoV Policy by presenting a hypothetical (a rather dubious one at that) as an established fact. --Maprovonsha172 20:53, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't describe the co-opted use for "fad" pseudoscientific so much as ascientific, because I don't think people who use the word in that sense neccesarily mean it as a scientific concept at all. --Joe D (t) 21:41, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Susan Blackmore edited wikipedia a few times in the past and she lives a few yards down the road from me, I could drop a note in asking her to defend memeplex? ;) Possibly too much like original research though...

Speaking for myself, that would be incrediby useful/awesome. Who better to discuss whether memetics is proto or pseudoscience, and all the other interesting issues Map brings up? She could also provide a decent overview of the field, point out what we've missed- I don't think any of us here are much more than 'interested layperson' and our knowledge is undoubtedly incomplete. --maru 21:59, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I only said the meme is sometimes used as a substitute for 'fad'. To quote myself, I said, "Without it 'meme' is a metaphor, or substitute word for fad, or, quite possibly, an altogether unnecessary and pseudo-scientific neologism." So I'm not saying that calling fads memes is pseudoscientific, just that it's used both ways.

P.S. I would be glad to hear from Mrs. Blackmore has to say about it. --Maprovonsha172 21:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to be a "self" without having a concept of self? (ie. do you need to have a concept (implicit or explicitly known) in order to have an implicit understanding?)-- I'd postulate the answer is yes 24.22.227.53 18:49, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

self-replicating system

I've been thinking about how the discussion has come to the problem of the two different connotations for the word meme, and I think it can best be solved by agreeing that the difference is that so-called 'internet memes' are replicated and (Blackmore's) 'memes' self-replicate. So to say they replicate themselves is POV, while saying that 'internet memes' are spread all over internet communities is not. So, to disavow my initial thought that all memetic terminology violates the NPoV, I think we could balance the POV by making certain everyone knows the difference between the two concepts and how it's not proven that memes self-replicate, just that some people think they do. --Maprovonsha172 14:22, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

for me, a meme is an idea that seems to have its own life, and copy itself to other people, sometimes apparently without media/medium. it seems to infect the social culture, in a parasitic/symbiotic way. it passes between minds in various ways and forms, sometimes subliminally, subconsciously.

to me, i think i can recognise a meme when i feel i might know it already, or have worked it out already, or have guessed at it already. when i see it reflected from another mind back at me, i feel this meme or idea (or line of argument) must have its own independent existence, somehow.

it spreads, sometimes like wild fire, and by normal network principles, multiplies as it migrates. and each person who encounters it, adopts it for their own. each person who enters the meme, feels like they are coming home to the idea, and feel comfortable with the idea. a meme is always truly right.

[ jo abbess : 14 oct 2005 : uk ]

Political memes

I think it would be interesting to have a section for political memes named "Politics" that would be situated near the "Religion" section. I oftentimes run into Democratic activists who claim that the Republican Party has been using memes over the past generation or so to manipulate the American people. Whether that's true or not, I think this could be a good seed for a new section on this topic. Any thoughts? — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 19:36, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

It's like what the logical positivists say about metaphysical claims. We can't say one way or the other. Here's what Bertrand Russell said (forgive me if it isn't word for word) about sin: "When I say 'sinner' I don't mean one that commits sins in the Christian sense, because depending on what you believe either everyone or no one does." That's exactly why we can't talk about memes this way, Stevie. Either no ideas are memes or most all ideas are memes, depending on your beliefs. Many of you believe in memes; in which case both the Democratic and Republican parties are constantly bombarding us with their memes.Maprovonsha172 23:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Universal Laws of Memeomics

I have removed the following text by 211.30.190.44 because, in addition to being unwikied, it has no context or source, and is therefore not a comprehensible part of the article:

[0] Non Newtonian phenomena, may spontaneously create or modify memes. All that follows are subject to [0] in so far as these phenomena occur.

[1] A meme is subject to the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of mass.

[2] A possessor is any thing that can support a meme.

[3] A meme hosted by a possessor changes the net energy(j) of that possessor.

[4] A meme that confers greater net energy(j) to any possessor(s) without destroying itself will be capable of destroying any lesser net energy conferring meme in any possessor.

[5] A net benefit energy calculation must include, acquisition, retention and transmission energy costs of the meme.

[6] Destruction of meme renders it unrecognisable.

[T Edwards]. Note possessors do not have to be human or even "alive" in the common usage of the term.

Bovlb:01:04 (UTC)

Well I put it back. You have to apply your mid a bit, like the really comming to grips with the laws of thermodynamics. These rules will build a structure that allows memes to be understood and verified. You will have to think about what the implications are.

For example one implication is that a personalilty, is nothing more than a collection of memes that confer sustained energy and mass on the body of the person, That is you are but a compistion of memes that inabit/ reflect the structure(t) of your brain. Interestingly because this "law" meme was not able to compete with your own memes you rejected it. I humbly sugest that you think hard about the implications of these laws /this particular meme.It deos, I think offer for the fisrt time away to quaitfy the whole meme area, w.r.t to almost all of the do they exist what is it.

It does have a source, T Edwards, [Me] derived the laws after sufficent contemplation and study.

Wikipedia:No original research. --cesarb 6 July:22 (UTC)

The disitinctions made in this policy are meaningless. Esspecially in the area of memes, thus the rule is without juristiction on this topic and a Nulity [Look it up an understand why your "privitive clause" attempt is void ab initio.

This stuff does not belong in the article, or in its own article. Encyclopedia articles should not ask the reader to "apply their mind" -- they need to explain fully and clearly. --albamuth 7 July:15 (UTC)

"spontaneously" ??? "[3]" -- what of latent memes (non-expressing), differentiation between potential and kinetic energy? Need to consider elasticity and memeplexes too (in whether a greater energy conferring meme is always capable of destroying a lower energy conferring meme), and potential increase in the energy conferring ability of a meme in a possessor over time (thus the entire system may be subject to conservation laws, but the individual memes and individual possessors are not -- even this is slightly inaccurate as the number of possessors in a system can grow). -- Nice to see a non-genetic take on memetics. 24.22.227.53 18:38, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Article cited at CNet

http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6268155-1.html?tag=txt

What is the process for updating the list of cited articles and such? Anyone want to do it as I have no idea what's involved?--Lord Shitzu 20:05, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Uh, the CNET article links back to the Wikipedia article, but is not about memes per se, just "internet fads". IMHO it's not source material, and thus not worthy of linking to. --albamuth 18:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Moving commented out material

For now, I'm moving the content that has been commented out to the talk page -- it clutters the main article's edit box. General comments remain intact. -- jiy 19:13, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

(Lead section)

I've commented out the following paragraph because it doesn't seem to fit here. Is there a better place? It also seems to assume a particular definition of a meme, which seems perhaps like a bad idea. --wpegden Some memes, such as many on the Internet, tend to proliferate for periods of time then quietly die off: many start as obscure running jokes within net cliques, which gradually lose their original meaning or become otherwise detached. Some people consider absurdist humor as a good source of memes. Generally, the better the communication medium, the faster memes can come into and out of vogue.

Basic introduction

I'm commenting out this next block because, apart from being blatantly one sided on its view of memetics (nearly all of these claims would be contested by many scientists), this stuff is surely better suited for the article on memetics.

The conception and study of memes, known as memetics, has led to new insights in:

1. general mind operation
2. cultural evolution

Memetics and the introduction of the meme as a concept build on several previous fundamental scientific discoveries:

• Evolutionary theory (by Darwin)
• Recognition of DNA as an information sequence
• Recognition of the fact that the primary objects of evolution are information sequences in genes

Memeticists may regard meme evolution as a new level of biological evolution, whereby new ideas evolve in seconds rather than over generations (as in biological evolution); this may explain the rapid progress of Homo sapiens.

Memetics may lead to a new level of understanding of meta-science and common thinking practices, such as scientific approach, skepticism and conservatism.

Memetics provides another level of understanding of mental parasites, such as chain letters, urban myths and ideologies.

Memetics can serve as a bridge between artificial intelligence and biology (See also expert systems, knowledge-based systems).

"meme evolution as a new level of biological evolution ... this may explain the rapid progress of Homo sapiens." Is this refering to the physical species, or things created by the species? If anything, ideas have merely enabled humans to propagate larger and intermix with other humans, and somewhat modify ourselves -- this is not a new level of biological evolution, this is merely atypical means of biological evolution/intermixing. (I recognize the difference in qualitative world-view understanding between my statement and the one I'm commenting on). 24.22.227.53 18:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Something to consider

That this entire topic is ridiculous, given that the first visual example, the smiley face, hardly has any of the supposed power implied in the gobblygook explantation of what a "meme" is supposed to be. It's a friggin' icon, a symbol, a graphic. It doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, it doesn't convey any (meaningful) meaning, and it was probably copyrightable when it was created. Is the Windows logo a "meme", or is it a logo? Maybe the whole meme thing actually has some weight (although it could be argued that it's just a neologism to give a scholarly sound to someone's original research, and hasn't been all that useful for understanding culture or communication), but this first example really makes it all seem like a hoax. Are social scientists really that afraid to call a spade a symbol for a playing card suit? DavidH 08:12, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

So come up with a better example, and add it. --goethean ॐ 15:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Not at all convinced by your criticisms. The smiley certainly fits the criteria for a meme. It gets itself replicated, it has variations and selection acts upon those variations.

Copyright is a means of controlling the spread of memes. It does not imply that something is not a meme. Barnaby dawson 08:09, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from, David. The fact of the matter is that no one knows yet whether memes even exist. There are many philosophical questions left unanswered. A good deal of our understanding of the word itself depends largely on which memecist we're talking about, as well. Edward O. Wilson has used the word meme in a mild sense, because he has found that our brains have evolved with large with knowledge, and has come to call these things the brain holds memes. Susan Blackmore is quite extreme in her sense of the word meme, in which she says memes are all we are, and we have no control over which memes we copy and dispurse because we have absolutely no free will, and are merely memetic/genetic constructions. All around I think they're overly certain about some philosophical questions we have reason to be uncertain about (and most of them aren't even philosophers!).Maprovonsha172 18:45, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

"(and most of them aren't even philosophers!)" -- The moment they started working on questions of ontology, they became philosophers. 24.22.227.53 17:55, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

My favorite example of a meme is "pork is unclean, don't eat it". I know at least Judaism and Islam incorporate it into their religion. It may have given cultures an advantage in the days when pig-borne parasites were a serious matter. - R. Forsman

More likely, an advantage because trying to raise pigs as desert nomads is a losing proposition. But for advantageous disease-avoidance memes in the same ballpark, consider the literal meaning of "glatt" kosher; i.e. that the lungs of the animal are free from scars. I.e., no tuberculosis. Gzuckier 20:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It is amazing how when this article gets attacked as in the past few weeks we take back control of the article to mold it better.

MEME: "What doesn't kill us just makes us stronger!!" Thank you all for your work.

MM2MM

Replication or evolution

I'm no expert, and only a newbie wiki users, so shoot me down if I'm way off here: I see an internal incosistency with this page. The "basic introduction" talks about evolution, including mutation and competition, as "their fundamental property". But the list at the bottom of the page seems to have mostly non-mutated examples. For example, jingles, Moore's law, etc. BenBildstein 07:16, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Both jingles and Moore's law are excellent examples of both mutation and competition. If you are a student of advertising, then you will have noted fads among jingles; a new style becomes popular (via competition) and then is adopted/modifed by other advertisers (ie mutation). As for "Moore's Law", the concept has spawned other notions such as Rock's Law (ie mutation) and the concept itself has spread widely (via competition).

We shoot the newbies here on Wikipedia but, then, try to bandage them up afterward.

WpZurp 13:06, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Non-gene reproduction

Some questions (I wouldn't mind answers on my talk page if anyone knows of them):

1) Other molecules can reproduce, and probably even reproduce in stages. Are analogs present in memetic theories?

2) How much differentiation goes on between symbolic (physical, vocal, etc...) representations of memes, and memes themselves?

3) How much do the default personality and cognitive characteristics of individual memeticists (and memeticists in general) color memetic theory?

4) Genes die out, but some still have effects (because or in spite of dying) on the genes which remain or are newly created (this can be species or inter-species), is this represented in memetic theories?

5) Which came first: the gene or the organism/shell which houses the gene? Substitute meme for gene. (And don't try to literally figure out which came first, this is a memtic question, not a question of genetics)

6) By assuming the equivalence between "gene" and "meme", is this begging the question? (The question being language, ideas, etc... as discussed in Talk:Meme#Memes and Memetics vs Diffusion of Innovations) 24.22.227.53 22:23, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

1)DNA is the molecule in which genes are stored, therefore the memetic equivalent of DNA is neurons and their connections. Whether memes are restircited to this (particularly human neurons) is basically the point I raise above about memes in non-human animals and other sotrage systems such as books and computers.

2)There is no differentiation, memes are symbolic in that they do not refer to an ontologically discrete set of neurons, just as genes do not refer to a discrete region of DNA.

3)I would assume that memeticists have significant influence on memetic theory.

4)I don't know if it is represented in memetic theory, but reduction in fitness of one meme will obviously have some influence on the fitness of others.

5)By definition they would both originate at the same time.

6)I don't think this question makes sense.

Your questions infer a possible misunderstanding of the term gene. The gene that a meme is analogous to refers to any genetic information responsible for a particular trait (used more in evolutionary biology). You may be confusing this with a gene refering to a specific region of DNA that codes for a particular protein (sometimes called a cistron and used more in molecular biology). You may conclude that if the trait in question is a protein, then the word would mean the same thing. However, other regions of DNA will effect the protein in addition to the DNA that codes for it. Kernow 19:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Too much culture

This article (and seemingly the study of memetics itself) references back to culture at the cost of a more coherent and complete understanding.

You could reference back to individual desires (which do alter over time). You could reference back to other things.

Additional: Memetic evolution

Meme structures may not have an underlying "genotype", but they do have underlying organizations. And these memeplexes do have some structural elasticity (ie. rebuilding emotional memories based on the non-emotional things about a situation you remember).

Hold on, meme structures do have underlying "genotypes":

This is also wrong in that it is comparing apples and oranges. If a mouse gets it's tail cut off, everything is fine with the genotype, but if a mouse is exposed to a mutagen, everything isn't. If a memeplex loses part of itself, but the possesor still retains the memes the memeplex was built from, everything if fine with the genotype.

If an already built memeplex loses (some of) the memes it is built from (but not built of), it will still retain itself(1), just as the exposed mouse will still retain it's characteristics. In both of these situations, the memeplex and the mouse will have great difficulty (if not impossibility if the mouse's germline has been compromised, and the necessary requisites for building an understanding of the memeplex in another carrier are no longer available) in passing themselves "down a generation". Freaks and sports still have a possibility of being created by the mutated memeplex or the mutated mouse.

If the memeplex needs continual "protein transcription" from the destroyed memes it will die, analogous to the physical body of the mouse.

This is not lamarckian, this is darwinian/mendelevian (and seems more analogous to bacterial plasmids than standard sexual reproduction -- hmm... a possible new interpretation/addition along the biological mold).

(1) - The same way I can forget how to add, but can still multiply (having originally learned multiplication via the "3 * 4 = 4 + 4 + 4" manner) 24.22.227.53 22:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

this paragraph seems to be a veiled biased criticism of religious use of memes:

Fear: If a meme constitutes a threat then people may become frightened into believing it. The memes "if you do not do this you will burn in hell..." and "...do this and you will go to heaven" provide common examples

it is not supported whether or not these examples are in fact "common". it is also up for debate whether these examples are a fair characterization of the teachings of any religious organization.

(as an aside, i personally think that those are very prevalent examples of, for example, the catholic church's historical abuse of power, but my opinion doesn't belong in this article)

The Meme Resistance subsection uses NPOV negative langague directed towards science and technology.

A general NPOV question: do most people consider memes to be an established explanation of cultural phenomena or a doubtful theory? This article seems in places (such as the "Forms taken by memes" section) to assume that the meme concept is largely correct. Perhaps a few more "According to memetic theory" phrases or such like would be appropriate... Trevor 20:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

• Can I suggest as well that a reference to the criticism section be placed in the article summary? It seems silly that the overview of this very long article simply accepts memes on face value.

Alternative, new use of the word "meme"

"In the context of web logs / 'blogs / blogging and other kinds of personal web sites it's some kind of list of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions." -- http://thedailymeme.com/what-is-a-meme/

Examples of this usage:

• http://thedailymeme.com/what-is-a-meme/
• http://kidtastic-meme.blogspot.com/
• http://1800hart.com/blog/2005/08/what-is-a-meme/
• http://perso.fraise.net/permalink/2005/06/514/
• http://roxanne.typepad.com/rantrave/2005/01/friday_random_t_2.html
• These examples were taken from the first pages of Google:"what is a meme"+blog

It is interesting to speculate on how the usage of the word "meme" arrived here, starting with Dawkins.

1. Dawkins: a meme = the analog of a gene for mental patterns
2. the WWW: a meme = a fad or thought of the sort that seems to "virally" propagate across websites (narrower usage; Dawkins' concept included fads, but also mental patterns like "the concept of hell"; however perhaps the most obvious subtype of meme are fads)
3. this new usage: a meme = a quiz that is propagated across websites (narrower usage; a quiz is one type of fad that is passed between websites; however one of the most ubiquitous subtypes of blog fad are quizzes)

Bayle Shanks 00:45, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• • • I agree that there should be disambiguation with a definition and examples of the blog-fad meaning of meme.

• Can we establish these alternate definitions as sufficiently widespread to be considered for inclusion? Fads are memes by the standard definition and, thus, don't seem to warrant separate mention as an alternate definition. Quizzes and questionnaires themselves are not memes by the standard definition, though the practice of creating, completing and posting them would be. However, is this usage pervasive enough to warrant a separate mention? I generally see quizzes and questionnaires referred to as quizzes and questionnaires on blogs and even when created using generators that make reference to the word, which I admit is a narrow perspective from which to generalize. RSClark 09 February 2006

They are not different. Have you not read Dennett, or even Brodie? A meme is a piece of information, which (like a gene), can evolve, and which can influence or change behavior. It shares the same three basic features required for evolution:

1. Replication, aka copying (telling, seeing on a blog, hearing, seeing, emailing - all methods of replication)
2. Fidelity (must be enough like the original or there is no replication, eh?)
3. Variation - I change the joke. You change the subject from a Blonde to an Idiot.

You are needlessly confusing the issue and inventing "different definitions" when they are simply different memes. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I concur with KillerChihuahua's analysis. A quiz that propagates is simply a type of idea that propagates; hence, it is a meme. If you don't understand that the concept of memes is broad enough to encompass the proposed alternate definition, you probably haven't read enough of the scholarly literature concerning memes. --Coolcaesar 04:28, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, having worked in the field I have a broad background in the relevant literature. If you would like to cite your sources, I accept that, but I fail to see the point in challenging my background instead of my claim. That said, my question is in regards to the provision of alternate definitions. Just because a quiz or questionnaire may be a meme, it doesn't change the definition of the word itself. I still stand by the claim that individual quizzes or questionnaires are not by their nature of being quizzes or questionnaires memes in the strictest sense if they do not contain some sort of significant cultural information. That said, I do not claim that quizzes or questionnaires cannot be memes. Indeed, I would have not complaint referring to the Proust Questionnaire or the college boards as memes. -RSClark 15 February 2006

I think some disambiguation is required - it is not just quizzes that are being called memes in every day conversation, but people are calling photos, videos, mp3s etc that they email to each other and put on their blogs/websites memes too...this usage is pretty widespread from what I can tell. Dont think someone basically copying a picture verbatim onto their website is an actual meme!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mattd (talk • contribs) 08:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Link to disambiguation

Is there a need for the internal link to good? It only serves as a useless link to a disambiguation page in my opinion, but I'll leave it up to other editors to judge its merit. The Hooded Man 00:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Go for it! Stripping articles of thoughtless links irrelevant to the subject is always to the good. --Wetman 23:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Should there be a refrence to internet mems on the top of the page? I would think most users searching for Meme would be looking for that dimo414 00:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Horizontal transmission

A recent change by [[User:129.71.207.114|129.71.207.114] says that memes, unlike genes, can be horizontally transmitted. Wouldn't retroviruses constitute horizontal transmission of genes? Alienus 22:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, many bacteria can also exchange genes. But in general genes cannot be horizontally transmitted. --Maru (talk) Contribs 02:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I certainly can't argue with it in general. I'm just wondering if there might be some way to adjust the words to make it clearer that vertical transmission of genes is the norm but not the only way. I'll look and see if I can think of something. Alienus 04:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Have modified: "Unlike genes, (which are typically transmitted vertically)... memes can (also be) transmit(ted)" 202.163.215.11 05:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

The section on horizontal transmission seems to confuse memetic and genetic modes of tranmission. For example, when saying something like 'memes transmit vertically, from generation to generation', it should be pointed out that this refers to genetic generations, rather than memetic generations. What I am saying is that in terms of replication, there is a genetic vertical/horizontal which is distinct from a memetic vertical/horizontal. I am not sure whether memetic transmission can be divided into vertical and horizontal, but it can definately be divided from genetic transmission (both vertical and horizontal). The division of genetic transmission into vertical and horizontal is really just a product of the (misleading) organism's eye view rather than the gene's eye view anyway. This whole idea is difficult to convey so any help would be appreciated.Kernow 17:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

In need of expert attention?

On, 24.248.65.198 removed the "in need of expert attention" notice on this page. I can't see any sign that there was any consensus for its removal, so I've put it back again. Perhaps the notice should go, but surely not without discussion. Gareth McCaughan 21:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot see the need for 'Expert Attention' in an article on a topic that is too young to have experts. I can appreciate the concern about the content of the article, but I fear that the appeal for 'Expert Attention' will go unheeded for at least a generation. My only objection to the current version of this article is that it needs substantial structural revision. --die Baumfabrik 15:59, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

since it is specified in the article that some memes change rapidly and are subject to analogue blending and some memes are resistant to change and may only change slowly by gradual mutation or pruning. I would say the article does.

# explain whether memes follow Darwinian or Lamarckian evolution;

so im gonna mark it off.Solidusspriggan 20:29, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Archiving, trimming

I archived about half the page, sections dead since May 2005. I removed some bullets from the long To Do, specifically those about memetics rather than meme. The current article is quite long and points rather nicely to the sub/main article about memetics, which can address the bullets I removed. I'll post them on the talk page there. Finally, I moved the discussion out of the to do box and onto Talk at the top. Kaisershatner 15:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

The "Intro" doesn't. The first two paragraphs under Introduction and definitions do. Sugges the content above Introduction and definitions be moved to a more logical place in the article, and the Introduction and definitions be moved to top. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Scientific Theory

Is anyone aware of any work done to establish that the meme theory of religion is correct - I'm thinking of some sort of scientific test, or predictive ability about religions mutating ? Springald 20:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

What meme theory of religion? Religions are memes like any other ideas. As for religions mutating, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all clearly distantly related mutants.Kernow 02:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Kernow is correct - if you want a quick read on the subject, Virus of the Mind by Brodie covers it nicely. There is no "test" which we could include in the article, except a logical conclusion drawn by scientists and philosophers. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Science and the scientific method does not need "converts." Larry R. Holmgren 03:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Religion

"Some consider religion itself a meme" - Whether or not you agree with memetic theory, religion is a meme by definition.Kernow 16:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please fix that. :) KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The phrase "by definition" glosses over a huge argument as to whether religious belief in some form is a trait humans are born with or whether it is acquired socially. In any case, we all know that 'religion' has many different definitions, not all of which directly imply the memetic theory of religion. Hibbleton 19:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

"Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism and Islam (and their descendants) all arose (presumably) through variation, modification and memetic recombination from a common one or few ancestors, probably monotheism."

Actually the root of all these religions is the religion of Abraham, and early Judaism. Monotheism is not as seems to be suggested here a religion, rather a theory of the nature of God.

"The Religious Right in the United States of America has, in cases, a unified message built around religious dogma."

This statement is extremely problematic. The Religious right of the USA dos NOT possess a unified dogma - ther eis for example considerable doctrinal variation, and the difference between say the Reconstructionists and other Religious Right theologies is huge.

"By attaching conservative political views to Christian religious evangelism (meme piggybacking), they have associated a particular set of political ideas/memeplexes with a separate set of religious ideas/memeplexes that have "replicated" very effectively for many centuries."

References? I would seriously dispute that the association of conservative political ideas and Christian Evangelism dates back centuries in this context. See the entries on the Religious Right and its history.

"Christianity has won converts for centuries; now in many cases a religious conversion also becomes a political conversion. Compare cultural hegemony."

Again, questionable. It may be a feature of some American Religion, but is not for example a feature of European Evangelical thought... user:cj.23

Neutral memes

Paragraph II in the article: "Memes in themselves appear morally neutral; not necessarily good nor bad. However the application of memes can have moral implications, such as altering the thinking of others which may manifest catastrophic events." (reworded from a more drastic wording)

I have removed "such as altering the thinking of others which may manifest catastrophic events." Given that memes altering thinking is something to phrase carefully to begin with, as a case can easily be made that all thinking is using memes as the building blocks of our thought processes, this statement has the additional problems of 1) highlighting moral implications (which I have left pending this discussion), and 2) highlighting not only the negative, but in an hysterical, panic-inducing manner. Not only do they "alter your thinking" but the results can be "catastrophic"! Well, incorporating new memes is an alteration of the thoughts you have to think with, and the results can range from "catastropic" to "sublime" and everything in between and off in different directions. Why fear-monger that memes have "moral" implications which can lead to "catastrophe"? Is there a point to this? Is it informing our readers accurately, in a non-biased manner? I fail to see that this sentence adds anything of value whatsover, whereas I do see that it feeds and inflames misunderstanding of memetics. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, I see what you are saying. My aim was not to fear monger as you call it but let people know that in the past the use of memes have created catastrophic events, but just as well it has produced peaceful as well with protestors during the vietnam war and the whole love child peace movement (hippies). My ultimate goal was to inform that we must be careful in the way we use means as they may cause undesirable events. However I think it is critical to understand that memes do "Alter your thinking". This is what I propose, we change it so it reads; Memes Alter one's thinking and in themselves appear morally neutral; not necessarily good nor bad. However the application of memes can have moral implications. Incorporating new memes as we both agree "Alter a person's thinking" But that aspect shouldn't be left out. It should be clearly defined as it is key to understanding memes. I do agree however with leaving out the catastrophic events. (UTC)--Gnosis 16:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

"Alter your thinking" still sounds a little too mind-control for me. I would prefer to omit that entirely until and unless we can arrive at verbiage which does not carry mind control or brainwashing connotations. I understand your desire to have this in the intro; it is covered well further in the article so hopefully we can work to arrive at an agreeable phrasing which does not carry the weight of unduly negative implications. KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is much better. I can understand your desire to not make memes seem like a mind controlling device, although they can be. I understand the goal of the article is to express a neutral POV and I think this last edit accomplishes that. Job well done KillerChihuahua!!!--Gnosis 01:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks. :) KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

"Common misconceptions" section -- quite confusing

The section which is currently at the end of the article, "Common misconceptions", is pretty confusing. It brings in Freud's concept of the Ego, Superego and the Id and proceeds to talk about hard to understand concepts in a hard to follow way. Basically, IMHO, the section is currently unreadable. Maybe it should be removed or completely rewritten. And do we really need to go into Freud? PragmaticallyWyrd 00:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree the section is slightly verbose. I wouldn't choose to delete however I think it should be reworded or restructured so that the intent or idea becomes more clear. If Freudian concepts are being used as a point of reference it should give a complete correlation to how this compares to memes. Currently it doesn't do this.--Gnosis 01:12, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Horizontal Tranmission 2

The section on horizontal transmission seems to confuse memetic and genetic modes of tranmission. For example, when saying something like 'memes transmit vertically, from generation to generation', it should be pointed out that this refers to genetic generations, rather than memetic generations. What I am saying is that in terms of replication, there is a genetic vertical/horizontal which is distinct from a memetic vertical/horizontal. I am not sure whether memetic transmission can be divided into vertical and horizontal, but it can definately be divided from genetic transmission (both vertical and horizontal). The division of genetic transmission into vertical and horizontal is really just a product of the (misleading) organism's eye view rather than the gene's eye view anyway. This whole idea is difficult to convey so any help would be appreciated. Kernow 22:53, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Memes can be transmitted vertically from one generation to the next without being genetic. Same as if I was to pass a bit of information to another person that transmission doesn't have to be genetic. I am not sure if they can be be transmetic genetically. It is possible but I haven't read proof of that. I will however research that. In theory information can be passed from the mother's mind to the child. An example however would me more helpful.--Gnosis 03:23, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

You have misunderstood me. My point is, when you say "Memes can be transmitted vertically from one generation to the next" you are talking about genetic generations. In the article, it needs to be made clear that genetic generations are different from memetic generations. Kernow 14:49, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

"Unlike genes, life-forms which typically transmit vertically (from generation to generation), memes can also spread horizontally, within groups of contemporaries."

As far as I can tell, all memetic transmission has to be vertical, I'm not really sure what horizontal memetic transmission would be. For example, if I tell you an idea, then this is vertical memetic transmission along a genetic horizontal. If I tell my child this idea, it is vertical memetic transmission along a genetic vertical. Both genes and memes transmit, and have generations, this distinction is not made clear in that sentence. Kernow 14:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Strongly disagree, unless I am completely misunderstanding you and your edit. The edit read as though memes were genetically transmitted. Your assertion that "all memetic transmission has to be vertical" is not supported by any literature I have ever seen. OTOH, perhaps we need to clarify this bit, but re-writing it as though memes were genetically transmitted is emphatically not clarifying. I realize that may not have been your intent, but that is how it read to me. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You are completely misunderstanding me, but I'm not surprised because I'm am finding this a very difficult point to convey. However, the article cannot stay as it is because it is wrong. In fact, not only is it wrong but it misleads people further on a subject about which there are already many misconceptions. Let me try to explain again...

In this section, there are two replicators being discussed, memes and genes. Both of these replicators produce replicas of themselves, what is refered to as the next generation. Transmission between parents and offspring is vertical transmission. However, when the term "vertical transmission" is used in this section, is not made clear whether this refers to memetic generations or genetic generations.

It is obviously refering to genetic generations (or a genetic vertical) because this is how the term is most commonly used. My point is that genes and memes are both replicators, and hence "vertical" could refer to genetic or memetic generations. This section does not make a distinction.

The same applies for horizontal tranmission.

I understand my edit may not have been clear, this is a very difficult point to convey. However, this section has remained erroneous for months now and something needs to be done about it. It does not need to include the points I am trying to explain, only be reworded so that it is does not conflict with them. Kernow 13:40, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

When I said "all memetic transmission has to be vertical", I was making the very mistake I am saying this section makes. You are definately right that it does not have to be vertical, but only in the genetic sense of the term "vertical". Maybe an example would help clarify my point:

Your mother gave birth to you. Her genes replicated to produce your genes (lets ignore sexual complications for now). Therefore, you and your mother lie on a vertical axis. If a virus was to spread from your mother to you it would be said to transmit vertically.

Now, memes are fundamentally like a viruses, therefore we should be able to use the same terminology. In a sense, yes, however, there is a complication.

I have an idea, and I tell you about it. My meme has replicated to produce one of your memes. Therefore, my idea and your idea lie on a vertical axis.

So genetically, we do not lie on a vertical axis. Genetically, the meme can be said to have spread horizontally, just as if a virus had spread from me to you. But memetically, the memes are on a vertical axis, because your meme is a direct descendent of my meme.

In summary, memes and genes are both replicators, therefore, there is a genetic vertical, a genetic horizontal, a memetic vertical and a memetic horizontal. This section uses the terms vertical/horizontal to refer to the genetic ones even though they could refer to either. Kernow 13:56, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I've tried rewriting it again. Here is what was wrong with the previous wording:

"Unlike genes, life-forms which typically transmit vertically (from generation to generation)" - This seems to be confusing transmission with replication. When a gene replicates, creating a new generation, this defines a vertical axis. However, vertical transmission refers to parasitic organisms that spread along this vertical axis, not the actual replication itself (which defines what vertical is). Like memes, most parasites transmit horizontally not vertically.

"memes can also spread horizontally, within groups of contemporaries." - So do most biological parasites.

The confusion here seems to be that genetic replication is being counted as type of vertical transmission. I am fairly certain this is not the case, and even if it is this sentence is still wrong for the reasons I gave above. Kernow 17:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Weasel Wording

While Darwin lacked proof for a biologically-heritable element, he had postulated one and seemed quite comfortable with the concept of biologically-inherited social traits. (A modern biologist might characterize the latter concept as "Social Darwinism".) Given the early events and tragedies of the century following Darwin's death one can readily understand that modern scientists and intellectuals approach the meme concept with healthy skepticism and caution.

This sounds suspiciously normative. "Modern scientists and intellectuals" is far too vague and "healthy skepticism and caution" is unsupported and biased. I've taken the liberty of removing it. If you're going to restore you ought to clarify who the "modern scientists and intellectuals" are and how ubiquitous they really are, as well as what this community's skeptical criticisms are. davesgonechina 03:18, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

...unless there are to many scientists and intellectuals to be cited, yes, I agree with you but like so many weasellings, when an article is going to be outnumbered by citations, that might not do anyone any good. It certainly sounds as though we might have a number of individuals on our hand here. Well, I hope not, but yes, citations are most important. Dieter Simon 17:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

an exhaustive list isn't necessary. I suggest an approach like that at the beginning where it lays out three different approaches to memes. One could lay out two or three main rebuttals and name one scholar that exemplifies each. I'm renaming "Historical usage of the meme concept&;quot; as "Historical antecendents of the meme concept", since none of the thinkers mentioned in this section actually address memes, but rather ideas that are related to varying degrees from different fields of study. Finally, Darwin's The_Descent_of_Man_and_Selection_in_Relation_to_Sex wrestled with the impact of natural selection on society, but did not discuss a genetic approach to the development of ideas. The distinction is not made very clearly, and Darwin ought to be removed from this section and placed on its own. Memes are not biologically-inherited traits or social darwinist, and that confusion is what I think led to the comment about "healthy skepticism", since social darwinism is held in ill repute.davesgonechina 23:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Please go ahead, sounds a good idea. Your expertise is appreciated here. Thank you in advance. Dieter Simon 22:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there an atheist meme?

There is stuff on weather religion is as a result of memes, but would it be possiable to argue that someone's atheist beliefs are a result of how they were brought up and that someone does not believe in God because they caught the atheist meme?

That presupposes an answer to the question of whether atheism is a belief in itself or a lack of any theist belief. --maru (talk) contribs 17:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that there are atheists who fall into both categories. Some are militant and behave like it is a system (especially Marxists), and others simply do not believe. --MacRusgail 19:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If atheism is classed as a philosophy, then, yes, it is a meme in the same way as any of the religions, it has to be so logically, surely? Dieter Simon 22:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

This comes down to an ambiguity in the meaning of "belief". If I say "He does not believe in a god", this can have two mutually exclusive meanings:

1. He knows what a god is supposed to be, but has decided that one does not exist.
2. He is unaware of the concept of a god, and therefore cannot believe in one.

The first is what I would define as atheistic, and a meme. The second is not a meme, and it is neither atheistic or agnostic. An agnostic would be described as:

He knows what a god is supposed to be, but has decided that he does not know whether one exists or not (this can include a belief that the existence of a god cannot be determined).

This is also a meme. Kernow 17:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Atheism being a religion/not being a religion doesn't necessarily need to have anything to do with it being a meme. There are many reasons why people are atheists so it's arguable that atheism can be a meme (or at least some aspects of atheism). "Militant" and "philosophical" are both completely misleading and irrelevant: http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/1997/october97/fahringer.html . I think MacRusgail should be ignored completely.

An example of atheism being a meme would be some sort of atheistic argument/idea -- "There is no evidence for God." This as itself might be considered a meme. The result of the meme atheism? In this sense it could be comparable to religion but on a different level than what's suggested at the top (religion developing over time and ideas/arguments for a religio could be explained through memes. Atheism doesn't "develop," only arguments or ideas pertaining to atheism do).

I guess natural selection or the big bang theory would be considered atheistic memes, but only if they were used as evidence to disprove the existence the existence of deities. Oicumayberight 09:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Those would fall more into the the science meme category, as they can also be used to argue for the existance of a deity.--Scorpion451 20:44, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

policy proposal

Please help build policy at: Wikipedia:Notability (memes). Thank you, --Urthogie 15:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Meme as theory

The page is still hopelessly POV (at least in the introductory section), as it presents memes are established fact, rather than the theoretical concept that they are. Because they are an abstract concept, they aren't really based on physical evidence (as the theory of evolution), or statistical evidence. As an idea, I find them interesting, and even plausible, but it is disinformation to claim that their existence is cut and dried. It reeks a bit of post-modernism, and may as such find itself out in the cold when po-mo ceases to be fashionable. --MacRusgail 18:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Concur. At least there are some references in the earlier sections. I added a request for references to the the Biological analogies section -- it is especially rambling, self-contradictive, and confusing. Since nothing is referenced, there's no way to tell how much theory-generation is occuring within the article itself, and how much has been brought in from other sources. I think clarity is especially important here, as there is nothing cohesive about the current state of memetics. This article needn't try to enforce some sort of artifical framework on the disparate schools of thought, but I'd like to see which memetic theorists are making what claims. Then we can trim out the faddish garbage. We don't need a Wikipedian theory of memetics, but a survey of the field. Maybe memetics is already dead. Maybe not. I'm looking for information in a Wikipedia article, not proselytism. --Vault 18:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, a Cleanup tag would be more appropriate, as it would cover the sourcing, the organization, and the bias. Thoughts? KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup - I agree! I'm not waging war on memes, I'm just very slightly sceptical. --MacRusgail 18:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

As Vault pointed out this resource is excellent as a "Wikipedian theory of memetics" but it's very Dawkins biased. IMHO Dawkins is a tool and given far too much credit in this article for his "contributions" that are merely regurgitated self replicating ideas in their own right. All in all my grandmother probably knows more about the evolution of thought patterns than Dawkins. --Burns 11:00, 04 May 2006 (UTC)

Semes vs. Memes

It is pretty obvious that a lot of the difference of opinion about memes derives from their remorselessly reductive explicative nature, something that people like Dennett like. So it is equally obvious that all of the arguments about the mind/brain distinction have a parallel here, and the arguments of Charles Taylor (philosopher) about the reductiveness or otherwise of teleological explanation of mental states are totally applicable. As Taylor says - if you can account for all of the teleological workings by a reductive mechanism, then freewill falls apart. But if you can't, then hypothesising the putatively-reduceable features because of a nifty explicative paradigm is not even a close second to explaining the mind away. This is not to deny the power of cognitive science or neurology, or to argue for a Mind/Body distinction, just to say that as an explicative paradigm it is insufficient in and of itself. The force of Taylor's argument is to move the burden of proof away from the people who hold with mental states, and onto the shoulders of the reductivists.

In a similar way, cultural forms (the kind the Semon, as well as Dilthey, Riegl, Cassirer, Aby Warburg and the other Kulturwissenschaft thinkers were interested in) must be shown to be reductively explicable in a way that accounts for the apparently teleological nature of cultural inheritance and transference.

So I propose the notion of a Seme (named both after Semon for the idea that he orginally had and for the idea of the seme that Charles Peirce had - the unit of semantic meaning) to contrast with the notion of the Meme. It stands in relation to the Meme as the Mind does to the Brain.

Thus the central question of the Meme controversy becomes one of showing that the Meme can always provide a reductive explanation for the Seme in every case: not that it might be possible, or that it could one day provide the basis for one, but that it right now provides a complete explicative paradigm in and of itself. And as with Taylor's argument, the burden of proof shifts from the culture-scientist justifying that the Seme is not reductive, to the Memeticist proving that the Meme can acount for it.202.72.136.39 07:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

OK - but why not make the less flashy but more devastating criticism that traditional terms used for analysis in history of ideas scholarship are superior (terms such as theme, trope, idea, concept) precisely because they have no a priori baggage relative to the discourses they are then used to analyse? 134.115.68.21 09:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

This is aricle is unsalvageable. Plato, Descarte memes ha ha.

Transmission

"Unlike genes, life-forms which typically transmit vertically (from generation to generation), memes can also spread horizontally, within groups of contemporaries. Memeplexes can be viewed as assisting the survival and transmission of the entire memeplex in a symbiotic relationship." - If by "transmission" this means replication, then both memes and genes always replicate vertically. If by transmission you mean infection of a host, then both memes and genes (e.g. viruses) almost always infect horizontally. The article should read something like this:

"Infectious parasites can spread between biological hosts. When a parasite spreads from parent to child, or visa versa, this is known as vertical transmission. Spread to non-parent, non-offspring individuals is known as horizontal transmission. The same terminology can be applied to the transmission of memes. It should be noted that this usage of a vertical/horizontal axis is in relation to genetic descent rather than memetic."

Please also refer to my points in the /Horizontal Transmission 2/ section above. Kernow 21:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you disagree with? The current sentence is wrong. Please give this some kind of discussion or I will be forced to correct it again. Kernow 16:09, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

1. You have failed to demonstrate where the sentence is incorrect.
2. You have failed to gain consensus for a change; the onus is on you to gain that consensus, not on me to debunk your proposed edits, which you have made without sourcing, without reasoning, merely presenting "this is wrong, I'm changing it to that" which is insufficient.
3. If you are "forced to..." I wonder who is "forcing" you? Perhaps you'd care to rephrase? KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I have discussed my point in a number of different ways in the Horizontal Transmission 2 section above. None of my statements have yet to be disputed. When I say "forced to" I mean that the current wording is clearly flawed, there seems to be a misunderstanding of "transmission" and "replication". Anyone that knows basic biology should be able to see a problem here.

1. "genes, life-forms" - "Life-form" probably isn't the best word to describe a gene, especially the "gene" used in evolutionary biology.
2. "typically transmit vertically (from generation to generation)" - This doesn't really make any sense. If you are talking about genes replicating vertically, then you are using "transmit" and "replicate" to mean the same thing. If by transmit you mean "infection" of a host, then this is usually horizontally for genes (viruses etc.)
3. "memes can also spread horizontally" - If by "spread" you mean "replicate" then this is clearly not true because nothing can replicate horizontally. The replication, creating the next generation is what defines the vertical axis. If by "spread" you mean "infect" then this is the same as viruses, horizontal transmission is most common.

What I think this section is trying to explain is that: humans are the result of vertical genetic replication, whereas memes spread from human to human horizontally. There are a number of flaws in such thinking:

1. All replication is vertical, so using the word "transmission" instead of "replication" is a serious error. Genes replicate, create a new generation of genes which are said to be vertical. Memes replicate, create a new generation of memes, which are said to be vertical.
2. Some genes (viruses and other parasites) spread from one human to another, this is known as infection or transmission. If they are a parent or child, this is called vertical transmission, if they are not (which is more usual) then this is horizontal transmission. Exactly the same applies to memes. If you tell an idea to your parent or child, its vertical. If you tell someone else (which is more usual) then this is horizontal transmission.

As for sourcing, I am unsure what to offer you. This comes down to the meaning of basic biological terms, namely transmission and replication. The Selfish Gene can only make sense with a proper understanding of the difference between this terms. Kernow 00:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

1. I do not read the sentence as life-forms=genes, rather than life-forms transmit information veritcally via genes.
2. Transmit information. If it does not make sense to you, suggest a rephrase, perhaps?
3. Again, transmit information, which can indeed occur horizontally with memes.

The section clearly states "memes can also spread horizontally" (emphasis added.) The section is not trying to explain that memes spread horizontally only. Concur on the phrasing being unclear (obviously, as we disagree as to the meaning) and needing some tweaking. The terminology is certainly being used rather loosely. Brainstorm? Ideas? Should we dig out our books and see if we can find some sourced descriptions? KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't have my Selfish Gene with me but I'm sure there is something in there. What I am saying is that "transmission" in biology means more than just "tranmsission of information". It is the movement of a parasite from one host to the other. This can be both horizontal and vertical. The current phrasing uses the word "transmission" to describe the replication of genes, and "transmission" to mean the infection of memes. Although equivalents can be drawn between both the replication, and the infection, of genes and memes, this misuses one to describe the other. Kernow 19:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

And I am thinking (but I could be remembering incorrectly) that Brodie does the same thing, although one would hope he clarifies. Ideas for alternate phrasing? I'll try to dig out some books and see if I can locate something attributable and clear, but meanwhile, what do you suggest? KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, nice, I like it! Avoids the all-or-nothing as well as the "parasite" reference. Well done. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Non-natural selection

I have removed this section, which read like an OR essay and had no sources whatsoever. If there are sources, and this section 1) Can be salvaged and 2) Is viewed as necessary or helpful to this article, please make your case and post your sources here. Thanks - KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Pronouciation of "meme"?

could someone add how u pronounce meme? --Anon.

That's already in the article. --maru (talk) contribs 19:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

In The Selfish Gene, where Dawkins coined the term, he says it is prounced to rhyme with "cream". --Oldak Quill 21:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Memetic explanation of racism

"even though their differences lack a definitive racial basis"...what is a definative racial basis? Kernow 00:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Good question: I'm guessing what was meant was that although of differing groups, the Hutus and Tutsis are both negroid. I have refactored the section to omit the confusing terminology. KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The "memetic explanations of racism" got me to think of this explanation as a kind of memetic virus in itself. Not dissimilar to the ideas of the inquisition that there where some dangerous and frightening ideas that could spread throughout society by people secretly possessed by them. That we need to protect ourselves from being influenced by those who might not be true believers, people or groups that might be possessed by such fiendish ideas. And what will happen if this memetic virus infects all of society? A new inquisition? Persecution of people suspected of harbouring their clandestine and diabolical viciousness in all secrecy? Spells and incantations to protect ourselves against those that might be carriers of such ideas? Public hysteria to find the witches and disclose the true diabolical ideas that they hide in their evil hearts? Cultural relativist priest performing social exorcism on people believed to be possessed by the spirit of the devil? That the ends justifies the means when interrogating and intimidating suspects? In short: Political correctness? ;-)--85.165.91.124 08:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Except that racial tolerance could also be explained as being memetic. Memetic != bad. OTOH, that there "needs" to be an explanation of racism (and there does, IMO), possibly suggests something similar to what you're saying. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Given that "White Supremacy" is the original and most empirically observable paradigm of memetic racism, I am curious why the Ruwandan case is mentioned without overt, specific reference to the "Caucasoid" Belgians? Importantly, given that the Belgians were arbitrary and capricious in their formulation of Hutus and Tutsis, how do they escape identification here? This seems bizarre, to say the least. --Temple3 19:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Although the Rwandan case is definitely not a new thing, I'm not sure that one can say that "white supremacy" is the original paradigm of memetic racism. It might be true, but that seems like an awfully difficult thing to prove. Perhaps the reason for the Rwandan case is that it has certain features that make it more amenable to memetic analysis. One such reason might be the fact that it might not be as old and widespread as other forms of racism. (I know precious little about the history of Rwanda, so this might not be true.) Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I hate this word

I've never encountered this word in my life until I saw it EVERYWHERE on Wikipedia. This really irritates me. I hate the word. Ya this is more of a comment than a contribution. The wikipedians dug up this word from some obscure book and created a new vocabulary word. I think if it weren't for wikipedia this word would be known by a total of 7 people on earth. I don't even know what I'm trying to accomplish by writing this so don't ask. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.40.60.37 (talk) 16:22, July 9, 2006

The Selfish Gene, the book in which Richard Dawkins coined this term, has, according to the back of my copy (issued in 1999) sold over a million copies and has been translated into "over twenty languages". Google has 189, 000, 000 results for the word "meme". I could probably dig up many more statistics which would indicate that the meme meme is indeed very successful in the meme pool, within and without Wikipedia. --Oldak Quill 23:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Now that i read the article its kind of interesting.

I've never encountered a person with real mental retardation before, thank you for broadening my experiences, anonymous contributor. The truth is that Meme did not originate on wikipedia, it was a term coined by Charles Darwin and has been used all across the internet to describe viral fads: YTMND, SomethingAwful, AlbinoBlackSheep, 4chan, Fark, Slashdot, and even Usenet groups have their own tiny memespaces that intersect each other, and it's not by any means a new phenomenon. --Utopianfiat 14:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Be civil, Utopianfiat. Mo-Al 16:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

...and if you intend accusing people of "mental retardation" you should probably get your facts straight: Darwin didn't coin the term, Dawkins did. --Adam Brink 10:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I have heard this term many times, from sociology classes, psychology classes, to books on cultutal anthropology and cybernetics. It is a very useful word in analysing individual interactions with psychology.--Scorpion451 20:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

What are talking about you never encountered a person with real mental retardation? Have you been living in a cave? These are the types of people that are editing these articles?

Sections moved from article

I moved the following sections here, partly because they're unsourced, and for other reasons:

See Quine's argument against such an atomic form of reduction in his classic essay, Two Dogmas of Empiricism.

Given that this was in a paragraph all its own, its not at all clear why we should be seeing Quine's classic essay. Further, Quine was clearly not arguing against memes.

Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations convincingly showed the absurdity of positing two parallel worlds, one of "body stuff", the other of "mind stuff" whose interaction is unknown and, perhaps, unknowable. See his private language argument.

This is not at all the point of Wittgenstein's private language argument, and further, even if it were it is highly unlikely that he would argue against the possibility of the existence of, say, body stuff and sociolinguistic stuff - he would more likely just argue against calling the sociolinguistic stuff 'stuff'.

--Smahoney 00:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The argument of Quine's pertains to reduction. That is the relevance. The meme here is the form of reduction.

Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" is a massive critique of Cartesian dualism, why else do you think it was so revolutionary?

--Lucaas 23:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Memetic accounts of religion section

The "Memetic accounts of religion" section is full of weasel words, unsourced and therefore unverifiable claims and original research. I've tagged some examples and removed the worst bits outright. However unless proper sources are provided for many of the claims made, I will go through and remove a lot more of it. I suspect that there are similar problems throughout the article. Gwernol 12:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the specified material. Gwernol 10:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I would welcome a removal or revision of the phrase "... and fundamentalist Christianity has associated..." because it implies that fundamentalist Christianity is a single movement or ideal. It isn't. In America, it perhaps seems to be, because you have a socio-political right-wing groupung that has identified itself with Christianity. However, in the rest of the world, particularly Britain, one original source of Protestant and nonconformist views, it is difficult to define any one group or person who could fall into this group. Maybe the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the chairman of the Methodist assembly and so on are fundamentalist Christians, yet this would be difficult to reconcile with the views of the "religious" right in America. Please excuse (or if you must, explain) any breach of Wikietiquette, I'm new here. ATeacher 10:23 GMT, 26 November 2006

A proposed radical simplification of this page

Hi, as someone who has been much quoted in the early days of memetics (google "meme lee borkman"), I'm saddened to see the state of this page. Why all this long-winded discussion about "meme", which is not a diffcult thing to explain for an encyclopedia, and which, in itself, is not particularly controversial? The only thing controversial about "meme" is the amount of seriousness with which we take it. The Meme page really needs nothing more than a simple definition of meme, which is after all, little more than a suggestive new word for "idea". Move discussion of the science versus pseudo-science debate to the memetics page where it belongs. At present, this page looks like an ill-disciplined undergrad web forum.

I would suggest something like this for the Meme page: "Meme" is a word coined by Richard Dawkins meaning almost exactly the same as the existing words "idea" and "concept". The word was coined in order to suggest a correspondence between biological evolution and the evolution of ideas (ie, "meme" corresponds to "gene"). In particular, the use of the word "meme" implies that ideas evolve by Natural Selection, ie due to replication, variation, and competition. Consideration of the "meme" and its implications has given rise to a controversial new field of study known as "memetics". Leeborkman 02:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree with you more. There is a lot of waffling, why don't you go for it and rationalise the article. People will become more convoluted as time goes on, just to see themselves in print. So please do make what you quite rightly think is a much better article. Dieter Simon 23:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree too. Kernow 21:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Massive content cull.

Somone, I think it was Lucaas (if I can read history entries properly) has removed the vast majority of the Meme article. It looks great. That looks about the right amount of content for such a simple thing as "Meme". thanks. Leeborkman 04:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC) ---note: no it was not Lucas. Lucaas 18:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Well I hardly think just deleting the vast majority of the article qualifies as improvement (it is quite lazy too). Now I agree its overly long and also worryingly unsourced. However and unfortunately, more work will have to go into trimming it down without removing much that is good. As such I am reverting this. I suggest any further revisions should be done section by section rather than in a wholesale manner. Barnaby dawson 09:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

There was no consensus for the massive deletion of page content and I have reverted it. Do not delete the vast majority of this page (or any other) without a large majority consensus from other editors. 24.126.199.129 09:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a question... how long should we leave content with a "citation needed" comment before the content is deleted? Great chunks of this article have "citation needed", and without these citations, they are just POV. This article should not be an undergrad essay critiquing memetics. thanks. Leeborkman 09:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally I think anything that's remained with a citation needed tag for a month or longer should be removed to a subpage of this talk page talk:Meme\citation needed to be reinstated upon production of a citation.

Having performed a comparison of this article with the one one month ago I would say the apart from the memetic accounts of religion section and the first paragraph of the General Response to Criticisms section any other statement that still has no citation should be removed to the above subpage (i.e the vast majority). If you do this perhaps mention the subpage in your edit summary so people know where the material is going.Barnaby dawson 15:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what seems to be the consensus opinion: that nobody agreed to a complete rewrite. As for the issue of citations needed, this seems to be cover for POV removal, since it would mean removing alot of the article and, in fact, the section LeeBorkman is adamant on changing has, in contrast, quite a few references and sources included.

Lucaas

Thanks. I have gone through that section and inserted requests for citations. The problem with that section is that, although there are many citations, these citations are not relevant, ie they do not actually refer to memes or memetics, eg Wittgenstein didn't have anything to say about memes (obviously) but is cited here under "lack of philosophical appeal". Same with Quine. It is POV to say that memes suffer from the problems raised by Quine and Wittgenstein without citing sources to back up this claim. You need to support your claim that memes suffer from these problems, ie make the connection between memes and Wittgenstein/Quine. Leeborkman 23:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. As long as you have checked out all the external links, fine. Dieter Simon 00:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Simon, it does sound reasonable as it stands, and there are plenty of references. This is a valid criticism of memes (I'm not saying a 100% sure one), the fact that memes were not around at the time of Wittgenstein or Quine is not relevant to the critical arguments they made in relation to these themes of reduction and mind/body dualism that is drawn upon in the referenced argument against memes. That would be like saying one could not use Aristotle's logic in an argument against pre-Einstein space. It is a point to be refuted by memeticism, as is attempted by someone in the same section "However, in response to such criticism". I don't presume that the connection made in the article between memes and Quine/Wittgenstein is made very well, but it is a connection to be considered and maybe requires futher pondering to comprehend it, afterall Wittgenstein's arguments are very demanding.

If a point is to be made that this connection is not shown clearly then show it better! Or find a refutation of the argument that memes are not a dualism nor a reduction, and put it in the responses to criticism section Lucaas

Actually, it is not my job to try and refute the POV in the article. Is that the new WP policy, ie everything is true until proven false? The unsubstantiated claim being made is that memes suffer from the basic problem of dualism. That's a big claim, because the whole point of memes is to suggest that culture and biology both share in the same general processes, ie that there is no meme/gene dualism. Where is the support for the claim that memes are dualistic? If there is no supporting source, then let's remove this unsubstantiated claim. In other words, is it really true that this philosophical objection is levelled at memes? What philosophers have made this accusation? It would be silly to add a refutation of this claim if such a claim is not actually made. I might as well refute the claim that memetics causes cancer. Leeborkman 04:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

References not working?

Can someone please explain how the ref tags are meant to work? In the "Lack Of Philosophical Appeal" section, for example, although I can see that there are references, clicking on the reference links has no effect. Thanks heaps. Leeborkman 00:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

If you insert references using the <ref>...</ref> tags you also need to add a <references/> tag somewhere in the article to mark the place where the references should appear. I have added a new section "Footnotes" to the article for the references you added. Eventually, the "References" sections and the "Footnotes" section that I added should probably be merged once consensus is reached wrt. the preferred references mechanism. — Tobias Bergemann 08:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Over use on wikipedia.

If you poll most people they will have never heard of the word meme in their life. This on its own is not enough to constitute a complaint against the word's heavy use on Wikipedia, but accompanied by the fact that it is often interjected in articles where another word would have been more descriptive or the word meme could have been left out while still leaving the article with the same meaning, the word is definitely seeing over use and meme theory in general is being abused because of it.

Because of meme's general lack of use by experts and scientists*, and its prominent use to describe internet fads, I am betting that in a few years we will see the generally understood meaning of the word by most people to mean fad or trend, with a few people here and there trying to educate everyone on its "real" meaning to no avail, whatever that meaning is. Thus, the new theory of information and cultural transferable units which I think many want memes to become will never be realized or crtiqued unless we stop the general use of meme as a replacement for otherwise descriptive words which pertain to the subjects being discussed. We owe it to the not so tech savvy Wikipedians and potential new users not to abuse the word meme by its interjection where other more descriptive words would help the reader understand the subject more completely and with less chance of confusion.

• I'v never run into any experts using the word, myself, although I'v obviously seen the references to works about memes in this article and elsewhere. And I'm betting nearly all experts in nearly all fields have never even heard of the word although I'd be interested in knowing the real statistics... what kind of chance does that give Wikipedia's non-technical users?Serialized 21:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

-as mentioned elsewhere in the discussion, it is a theory and has criticisms, and it it isn't a theory that all 'experts' believe in. I don't know the statistics for how many 'experts' believe memes to be a valid theory (but I get the impression it isn't anywhere near as accepted as things like the theory of evolution) and thus should something not reasonably fully accepted be widly used and treated as a fact?

Memes and EPD&MOC

OK. While reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, I came across a section on "Popular Fads of great Cities" (I hope I'm quoting it right). While it originated prior to the concept of the Meme, it does have some similar ideas, i.e. phrases originating from a known or unknown source, rapidly spreading and then dying out. Does this deserve being referenced in the article? 65.12.114.98 02:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Snow Crash Verifiability

I noticed the following in the beginning of the Historical anecdotes of the meme concept section relating to Snow Crash:

As Neal Stephenson notes in his Snow Crash, the ancient Sumerians believed in the propagation of information in compartmentalized memetic form, and developed several mythological accounts to explain how this operated. Sumerian mythology depicts its the gods as holding onto sacred laws called me. These laws, never given a physical description, represented the sum total of knowledge in a certain field (such as farming or sex), and the gods parceled them out in order to keep mankind under control. Without a me a person could not fathom a particular concept or make use of certain tools. Only when these me, stolen from the gods, become distributed freely among humankind, self-propagating like memes, can human civilization finally flourish.

I've read the book, and really like the concept, but how verifiable is this theory? Are there actual Sumerian mythology experts who have subscribed to this idea? It works great for his plot, but I'm not so sure that it's as set in stone as this section suggests. // Montag 18:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I second Montag. I've read the book, and while it's interesting, I don't know that we should be citing a fiction book in an encyclopedia. There is an entry in Sumerian_mythology (the Mesopotamian Cosmology section) that appears to support it, but the entire article is marked as needing expert attention. Next person who comes across this and has no evidence to the contrary (ie, supporting the Sumerian memetics idea) please remove the reference. If there are no comments in a few weeks, I'll remove it. Pkcirtap 22:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it, we shouldn't be citing a work of fiction as verification of historical facts/theories Tomgreeny 14:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC) It could go in a memes in fiction/popular culture section thoughTomgreeny 14:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What Confusion?

The "Memes as discrete units" section starts off by indicating that there is confusion over the definition of "meme", and the last part of the "Origins and concepts" section somewhat implies that as well. However, I don't see any actual confusion over the definition. Basically, any concept you can think of is a meme, right? Seems pretty clear to me. The last part of the "Origins and concepts" section is more about how to approach memes, not define them. I'm not sure I see any "controversy" there, as the same paragraph admits the approaches are not mutually exclusive. So if there is something unclear or controversial about the definition then someone needs to explain what the confusion is and who the sides are in the debate, or if there is no confusion, someone need to remove the parts saying that there is a problem with the definition. Am I missing anything? -- HiEv 19:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I modified the sentence. The confusion is not over the definition of memes, but how to proceed in the study of memetics compared to genetics. It may be harder to isolate a meme than a gene. Oicumayberight 22:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

An Old, Bad Line of Reasoning

I've seen this line of argument before: (from the Memetic Virus Exchange? section) "Others maintain that the wide prevalence of human adoption of religious ideas provides evidence to suggest that such ideas offer some ecological, sexual, ethical or moral value; otherwise memetic evolution would long ago have selected against such ideas." It's a severely flawed line of reasoning in two major ways. First, it's like arguing that the fact that many humans are infected with HIV is evidence that the virus provides some benefit to people and thus sticks around in the population, clearly a poor argument. It sticks around in the population because it takes advantage of people and uses them to keep itself alive. That's what parasites do. Second, if you read the original Dawkins chapter from the Selfish Gene where he first describes the meme, you will see that he quite effectively argues that a meme can and will spread itself through a population as long as it is capable of doing so, and regardless of the effect it has on the individual carriers. Thus 'memetic evolution' will not 'select against such ideas' and they will spread. Fisherted1

I didn't see anything in the article that suggest "good" or "bad" memes. I saw much in the article that discussed "strong" and "weak" memes. A bad meme can be as strong or weak as good meme. The same goes for viruses. Oicumayberight 01:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Oicumayberight, I think you missed Fisherted's point. If a method for reproduction exists, it will be used by anything that can use it, whether it serves the desires of those who created the method or not. Being widely replicated doesn't make a meme helpful to the host, it just makes it very good at making use of the means of replication. That makes the argument blatantly flawed.

This brings to mind the concept of a factoid. This is a piece of information which is presented without evidence, but which gets replicated anyway. Urban Legends and superstitions are the archetypes of factoids. They're not useful in any way, they're just really good at making use of the replication process.

Speaking of which, has someone coined a word which means "a false piece of information which is more likely to be passed on than the corresponding factual information"? In meme speak, that's "A falacious meme that is stronger than the corresponding factual meme". Robert Rapplean 19:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

After re-reading it, I see that it was reply to a quote. I don't think we are in disagreement. Oicumayberight 21:19, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Notice: removing {{Merge}} tagging

1. in Memetic engineering {{Mergeto|Meme}}
2. In Meme removed {{Mergefrom|Memetic engineering}}

xpost

in talk:Memetic Engineering...

Since there is no discussion since September, the consensus to not merge with Memetic engineering seems loud and clear. // FrankB 18:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Origin of the term Meme

I'm sorry, what evidence is there that meme was coined by Dawkins? Is he older than the Greek language? Perhaps he's older than the French tongue? Please, please don't come back with "my dictionary says...": dictionaries can be wrong. They're only as good as their researchers. Dictionaries do not fix language, they explain it in relevant terms. Besides which, without even looking myself, I feel confident that those of you who are near a library with a copy of the second edition OED (that's the 20-volume set) will find that it has an entry for meme. I shall tag the appropriate sentence; please do not remove the tag without adding a reference.

Back again. I can find little actual citation for Dawkin's coining the term meme: as the discussions up the top of the page mention, sememe predates Dawkin's use of meme. Wikipedia does not have an article on mimesis, the semiotic term, and I'm afraid my own books on that subject are packed for a house move. However, from memory, semiotics (and indeed psychoanalysis) predates Dawkins quite considerably, and the term used for transmitted cultural signs in that field is mimeme - from the Greek. Coupled with what this article has to say about Mneme - which ought to be at Mneme as well - the French phrase la même chose ("the same thing") which is taught to every first year student of that language, and can be used in a manner conceptually similar to the English phrase "near enough", it seems fairly unlikely that Dawkins in any way created an entirely new concept or word.

Dawkin's status as a European academic in the 1970's - when both French and Semiotics would be known if not to him, then to his compatriots - makes it inconceivable, and even assuming he is one of those academics who does not or did not realise that Germany's publishing industry is far better disposed to academic texts than the UK's, that he at no point came across même, mimesis, mimeme, mneme or sememe and was informed by it (or them). Specifically, I do not consider a word "coined" unless it satisfies the criteria of A) Being an entirely new word, e.g. sqknorptheowoog, or B) providing an entirely new definition of that word. Nor does introducing loanwords count. Any other biologist, on discovering and taxonomically naming a new species, might be said to have "coined" their own term, but would hardly lay claim to inventing words or new meanings thereof (there are exceptions, but it should be obvious they are not relevant here). I remind you, further, that if one were to produce a book entitled "The Unseeing Timepiece Technician" which was substantially similar in content to "The Blind Watchmaker", Dr Dawkins or his publishers would almost certainly sue for plagiarism. If one wrote a book called "The Plight of Men", substantially similar to Paine's "Rights of Man", no-one could sue, since the copyright is invalid by reason of being expired. I put it to you that this article should be culled but not stripped of references to Dawkins, and any claims that he invented or first conceived meme be stricken. I don't care if he says he did, that's a matter for his own article. It is certainly not something that should relegate all other possible explanations of origin from the opening, explanatory paragraph of an article. Have someone conjugate mimeisthai (the Greek verb from which these things all derive) in all possible ways, if necessary.

Furthermore, there is a large amount of material relating to Dawkin's and his adherent's views of religion, pro and anti voxpop of Dawkin's meme, and so forth: if this is so vital to you that you feel it must be preserved, please move it to Meme (Biology) or wherever you think it best fits. Trust me, if this article contained even a short discussion of the similarities between Semiotic theory and Dawkin's work, it would be unreadably overlong. Having both what it already contains, even shortened (which judging by above comments, some editors are highly resistant to) as well as what it lacks would be unfeasible.

My IPO claim I will be back online around a fortnight from today. I shall use the intervening time, once unpacked from the move, to look up some basics of semiotics which coincide with and predate Dawkin's work. If you're really lucky, I'll dig out some psychoanalysis references too. :) --172.202.234.253 22:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

O-K. But that's not terribly helpful. Opening paragraph still says Dawkins coined the term. If even he admits it comes from a contraction of mimeme then he did not coin it, he misspelled it. The concept described would be from Plato, or Aristotle with their "life imperfectly imitates imitations of perfection" spiel. You're really not making a case for his having started a new way of thinking about information transmission, which is what the need to coin a term would suggest. Please make it explicitly clear as early as possible within the article how, precisely, the transmission of a meme is demonstrably not mimesis - because if it is mimesis, then meme and mimeme are cognate irregardless of what may be claimed to the contrary. (Of course if it isn't, it remains to be seen why he contracted mimeme at all - the "I needed a cool word so I rhymed one with gene" argument does not wash.) Right now it reads as though circa 1975 his agent called to say "Ricky love, great script but the publishers want a thicker spine to make it stand out on the shelf. Anything you can do about it? Maybe drag out some of these shorthand terms a bit? You know, 'transmit a meme' instead of 'mimesis', that sort of thing? C'est la même chose, n'est pas, mon ami?" The only thing that seems to stand out from a reading of this article as different from mimesis is his attribution of memes as useful for their "meme's-eye view", which is somewhere between notions of synchronicity and psychohistory; that is to say, he seems to be also describing mimesis in the active (or conditional) as well as the passive, without attributing animate qualities. But it's hardly new whether it works or not, is the trouble: observation of conceptual dissemination predates him considerably. And if he's only claiming pristine discovery or invention, then this article should reflect that throughout, as it should reflect any notable, populist or academic and substantially similar theories which predate Dawkins' work and would have been available to him at the time of writing. Damn. Just realised what I've been doing with apostrophes on his name. Change it to "deliberate misspelling" and include his own quote if you can't bear to take his name from the first paragraph, and remember that the longer the article is the less likely many readers are to get beyond that paragraph. It needs to reflect the genuine origins of the term, and not just as an endnote. --172.202.234.253 06:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

See addition under 'External links', giving full citation of his abbreviating "mimeme" to "meme", under the para "The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation."

What both you and he seem to be saying is that meme is indeed identical with the prior notion of mimeme. Which is important enough to go in the top of the article, like so:

(Sorry I have barged into your suggestions as to what should go into the top of the article, but I need to refute that this is part of my opinion, it isn't).

I am not saying anything of the sort. All I am doing is citing what Richard D. is saying in his book, as there seems to be a lack of sources, one of the most regrettable things in any Wikipedia article. Citing what another has said is one thing, claiming what he is saying to be the be-all and end-all, is an entirely different thing. I am dealing in facts here, inasmuch as that the fact he as an author has said something is a fact nevertheless, whether we accept what he has said, or not. If you dispute what Dawkins is saying, then put your version into the article and supply all the citations. Without them they will be queried. You must also expect other Wikipedians to query what you are saying in any case as this is a controversial subject.

All I am citing is what he said in Chapter 11 of his "The Selfish Gene". That is verifiable in the link given in the "External link" list. That's all. Dieter Simon 02:03, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Dieter Simon

The term "meme" (IPA: /miːm/, rhyming with "theme") was borrowed in 1976 from the study of literature, philosophy, sociology, and several other fields, by the biologist Richard Dawkins to refer to a "unit of cultural information" which can propagate from one mind to another in a manner analogous to genes (i.e., the units of genetic information). It is a deliberate misspelling of mimeme. Whilst Dawkins claims to have invented both the term and associated process of analysis,"Memetics", there are distinct similarities with his work and the work of earlier philosophers and critics. Semiotics and Structuralism are significant bases from which Dawkins' work may be said to progress: Dawkins himself, however, persists in asserting that he has created a "name for the new replicator"(your ref, also note that Dawkins refers to "lifeforms" as "survival machines" - never use one word where two will do, eh?). See also Biosemiotics, Structuralism (biology) for alternative applications of these analytical techniques in the field of biology.

I shall take a very dim view of your expertise if this is not done, and will involve the wider wikipedian community in such case. Wikipedia is not a mechanism for self-aggrandizement, publicity or hagiography. The fact that after however many years this project has been in operation there is still nothing at Mimeme speaks volumes, as does the fact that this article is now spammed all over the web courtesy of Answers.com and their ilk. You may not present Dawkins' work as new or a leap of intuition without independent evidence to back up his own claim - I'm sorry if this was not explicit from my original citation request.

I strongly suggest you sit down with copies of Derrida, Foucault, Barthes and whoever else those authors point you at before insisting that Dawkins had a new idea or that Meme is any less a crib of Mimeme for his saying so. And for the last time of telling, it is not sufficient to bury the historical development of meme at the end of the article - you must give the background first, directly after the opening summary. --172.202.234.253 17:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I've read his chapter 11 and frankly find it bankrupt of new ideas. Lots of overstressed metaphors and BS prose, but nothing new. What I am saying is not "there must be other people who have said Dawkins is a fibber", but rather, Dawkins is self-evidently a fibber. He has created nothing new, all he's essentially done is change a few names of public-domain concepts. It's no more original than the semiotics that informed academia when he was young: yet by citing his claim in the manner in which it is cited we are unreasonably legitimizing it. If I have not made it clear to you by now, then here it is for the last time: Dawkins' own claim is not a statement of fact, it is a statement of opinion. It makes the article POV from inception. It precludes a proper description of his work as it fails to allow for the contextual framework into which they fit, and in doing so, attributes far more originality and creative responsibility to Dawkins than is factually correct. I have told you three important things over the past few days: why I have not provided the citations myself (the books are in store until after I move house, and the internet is spammed up with this PR for Dawkins), what the work his quote (as it is attributed) states is his own creation is actually drawn from, and in the above para, three standards of any lit-crit or philosophy course for you to look up. Here they are again: Derrida - Foucault - Barthes. Go on, I dare you. If you find Dawkins readable you may even enjoy Barthes.

What I fear has happened is that this article has, over the past six years, been copied and re-copied by every lazy student who wasn't prepared to do anything but parrot book blurbs and is now staring out virtually unchanged from a myriad of websites. The basic claim to which I object has been on that first line for that entire period - I don't think you can bear to believe such a glaring inaccuracy would survive that long, but to paraphrase Dawkins, there's no reason for bullshit to die out. You're actively nurturing it by implying that I should provide a quote from in some cases long-dead authors that Dawkins stole their work, when in fact I have no such duty; it is your duty to provide evidence to support Dawkins' POV claim, otherwise put in context, or remove it. Would our Christianity article be better if it began "Jesus Christ is our one true Lord and Saviour, and anyone who says different will burn for eternity in the fires of hell." ? How about the Hitler article starting with "Of all the Master Race, only Hitler had the pure strength of will to lead, and he's dead, so basically we're all screwed." ? No? Thought not. Please don't parade your ignorance of semiotics around as though it lends the article gravitas, because it doesn't. Over the past few days I've read comments on other sites about the supposed difference between Meme and Mimeme, and you know what? According to your second para, there isn't one. Even Dawkins himself gives us examples which could be straight out of Barthes' Mythologies or any Structuralist primer, and these analytical modes, many and varied in their iteration and application, predate Dawkins' own birth!

Yes, meme as Dawkins would have us say is his "own" work - he shortened it. He even popularized it. But what else did he actually do? Develop it's etymology from the classical Greek period? Of course not. Perhaps, like Propp, he developed his own structural theory in enforced near isolation from European philosophers? Er, no. He even helpfully tells us as much - unless that is, he decided to hijack mimeme without so much as glancing at an encyclopedia to make sure it didn't have any unpleasant connotations. Few paid authors are dumb enough to do that, and fewer publishers reckless enough. Did he even develop the notion of prediction via meme before Asimov released Foundation (and by extension popularized Psychohistory (fictional) in 1942? No. He's certainly no Shakespeare spewing out true neologisms at a rate of knots.

Did Dawkins assemble and tinker with a wide array of ideas already extant? Yes. Should we credit him with creating those ideas? No. Should we passively allow his words to credit him with creating those ideas simply for want of clicking a few links? No. To descend into Dawkinsian simile, "Though he wears clothes, can speak, and comes from another dimension, and even has his own wikipedia article, Howard the Duck is a Duck. Stripped of that context, he'd just be Howard the."

Meme is a contraction of mimeme - even Dawkins admits it. Why then can you not understand the context in which meme resides? Why cling to the irrational belief that Dawkins' opinion is worth making into the opening statement and directing force of the article? It strikes me as deeply ironic that an article about the analysis of cultural propagation, and more ironically it's main source for a fairly specious opening claim, fails utterly to recognise the existence of the basis from which the subject matter springs.

Now as I have said, I am in the process moving house. Thursday, to be exact, and how soon I get back online remains to be seen. --172.202.234.253 05:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

and it's just occurred to me I haven't even mentioned Keynes or macroeconomics, which you may find enlightening. --172.202.234.253 06:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Please, try to understand what I am saying. I am an editor who is citing the source of the statements made in the introductory para of this article, as well as those in the chapter "Origins and concepts". That is what editors do, or should do, they endeavour to cite the sources of statements in an article to establish who said what. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editor but establishes a connection with the originator or the original source so it may be looked up by anyone who has an interest to do so.

So please do not query in the talk pages everything you see in the article. If you have facts to the contrary of what you see in the article, marshal these facts and support them with duly annotated citations of the sources. They must not just be your own opinions, they must be written up elsewhere, so that you can cite them. We do not, repeat not, enter our own research into the subject. The facts must be verifiable through cited sources.

After all, this is an encyclopaedia and not a research paper, so please remember you are welcome to enter anything you have seen written by other authors which may then be verified and agreed with or refuted as the case may be. Please read up what Wikipedia is and what it is not: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Dieter Simon 00:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

NPOV in Memetic account of personality

The section Meme#Memetic account of personality ends with:

We conventionally refer to these meme-generated patterns of behavior as a person's personality.

In the spirit of WP:NPOV and WP:Avoid Weasel Words, I mildly object to the use of "We". (Many schools of psychology would not define personality that way.) I'm considering changing "We conventionally" to simply "Memeticists" or something synonymous. Any objections? -- JEBrown87544 22:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Moved from to-do list

• Add some images to the page

Images? For meme? I'd be very interested to hear how any image could make the subject of meme clearer. Leeborkman 07:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, don't be so pessimist :-), a quick google-image search with keywords 'meme dawkis' returned me a good one on http://www.str.com.br/Scientia/tmm.jpg . I'm not sure how to add it though.Mlonguin 17:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'd like to know if there is evidence that Dawkin's had in mind, or subconsciously, took the name from Sydney Lamb's earlier--b ut not much earlier--notion of "sememe" as a cognitive, neural, transmissable notion of meaning in language or the brain, independent of syntax or other linguistic levels. It does seem pretty close ---in the 60s there were serious discussions in linguistics on Lamb's notions and questions like "Do sememic ships have sememic oars?". I can't help but see the meme notion right there in discussions that dawkins might well have heard. Alexander Wilks 14:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

genes in microscopes

"One cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can detect genes" should be "One cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can sequence genes". Otherwise it is implied that genes can be observed through a microscope (too small if you are wondering) or that macromolecular imaging techniques such as x-ray crystallography or NMR are employed to obtain the sequence of the base pairs of a gene. Instead chemical sequencing is used.

A better analogy for a meme than a virus is a mostly asexually reproducing organism (mutation and gene reshuffling are still active) with occasional sexual reproduction (resulting in new memes with heritage from more than one parent meme). It is still only an analogy though and not a precise description.

84.238.13.209 00:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

"Pail" removed from otherwise-obsolete-word list

Comment on my recent edit: The article notes that the transmission of nursery rhymes helps to keep "otherwise obsolete" words alive, giving as examples "tuffet" and "chamber". It used to include "pail" as well. It seemed odd to me that "pail" would be considered obsolete. I checked a number of online dictionaries, but I could find no evidence, other than the article, that anyone considers "pail" to be an obsolete word. Therefore, I removed it from the list in the article. --Tugbug 01:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Good edit. "Pail" remains the pretty-much-standard British English term for what Americans label a "bucket", unless usage has changed radically in the last generation. I'm not even sure "chamber" is a good example; people don't frequently use it to mean "room" any longer, but it still is frequently used in other context (combustion chamber, rifle chamber, etc.) There are probably better examples, but I don't remember enough nursery rhymes to offer one off the top of my head. "Tuffet" is a great one, though. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm 22 (and English) and I've only heard "Pail" used in "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water", seems to me that it is on its way to obselesence even if it hasn't quite got there yet. (I always call it a bucket). The word "Chamber" is far more used than "Pail" in England even if it not used very often these days. Tomgreeny 16:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge

Memetics needs to merge into this article. The subjects are quite indistinct, and Memetic redirects here already anyway; this split is confusing to the reader, and the combined material may well lead to a Good Article, on up. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The current article is 80 kb long, and the memetics artike is 23 kb long. Indeed, the memetics article is a fork off of this one, to keep the article from growing to long. I think that memetic might be better off directing to memetics but I think that merging the forked memetics content into this page will make it too long and unwieldy. It will also give undue weight to that part of the story of memes, rather than keeping this page as a clear overview of the concept and area. Edhubbard 17:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with merge. There is really no delineation between the articles, no cogent way do discuss one without discussing the other, and the sources for both articles are necessarily the same. This article has a lengthy section, with subsections, on memetics, although it points to Memetics as the main article. Merging would require harmonizing the two articles and eliminating duplication. If well done and coupled with careful editing, the resulting Meme article would not necessarily be longer than the present one, and would give the reader a full introduction to the subject. On the other hand, if the articles are not merged, then all but a 1-paragraph summary should be cut from the memetics section of this article and worked into Memetics (to the extent that it is not already there). Finell (Talk) 08:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I think that perhaps I would agree more with Finell's option number 2, to begin to reduce the article length some. Reading the memetics article, it seems as if this one is in much better shape, so it would require some work there. In the end, the most important question is, as SMcCandlish has noted, what would best help to get this article to GA status? A very selective merge of memetics into this article, which might not necessarily increase the size, or a better merge out, which might decrease the size of this article slightly? My vote is for a more summary style, where we merge more out, based on the feeling that it would best help the article to get to GA status. Edhubbard 10:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, this doesn't seem to going anywhere. If the articles aren't merged, than the huge section on memetics in this article must be cut to a short, one paragraph summary. The reduncancy cannot be justified. But even then, there will still be lots of redundancy, no? So why doesn't someone be WP:BOLD and do the merge? Finell (Talk) 04:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

We do have separate articles on gene and genetics, and the analogy is fairly clear here. I also think an 80kb article is getting a bit long. Richard001 09:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the very substantial duplication of the same material in the two articles. An alternative is to eliminate the duplication in a non-arbitrary way. Finell (Talk) 15:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that these articles should be merged. It will take some devotion, due to the elimination of redundancy. Trefalcon (talk • contribs) 14:48, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Global Warming Meme

The pro- and anti- global warming camps together with their respective activities, including gross misrepresentations, viscious personal and scientific attacks, covert merchanising, overt cencorship, legal and personal threats and attacks, and all the debates and media coverage that are resulting are the most brilliant example of rapid Meme propogration I have ever witnessed. I beleive it would make a good example for addition to the Meme section.

203.206.137.129 08:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can provide reliable sources, that would be original research. Reinis^talk 08:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Somebody please correct all the quotes to normal English form

The reversed quotes (»impression«) are annoying. --Diz 15:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Actually, in many places they don't even to be used for quotes but for emphasis. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of uncited material

Some statements not directly supported by inline citations have been deleted without justification or allowance for the provision of citations. This is a perversion of Wikipedia policy. What should be done instead, as has been suggested, is that {{fact}} be used, which is a request for other users (primarily the original authors) to provide sources that verify the statement. To quote Wikipedia policy on verifiability:

“ Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page. Alternatively, you may tag the sentence by adding the {{fact}} template, or tag the article by adding {{Not verified}} or {{Unreferenced}}. Leave an invisible HTML comment, a note on the talk page, or an edit summary explaining what you have done. ”

What User:Pixelface is suggesting by deleting the text on sight is that {{fact}} has no purpose, and that all information must be corroborated upon submission. This is false, and directly contradicts Wikipedia policy, which states that to be the case only in controversial circumstances (such as WP:LIVING). Furthermore, even in such carefully mandated and outlined cases, it must be considered that the external links and passim references may be the sources for such statements, and only not cited in-line due to novelty or laziness. If there is such a possibility, {{fact}} should be used. This is how I have left it. Please desist from deleting information from the encyclopaedia without giving users the opportunity to prove the statements verifiable. Bastin 21:55, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:V is policy. Editors should provide a reliable source for any material or it may be removed. The only way to demonstrate you are not presenting original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any edit lacking a source may be removed. It's true that ((fact)), ((not verified)), and ((unreferenced)) tags may be used. But Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has said that there seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that "I heard it somewhere" pseudo-information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag, but that is false. The information should be removed until it can be sourced. That is true of all information, but especially in articles about the biographies of living persons. When I removed those uncited sentences, it was not a "perversion" of Wikipedia policy. I am following policy. I see the sentence has been added again and a book has been cited. The sentence claims A) the idea of memes is a meme itself B) the idea has gained a rare degree of penetration into pop culture C) the idea of memes is a scientific theory. That book says no such thing. You'll have to find a source for each of those claims. Otherwise one can assume it's original research or synthesis or speculation by editors and it can be removed. --Pixelface 15:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The book explicitly states both.--Scorpion451 rant 06:33, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The sentence I removed was "The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right, gaining a degree of penetration into popular culture rare for an abstract scientific theory." Later, a citation was added for a book[1] by Kevin Kelly. The sentence I removed makes 3 claims: 1) the idea of memes is a meme itself 2) the idea has gained a rare degree of penetration into pop culture 3) the idea of memes is a scientific theory. I looked at that book on Amazon and used "Search Inside This Book" to find the word "meme" and it showed up on 6 pages and the back cover.

Page 4 - Nature is also a "meme bank," an idea factory. Vital, postindustrial paradigms are hidden in every jungly ant hill.

Page 214 - A pretty metaphor compares the spread of genes through a population with the similar spread of ideas, or memes, in a population. Both genes and memes depend on a network of replicating machines - cells or brains or computer terminals. A network in this general sense is a swarm of flexibility interconnected nodes each of which can copy (either exactly or with variation) a message taken from another node. A population of butterflies and a flurry of e-mail messages have the same mandate: replicate or die. Information wants to be copied.

Page 215 - Both genes and memes depend on a network of replicating machines-cells or brains or computer terminals.

Page 307 - I know of programmers fooling around with algorithms to mimic "memetic" evolution - the flow of ideas (memes) from one mind to another, trying to capture the essence and power of cultural evolution.

Page 360 - As Richard Dawkins has shown, systems of self-replicating ideas or memes can quickly accumulate their own agenda and behaviors. I assign to higher motive to a cultural entity than the primitive drive to reproduce itself and modify its environment to aid its spread.

Page 363 - Organisms, memes, biomes - the whole ball of wax - are only evolution's way to keep evolving. What evolution really wants - that is, where it is headed - is to uncover (or create) a mechanism that will most quickly uncover (create) possible forms, things, ideas, processes in the universe. Its ultimate goal is not only to create forms, things, and ideas, but to create new ways in which new things are found or created.

Back Matter - Dawkins also introduces his equally original secondary idea of memes (ideas that replicate for their own reasons).

Which pages of that book claim that 1) the idea of memes is a meme itself 2) the idea has gained a rare degree of penetration into pop culture 3) the idea of memes is a scientific theory? Please do not take offense, I am editing in good faith. As far as I can tell, Page 214 says that memes are a metaphor. For the claim "the idea has gained a rare degree of penetration into pop culture" you must cite someone who says that, not just cite another book that mentions memes.

Also, I see that the book by Kelly is being cited for this sentence: "Memeticists argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts." but I cannot find a statement like that in the book. Again, I used "Search Inside This Book" on Amazon, and found the word "host" on 13 pages: p65, p73, p74, p101, p276, p285, p286, p287, p288, p296. Two portions of text I noticed were on page 74 and page 288:

Page 74 - Ehrlich came across a word to describe this tightly coupled dance in the title of a 1958 paper by C. J. Mode in the journal Evolution. It was called "coevolution," as in "A mathematical model for the co-evolution of obligate parasites and their hosts." Like most biological observations, the notion of coevolution was not new. The amazing Darwin himself wrote of "coadaptions of organic beings to each other..." in his 1859 masterpiece Origin of Species.

Page 288 - Sometimes in Tierra a parasite would be in the middle of asexual reproduction, "borrowing" the copy function of some other creature's code, when the Reaper would happen to kill the host midway in the process. When this happens the parasite uses some copy code of the new creature born in the old creature's space, and part of the "dead creature's interrupted reproduction function. The resultant junior was a wild, new recombination created without deliberate mutation.

Again, I don't think that book supports the sentence in the article. Please read WP:V and WP:RS before accusing someone of vandalism. WP:V says The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. I realize there is a certain degree of rewriting when editing an encyclopedia, but I think those sentences are not supported by that book citation.

Memeticists argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts.

The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right, gaining a degree of penetration into popular culture rare for an abstract scientific theory.

I have moved those two sentences to this talk page (and have commented out the Kelly reference) until a proper source can be provided. --Pixelface 21:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The use of amazon for fact checking is useless. There are far more than six pages devoted to the concepts of memes in this book. The word meme is not used on all of them. I am sitting here holding the book which apparently contains information that all of the copies amazon recieved do not, according to your findings. Also, I did not accuse you of vandalism. I told you that many on wikipedia consider removal of cited information to be tantamount to vandalism. Find something constructive to do.--Scorpion451 rant 07:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, I noticed that one sentance containing the word meme

As Richard Dawkins has shown, systems of self-replicating ideas or memes can quickly accumulate their own agenda and behaviors.

clearly confirms this statement.

"Memeticists argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts."

Kelly reffers to memes variously as self replicating ideas or cultural entities for the sake of clarity of how he is refferencing them at that time, and also to avoid overusing the same word over and over. The subject recurs numerous times in the book, and has a chapter devoted entirely to memes. Also I just noticed your comment about clear citations. I find it odd that you complain about this after finding the book on amazon; you debunk your own claim. Unless you have read a book or the book obviously has not relation to the subject, assume good faith and do not remove properly cited material.--Scorpion451 rant 07:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I am assuming good faith, but I am also looking at sources to verify information. I don't think the quote from page 360 of Out of Control supports that statement. Any editor that wishes to include that statement needs to find a reliable source that says "successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts." Unpublished statements, or synthesis of material that appears to advance a position is original research — and is against Wikipedia policy. We are quoting people, not coming up with our own analysis of what we think authors mean. Is Kelly a memeticist? Who is the other memeticist that statement is referring to? Did Kelly ever say memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive? Did he ever say that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts? If you have a particular page number you'd like to cite, you can read about citing them at WP:CITE. Wikipedia readers should not have to read an entire book to verify a statement. Any input from other editors would be appreciated. --Pixelface 09:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My opinion: Wow, what a disagreement. To begin, yes, WP:V has the above mentioned quote from Jimmy Wales, but I think Pixelface may have taken it a bit too far at first. There's a difference between "information the original editor thought was unlikely to be challenged" and "random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information". If the information doesn't violate WP:BLP, is encyclopedic and relatively uncontroversial, and looks like it could be sourced easily, a {{fact}} tag and removal after a reasonable period of time would be more appropriate than immediate deletion.

As for the book source: Page numbers for book references are required in most cases, and yes this means you may end up with several citations that differ only in the page number. Citing the book as a whole is not particularly helpful in the vast majority of cases. However, I am wary of consulting Amazon's "search inside this book" feature to determine that information is not present in a book, and immediately deleting the reference rather than requesting addition of page numbers (and only deleting if they are not forthcoming) is certainly not assuming good faith.

I do agree that this represents original research, as the quoted sentence does not state anything about meme survival probabilities or their possible detriment to their hosts; I don't doubt that there is support for the statement, but that sentence is not it. At this point, it would not be out of place to quote the specific sentences eventually used for the above statements (either here on the talk page, as a quote= parameter in the {{cite book}}, or as a link to Amazon if a useful one can be found) to forestall further accusations of original research.

To summarize, both of you should remember to assume good faith, remain civil, and keep your cool. Anomie 17:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Books as a valid source

This comment deserves some attention.

Wikipedia readers should not have to read an entire book to verify a statement.--Pixelface 09:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You just excluded every book ever written as being ineligible for being a cite. You are wikilawyering to the point of ludicrisness. You accutually challenged the word "meme"'s status as a word. You need to reread the policy pages. You are completely distorting the entire point of the policies, not to mention removing information from an article which has been cited. I have added back a cite onto the information several times, yet you for some reason seem to be unwilling to accept it. I have a citation on my side, you have your own opinion which is challenged by said citation. It is not surprising that you cannot find the exact sentance in the book. This would be plagerism. Richard Dawkins is the origin of the concept of memetics, quite possibly the best person to cite about memes. Kelly examines the information about memetics in several parts of the book, and information he presents includes the possibility of memes which are detrimental to their hosts.--Scorpion451 rant 16:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, you seem to grossly misunderstand the statement. The editor is complaining about citing to a 200+ page book without specifying a page number. This is clear because the editor says "If you have a particular page number you'd like to cite..." Honestly, if you cannot identify pages that support the proposition, there's no good way to verify the information. See WP:CITE. Cool Hand Luke 16:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, you need to cite specific pages, and it sometimes helps to add a quote too. Reinis^talk 20:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I have never seen a mention of specific page numbers before, I may have missed this as no one has ever called it to my attention and requested specific pages numbers. Also, I cannot find it in his statements where he requested specific page numbers. My primary issue is that he has repeatedly deleted cited material and made no effort to gain any sort of concensus. Am I upset at him? Yes, as he is personally attacking me because I added a cite to a sentance he deleted. It is one sentance, and I cited it as the original user requested. I will try to find a specific page number now that someone has calmly stated that this is also requested in this instance. It would be one thing if I added an uncited paragraph stating that memes are forms of alien mind control, but it is an entirely different thing to delete a cited fact, repeatedly, with not a single word of simple, calm, explanation. This is what has me so upset at him.--Scorpion451 rant 21:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to mention that this section was written before the above comments from the admin.--Scorpion451 rant 21:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The Game Tree Project

The Game Tree Project has been set up to monitor the memetic transmission of The Game, an interesting meme than only exists because of its inherent memetic properties. My addition of this link to this article keeps getting removed, does anyone else feel this link will be of interest to people reading about memes?

IMHO, it seems at best to be a See also. Is it even unique? Have any conclusions been drawn? What is the design of the experiment, if an experiment it is? DCDuring 14:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Nietzsche

I am only a college freshman and I am new to wikipedia. So, sorry in advance if this is a worthless contribution...

I was reading "The Gay Science" and came across a certain passage where it seems to me that Nietzsche was basically talking about memes. Check out Book III, Aphorism 110, "Origin of Knowledge".

See: http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/diefrohl7d.htm if you don't own a copy of the book. This also works, but I prefer Kaufmann's translation: http://www.publicappeal.org/library/nietzsche/Nietzsche_the_gay_science/the_gay_science.htm

I was thinking that this could be used in the section regarding "Historical usage of the meme concept"...anyways, hope this helps and good luck with the article...

Nietzsche, Foucault, Kuhn

I agree that Nietzsche seemed to think in a similarly reductive way, as did Foucault... who was influenced by Nietzsche. Foucault created the idea of the episteme which is remarkably similar in my opinion. I hope some parallels can be drawn in this article

Please forgive my introduction of the subheading above out of time sequence. Nietzsche's concept, Foucault's episteme, and Kuhn's paradigm seem to operate at a higher level than meme. One important novelty of the meme concept is that it draws our attention to smaller units of analysis than seem customary in much of the social "sciences". It is hard enough to keep this article focused without having extended discussions of weakly connected predecessor concepts. DCDuring 15:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

---

I think Nietzsche is a clear influence on the idea of memes - they mimic his thinking in so many ways, and Dawkins, I would expect, would be familiar with Nietzsche's work.

Sorry if I'm writing this in the wrong place, it's my first discussion on wikipedia, but I would like to address the potential influence of Nietzsche on the idea of Memes, as these appear to mirror many of his ideas, as shown particularly in 'Beyond Good and Evil':

1.) Will to Power. This is a subconscious drive that is the root of all other drives and controls all living organisms, i.e. everything biological is caused by Will to Power. He suggests that the Will to Power applies to human ideas passed on by particularly strong wills, for example the ideas of Christianity being part of St Paul's and Jesus' (among others) Wills to Power. Nietzsche also said that everyone's different Wills were struggling against one another, and some become dominant over others - a clear parallel with the theory of memes.

2.) Dogmatism. As a result of everything being caused by Will to Power, Nietzsche sees much of past philosophy (i.e. ideas) as a result of prejudices - rather similar to these memes being passed from one person to another (NB Dawkins's idea of the concept of hell being a meme vs Nietzsche's idea of religion being a 'prejudice').

3.) Truth; the idea of memes being ideas rather than truth. As Nietzsche says that everything is caused by Will to Power, this leaves no room for truth to be the ultimate aim of science, etc, this parallels the idea of memes being passed on due to their being ideas rather than being true.

What do other people think of this idea - to me the influence, or at least similarity, between memes and Nietzsche's thinking (particularly the Will to Power)? I realise what I have said is not good for putting in the real article as it is, but in theory I think it would be a useful, interesting, and reliable addition if written correctly and sourced (there is bound to be an online copy of BGE and other of his texts).

Cheers guys

Memes and Memetics vs Diffusion of Innovations

How do memes and memetics compare and contrast with cultural/anthropological diffusion studies? Gabriel Tarde's laws of imitation and Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations set out models for transfer of new ideas. Is a meme different from an innovation? How do sociologists, anthropologists, communications academics and other specialists treat memes? I see these traditional concepts in all sorts of academic papers, but memes seems to be a favourite of Internet users. The meme meme is very strong. Why is this? Perhaps the article should delve into these areas. --Westendgirl 04:18, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see the two models as conflicting; the description of evolutionary diffusion fits closely with meme theory; meme theory can be seen as extension of diffusion theory; an "innovation" in diffusion theory sounds roughly equivalent to a memeplex. If anything diffusion theory most likely competes with Manuel de Landa's nonlinear historical analysis. Unless there is documented conflict (like active debates in anthropological circles), describing a possible one in the article is purely supposition. --albamuth 06:44, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but (I think that) diffusion is covered far more widely and more generally accepted in academia. I don't necessarily see a conflict. However, it seems odd to me that the meme article is so long and yet does not touch upon other relevant and often more common subject areas. It seems isolated within the meme world and disconnected from more widespread academic concepts. I don't think this needs to be the case and I think it would refreshing to bridge these areas. I am not seeking to attack the meme article but to help it connect to other areas of academia. Also, I don't think diffusion theory competes with de Landa's analysis. Diffusion of innovations theory does not see knowledge as a linear concept. You can draw a bell curve for individual innovations within individual societies, but this is not linear -- there is neither a constant rate of acceptance nor a guarantee of acceptance. --Westendgirl 04:17, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, I must concur. I suppose the next step would be to look for literature linking meme theory to diffusion (as well as Delanda nonlinearity of history), and where to tie it into the article. --albamuth 05:58, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Please read Mikael Sandberg's “The Evolution of IT Innovations in Swedish Organizations: A Darwinian Critique of ‘Lamarckian’ Institutional Economics”, Journal of Evolutionary Economics (on-line 2006, in print 2007). It links memetics to diffusion of innovations.

For another useful discussion, see "Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process" (2000), edited by John Ziman. It contains a great article by Eva Jablonka about non-genetic inheritance models drawn from non-genetic biological inheritance mechanisms (which ride on/co-exist with the genetic one). She and Marion Lamb also have a wonderful book "Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Behvioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life" (2006). Important elements of the meme idea are gradually being incorporated into the mainstream. DCDuring 15:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Tags

Why are there so many "citation needed" "who says this" "blah blah sources" etc. all over the article, almost every three words? There's even multiple tags stacked together! Either you tag the whole article, or you delete all that lacks sources (according to the tags, almost the entire article). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zim (talk • contribs) 00:24, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I find it very helpful to have specific unsupported claims tagged. It specifies exactly where the potential controversies are. It should make it easier to improve the article, which certainly hasn't reached high standards yet. DCDuring 15:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's one for you: "A tendency exists in memetics to disparage religious memes[citation needed], beginning at least as early as Dawkins's openly-expressed atheism..." is a paraphrasing from Aaron Lynch's book "Thought Contagion". My copy has been lent out so someone else will have to track down the page 68.77.113.94 17:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that I'm the one for whom the above was offered, I don't own "Thought Contagion". Using Amazon, I could find no reference to atheism in the book and could not find anything with a sense connected to the paraphrase in the vicinity of "Dawkins". If you have other ideas about what to search for, you could try Amazon or Google Scholar more effectively than I since you seem motivated and know what you are looking for. DCDuring 19:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Meme Theory?

Is meme theory a scientific theory? Is meme theory more closely connected to "critical theory"? Is it a theory? Could someone state a testable proposition in the theory or rather provide an example of a proposition in the theory that survived some kind of valid test? I'd like this to be a better article. DCDuring 19:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge Memetics into Meme?

So... is this merge still being considered? The tag is pretty annoying. --Antonio.sierra 01:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Have you looked at Meme lately? It's going downhill fast, IMHO. I'm beginning to think that it's better to look at applications of evolutionary thinking in specific fields instead of in some proto-discipline. I could be wrong, but look at some of the "Evolutionary ..." articles. Some resemble real articles. DCDuring 03:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

From my POV, I only found out about meme, BECAUSE of the word memetics. A cross reference is all that is needed so one can find out about the true, more base word, by association. So leave memetics alone, as a stand-alone entry, just continue to point the way to meme. Rohb Vogue —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.255.108 (talk) 03:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

if memetics is merged with meme the resulting article would be pretty huge, although i can see an argument for the merger Ragingbullfrog 10:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree thoroughly with the suggested merger, despite the resultant article length this would produce; as the principal concept behind the theory, it makes every bit of sense for the Meme section to be a part of the article on Memetics in general. LSmok3 22:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I can think of one good reason not to merge them, it would be a pain in the ass chunk of work. Keith Henson 03:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a job for someone, I suppose. Whilst I'm here, does anyone know where the 'examples of meme' have been taken from, or is anyone allowed to add suggested general examples to the list? I was thinking particularly of myths and folklore, brand icons (advertising is mentioned, but only in relation to jingles), perhaps spelling errors (where copied from other sources), and also images and archetypes (like the Three Hares example I added to the See Also list . . . LSmok3 01:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the merge not only because of the amount of work involved in the process, but also because they are entirely different things with different origins. Richard Dawkins has nothing to do with memetics but everything to do with memes. Both articles should be allowed to grow; one as the definition and explanation of the term and the other as a chronological account of the developments in the field. --Antonio.sierra 07:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

i am also opposed to the merge, because they are becoming different things. There are a growing number of people who are working in memetics (in my experience). We would not propose combining gene and genetics - and why the analogy is not fully comparable, there is something to it. The science is not the same as the thing being studied. This is, of course, a very separate issue than the quality of the current articles. Another interesting piece of information would be to look for the number of people who come looking for the definition of the word "meme" in the wikipedia search engine (since it appears the proposal is to have the meme entry be inside the memetics definition) - if many people are asking what a meme is, do we really want them having to wade thru the memetics article to find it ? Paxuscalta 13:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

As Applicable to Livejournal Culture

Is this idea overtly related to the idea of a "meme" on Livejournal? I know that's how I found this entry; looking for a definition of meme as LJ uses it. If not, should there be a note? Sort of a "pop culture" section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.14.183.201 (talk) 19:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The popular usage of the term "meme" in various blogs (not just LJ) is only loosely related to the basic concept described in the article. If some decent sources could be found, a "memes in popular culture" section would be useful. --George100 14:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Meme=Mores?

What's the difference between a meme and mores? 63.103.4.4 15:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Social mores are a subset of all memes. --George100 14:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that mores are less? ;) Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL! I figure all mores are memes, but not all memes are mores.99.229.239.0 19:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Semiotics?

In the subset on Transmission: "In the absence of telepathy, memes generally do not spread directly from one mind to another, but via the behaviors which they generate in their hosts. For example, the fashion-value that "less is more" spreads through the behavior of people dressing down in understated clothes and acting superior; this behavior then has the effect of showing others a real-life example of this fashion-value, thereby conveying to them the fashion statement that "less is more". Verbal transmission can supplement or replace this imitative method." - This seems like furtile ground for a semiotic analysis.. does anyone know whether this has been done? (Since it seems to me it would be a great approach, and might be worth mentioning if this work has been done and if it has picked up steam) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.103.122 (talk) 03:27, March 11, 2007

I think what needs to be done in reference to this term is to put it in contrast with what semiologists and linguists (or sociologists, from their perspective) have studied and contemplated in regard to the propagation and change of ideas and other symbolic or relational mannerisms, which is a lot, since it's a critical aspect of language and communication. After all, Dawkins has not really done too much, just made an analogy between conceptual/behavioral units and genetic modification. This idea may be useful for those familiar with the theory of evolution yet unfamiliar with semiotics and linguistics, but otherwise it's ironically a "fill in" concept that itself to a large degree ended up as a cultural "meme" in usage (at least, it's used repeatedly all over the Internet as if it were a particularly substantial concept, but mostly carries a heavy dose of prejudgment).

~ Who is like God? (talk) 10:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

ummm...citations?

i have a habit of deleting "Citation needed" tags because they make wikipedia look like an unprofessional battleground of edit wars. wikipedia should look proper. so you can imagine my reaction when i saw this page. take care of the "citation needed" tags (in other words, find citations or delete the text or delete the tags) or i will simply delete the tags myself. i'll give y'all 3 days. Special:Contributions/160.39.129.60 00:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

That is absolutely improper. If the text fails to cite references you do not delete the tags, you delete the unsupported text--which would include most of this abysmally written entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.42.142.120 (talk) 13:58, October 8, 2007

The above is correct. It is completely inappropriate to go around deleting "citation" tags. See Dealing with citation problems. --George100 08:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with not deleting the tags. However, this entry (while being rather good) needs to get fixed pronto. Way too many unverifiable claims that look like they can be construed as original research (although reading a lot of them, it's clear they came from somewhere).

However, I think the excessive amount of OR tags is worse than ones looking for citations.StormRyder 21:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I am qualified, in the sense of understanding the topic, to edit meme and memetics, and supply any missing references. But why? As someone who has written about it since 1985 I would immediately be attacked on OR, COI, NPOV and a dozen other reasons. See the AfD about Capture bonding for a sample. Another example is Hazing. It needs serious reverting to get rid of vandalism, but there has been so many of those edits by IP address that it's hard to decide how far back to go. Keith Henson 16:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

If you provide references you shouldn't get attacked on OR. COI is only relevant, IMO, if it's self-promoting. NPOV can be an issue, but just make sure you use reasonable language and I (as well as others, no doubt) will back you up. In short, I'm encouraging you to use your understanding to supply the missing references. Don't worry about them getting deleted. If they're valid (and assuming you're really Keith Henson, they no doubt will be), others will fight to keep them. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

That's me. Let's see how it goes with capture bonding. So far 4 calls to delete the article by people who just don't understand the concept. And could someone besides me go fix multiple vandal edits of Hazing? Keith Henson 22:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Capture bonding was deleted, but I managed to move a copy to Wikia before it was deleted. Shame the talk and history pages could not be saved, there was some useful stuff there. What I am considering is getting recognized as an expert for meme/memetics on Wikia so I can edit a protected version. If someone wants to copy it back to Wikipedia they could do that. Keith Henson 20:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to look at the article. (I didn't know it was up for AfD until after it was deleted.) I know nothing at all about the topic. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Capture bonding is a psychological mechanism that requires evolutionary psychology to account for it. The same is true for memes. You really have to understand the evolved nature of a meme's host in order to make any predictions about how well it is going to propagate in a group. This is particularly the case for classes of memes that spread well when the host population is stressed or anticipating hard times a-coming. Google for "evolutionary psychology, memes and the origin of war." Keith Henson (talk) 22:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

memetic viruses

hey i don't have the time to go through this section and clean up its citation problems, but three sources for this idea are:

"Viruses of the Mind" by Richard Dawkins; in Dennett and His Critics ed. by B. Dahlbohm available here: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html

Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie

Thought Contagion by Aaron Lynch

hope that helps...

Yonderboy 01:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

"Media Virus" by Douglas Rushkoff is one of my favs.99.229.239.0 20:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

After Dawkins and Douglas Hofstadter I wrote some of the earliest articles on memes. List here: [2] Keith Henson 20:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Coining vs Etymology

The introduction to this article says that Richard Dawkins coined the term. Then in the historical antecedents section, there appears to be a disagreement between John Laurent and Dawkins as to its actual Greek etymology. Wouldn't Dawkins be aware of which Greek root inspired him, if he did in fact coin the term? ≈≈Carolfrog≈≈♦тос♦ 23:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It is entirely possible to coin a word and then find out later that it was previously created by someone else for a meaning either similar or sometimes somewhat different. For example, Eric Drexler and nanotechnology.

Minor point, the to do list includes a reference to "spiral dynamics." Even though they use a derivative of the word meme, I don't think what they have in mind is close enough to be consider linkable. Keith Henson 00:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Religion section

"The Religious Right in the United States of America has a unified message built around religious dogma. By attaching conservative political views to Christian religious evangelism (meme piggybacking), they have associated a particular set of political ideas/memeplexes with a separate set of religious ideas/memeplexes that have "replicated" very effectively for many centuries. Thus Christianity has won converts for centuries; now in many cases a religious conversion also becomes a political conversion. Compare cultural hegemony."

If the Wikipedia is meant to be a serious attempt at approximating an encyclopedia, should this political viewpoint really be included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.22 (talk) 08:32, 21 March 2006

This is an example about the way memes work from a particular point of view (probably Dawkin's) that doesn't add to the definition. Politics and religion be damned but get rid of stuff that's surplus to needs.

Tohobbes (talk) 11:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC) I agree. If anyone doesn't mind, I am going to go ahead and erase that paragraph now. I think that section has more than enough examples without needing one more that may violate the neutrality guidelines.

Summary of memetics

The summary of memetics in this article seems too long to me. It is clearly longer than the whole memetics article. A summary should surely be significantly shorter (at most not much more than half as long) as what it is summarizing. I'm not sure how the content of the two differ, having not read the memetics article yet, but something surely needs to be done about this if the article memetics is to have an independent existence, as it seems the consensus favours. If that is to be so, some of the 'load' here has to be shifted to that article. Richard001 (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The trouble you are going to have is finding anyone who understands the subject enough to edit it. I do, but having been published on the topic if I tried it would only result in my edits being attacked. Keith Henson (talk) 02:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

MGS2

I believe Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and MGS2: Substance should be mentioned because they are both games with a theme of how meme effects people in life. This is along with Kojima-san's other themes of Gene and Scene, what your parents do and how it affects you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GamerSam (talk • contribs) 15:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Tohobbes (talk) 11:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC) I don't know, I think that would overstep the scope of this encyclopedia. Maybe we can create a section titled something like "useage of Meme's in Science Fiction", and include a mention of the Metal Gear Solid games. Otherwise, that's basically like an advertisement for the game which is not what we want here.

External Links

Tohobbes (talk) 11:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC) This page was marked as having external links that don't comply with guidelines.

I was going over them just now, I think the link called "Meme Warfare" should be removed because it is not a work published by a respected journal or publisher. I read through it and it doesn't really describe memes, so much as the author describes his own personal politics, techniques he used to protest Geroge W. Bush, and how these topics relate to memes.

This doesn't really do much to explain memes, and I think this article would be more Wiki-clean without it. I am going to go ahead and remove it. If anyone really really wants it there, they can copy this link and put it back.

I'm removing this link "Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission" Journal of Memetics. Since it is dead, and an article with that name does not exist in the Journal of Memetics Poderi (talk) 10:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that wasn't an article within the journal, but the subheading of the journal. JoM-EMIT has been moved to a new address. I will revert and update the link Poderi (talk) 11:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

OR from article

I just removed the following text from the article:

Memetic on origin of civilazations

ORIGINAL MEME. Each civilization has its meme that injects its desire to surge. It has often been proposed that western societies driving force is the original sin. You are born and automatically cast out from a harmonious union with god. This little cultural string, or meme would put the human in a desequilibrium which forces him to search for a new center. This situation is different from the aboriginal cultures which "only" pretends to be in harmony with nature. EQUILIBRIUM MEME. An original meme also needs an equilibrium meme which allows the system to stabilize. Otherwize would the driving force of the original meme never find an equilibrium and permit it to cristalize. In western humanistisc society would this equilibrium meme be LOVE. This equilibrium meme or LOVE gives the system the ability to have tolerance and cooperate.

...

UNEQUILIBRED MEMEPLEX. The inca empire is an example of an unequilibred memeplex. As an original meme was the fact that the new inca, or leader, would just inherit the title and military leadership. The lands conquered by the previous inca, or leader would still be under the administration of the old incas court. This ment that the only alternative for the new inca was to conquer. This resulted in an explosive expansion. Westerns think that the Spaniards conquered the incas but the fact was that they showed up in a moment when the empire was in unequilibrium. The fact is that the empire couldn’t keep conquering. To the north there were strong central American cultures, to the west the sea, to the east the jungle and to the south the Chilean aborigines to the day still unconquered. So the last inca, Atahualpa, tried to get hand on the old incas wealth which was well guarded by it’s old courts. In this moment of internal intrigues came Francisco Pizarro whom ruthlessly used the situation and conquered it all in a single move, the Battle of Cajamarca. (Prof Fernando Flores would be an acceptable interlocutor)

The entirety of these two new sections appear to be original research. If anyone thinks they should be included in any form, please provide sources and rewrite for a more encyclopedic tone. Thank you. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 17:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Scratch that - it is a copyright violation from a blog. Reliable sources may be cited and summarized, but self-published sources should be avoided, and even where the license is compatible it is preferable to avoid directly copy/pasting. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 21:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Article cited as a source by the Los Angeles Times

This article has been cited as a source by the Los Angeles Times. Can someone who knows how, update the cite box above?

Rickrolling is an example of an Internet “meme” (defined by Wikipedia as “any unit of cultural information ... that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another").

Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming

—IncidentFlux _{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 11:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, done. —IncidentFlux _{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 20:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The following is BS... >>Another philosophical criticism sees memetics as re-introducing, or re-inforcing, the classic pre-20th-century form of Cartesian dualism, that of mind versus body. Memetics seeks to include in the overall science of evolution such a dualism in the form of meme/gene.<<

Susan Blackmore clearly states that there is no separate mind as such, and thus no dualism. The author of this Wikipedia piece has clearly confused this with another kind of dualism - genetics v memetics, and this has absolutely nothing to do with Cartesian Dualism which addresses the mind-brain relationship. Please delete the above text. In fact the entire article needs a complete overhaul.

William Jones

Maybe noteworthy in the section "Meme-like concepts pre-Dawkins": William Jones (philologist) developed in 1786 a meme-like theory on languages to establish relations between languages. -- 89.247.108.127 (talk) 17:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer used a meme-like inheritance concept in his model of social evolution (cf. Social Statics, 1851, refined in Progress: Its Law and Cause, 1857, First Principles of a New System of Philosophy, 1862). -- 89.247.108.127 (talk) 17:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Pronuntiation

Since there's a "citation needed" on the pronuntiation of "meme", I'd like to add that on the Selfish Gene it is specified that it should be pronounced to rhyme with "cream". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.25.165 (talk) 23:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

POV

The article slangs God, chastity and Catholicism. Real sciences are not so specific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.249.171 (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Pseudo-science

Phoney. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.5.71 (talk) 12:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

This concept (the meme) has about as much scientific basis as the pink elephants. It is only a wordplay, trying to handle issues of culture with terms borrowed/derived from biology. There's no science/research/proof/evidence whatsoever concerning memes' structure, reproduction, "infection" mechanisms, nothing. Meme shouldn't be served to "average-viewer" as science.86.50.9.167 (talk) 22:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

That's your opinion. Others think differently. Besides, it's a developing science. Give it time. tehgrisp (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no "opinion" needed; if it's a science, it should be presented as such, if it isn't, it should not. Be objective, opinions don't matter.

Don't use in Scrabble

I'm hesitant to edit such a large entry, but perhaps the fact that the word isn't in the Official Scrabble Dictionary (as of 2001) should be mentioned. You could lose a turn! —Preceding unsigned comment added by B0blee (talk • contribs) 22:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Meme or Memetics?

To me there seems to be some disarray over what belongs in the Meme entry and what belongs in Memetics. Has anyone else noted this? Do the 'Meme-like concepts before Dawkins', 'Well-known memeticists' and 'Doubts about memetics' sections belong in Meme or Memetics?

On another note: Is the 30 long list 'Examples of memes' a bit overkill? Aren't 5-10 good examples enough to illustrate that every human idea is a meme? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Memespace (talk • contribs) 04:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've got it down to eleven. tehgrisp (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, 'Meme-like concepts...' belongs in Meme. The other two you mentioned belong in Memetics. tehgrisp (talk) 18:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Renovations.

Here's my plan. Sections 5-6 and sections 10-22 should be in memetics. Section 9 should be increased in size here for an overview of memetics, which should be much larger after the moves. And we'll need lots of subsections there with sections like "Memetic explanations" and "Memetic concepts". I'd really rather not do this myself. Opinions? tehgrisp (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Delete section 12.1 on Lack of philosophical appeal

This section discusses how memetics may be philosophically inadequate because it allegedly resurrects the idea of mind body dualism. But proponents of memetics have not argued in favor of dualism. Nor is there anything implicit in memetics requiring dualism. Nor do most opponents of memetics focus on this criticism. The discussion seems tangential.

1snailbyte (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Did Richard Dawkins write in British English or American English?

Why is everything in this article so feverishly transcribed into American English, as happened in the recent edits? Must it all be in American English, bearing in mind that I'm sure Dawkins wrote "The Selfish Gene" in British English. Is there a convention of which we are not aware? Dieter Simon (talk) 23:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Racism as a meme

Why would racism be a meme? Is there any study or validation to support that racism is a meme?

Racism might just as well be described as an empiric behavior. We can only guess how it's activated or spreads.

If there is agreement on the uncertainty on whether racism is a meme I would suggest to review the relevant section. Maybe it may just be a matter of adding sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.54.27 (talk) 20:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

In my view, racism can be either empiric or memetic in its activation. For example, if your father was a slave owner and, when you were young, told you how "those gaddam niggers" (in his words) don't deserve freedom, then that's memetic, especially if you live in an area where racism is common and, in effect, taught. However, if you have had a traumatic experience with a member of some ethnicity, or your youth was filled with members of that ethnicity acting poorly, then that would be empiric, though it's bad empiricism. tehgrisp (talk) 21:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Why not fairies?

This post is intentionally polemic, but think about this. The idea of a meme began when Dawkins tried to think of a way how beliefs are transmitted through population and different generations. He knew much about biology, so taking a gene as a basis he coined the term "meme", which should be somehow be comparable to a gene in culture (self-replicating, survives through generations). The concept of a meme is full of hot air right now: there's no research about its structure (assuming it is a material entity). There's no research about how it exactly spreads through population. Please point out if there really is something hard (empirical evidence, not philosophical talk) to grasp on this subject. The current examples of memes kind of contain everything how a person influences other people. So now the big question: why not Invisible Raindow-colored Forest Fairies? They also have power to influence people with their magic wands. Of course some evil fairies want to wreck havoc and make people to use violence. The good fairies give us jokes and a sense of humour. How is this different (on empirical basis) from memes? 86.50.9.167 (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Because there's no empirical evidence to suggest that fairies spread culture, as opposed to people. People influence each other, not fairies (at least no empirical evidence can show it), and when a person influences another person to do or think something a certain way, the meme is said to spread. Don't think that memes aren't material; I believe they have been characterized as "information packets" or a "unit of cultural information", abstract ideas yet better than material manifestations. tehgrisp (talk) 21:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If you can get people to believe in Fairies, it's a meme. If you can get enough people to act as if they do, then it's also a meme.

I don't see the relevance of structure, and I don't think Dawkins (or anyone else) has suggested they are material entities. As to there being no research about how they spread, I suggest advertisers might disagree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.119.190 (talk) 12:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the point of the dissent was that it is clear that people influence each other, that's trivially true. But its not clear what is the method of doing this. The point was that fairies could also be the method for transferring ideas among people :) Meme is currently a popular idea because it is quite easy to grasp, but I think too that it lacks some content. Why not existing theories of cultural evolution, why memes? Also, if meme is real, is there any evidence that they really exist? Is there research or evidence for its structure, or is it a non-material entity, meaning it is best described as philosophy?

Memes are an attractive idea because it allows people to reduce humans as robots which just get influenced by these mysterious "viruses of the mind". That isn't a bad premise on its own (that leaps to the domain of philosophy), but I just hope there would be more content to this meme idea. It is okay to mention the topic in Wikipedia because its notable among popular culture (though not in science), but I'm just not too sure to promote it just yet to science. More research and discussion about its philosophical advantages and failings should be promoted. 212.16.103.22 (talk) 07:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Controversial subject

It is most likely that "meme" or "memetics" is not mature enough concept to be a scientific consensus. It should be noted on the opening paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.50.9.167 (talk) 07:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

For sure there's a lack of scientific consensus about the prospects of developing a useful science of memetics, but since the opening paragraph defines "meme" as a popular neologism denoting any "learned thought, feeling or behavior" and there's little doubt about the existence of those it's misleading to suggest that the existence of trends is controversial. (And the statement "A meme is currently a controversial subject in the scientific community" embodies a confusion of levels: the *idea* of memes may be controversial, but individual trends need not be controversial subjects; for instance, the idea of an electron is a meme but not particularly controversial.) I'm removing that claim of controversy. (And also removing the claim that "meme" = "cultural trait"; that's too specific.) Gareth McCaughan (talk) 23:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: at the same time as 161.149.63.107 added the section below headed "Prominence of Memetic Theory demonstrates Systemic Bias", s/he replaced most instances of "meme" in my paragraph above with "trend", thus falsifying what I wrote and making nonsense of some of it. "Meme" and "trend" are not synonyms. 161.149.63.107, I don't know what you're trying to achieve (though I have a not-very-confident guess), but modifying other people's words on a talk page is well out of order. I have undone the damage. Please don't do it again. Gareth McCaughan (talk) 12:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Prominence of Memetic Theory demonstrates Systemic Bias

Memetics as a subject, while of Philosophical, Socialogical and Evolutionary Biological interest, may be too technical, specific and theoretical to be used as a widespread replacement for the more readily understood word "trend". Indeed, most pages that at one time used the word "trend", "fad", and "phenomenon" have been redirected to ones that use the word trend in its place. I would suggest that this reflects a Systemic Bias on the part of Wikipedia Editors, who tend to have scientific backgrounds and have a favorable opinion of Richard Dawkins and his various works. Most casual readers that are concerned with recent trends that have emerged on the internet and elsewhere are mainly concerned about the trends themselves, and may not wish to be sidelined into a philosophical discussion about modern genetic evolutionary theory. To illustrate this bias using a different subject, how appropriate would it be to redirect references of the words money and currency to pages that used the word monetarism in its place? Certainly monetarism is concerned with money and currency and involves a great deal of theory with a loyal set of adherents. But casual readers, while likely to be concerned about fundamental facts about money and its methods of exchange, may not be interested to read a lengthy thesis on the subject of macroeconomics as it relates to currency, and any links to monetarism in lieu of currency or money would be immediately recognized as systemic bias.

Remedies of the over-usage of memetics involve 1) reverting to usage of the word "trend" or "fad" in topics of a non-scientific nature, and providing a link to memetics in the "See Also" section of the pages, and 2) Re-evaluating this article from points of view other than the materialist one (which the predominantly materialist authors of this article will hopefully acknowledge). 161.149.63.107 (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Please give some examples of pages that have been redirected as you allege. In any case, I'd have thought that their talk pages would be more appropriate places to complain. In what way do you think the "Meme" page would be improved by the inclusion of non-materialist ideas, and how would it help to counter the overenthusiasm for the idea of memes that you claim? Gareth McCaughan (talk) 12:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Languages

Are languages[1] carried by memes? They are passed from person to person, but not genetically. The article mentions literature, poems etc - but how about the building blocks those are constructed from?

[1] I mean like French and German, not Fortran and C++. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.119.190 (talk) 11:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Words as memes

I know Dan Dennett suggested words could be considered memes. This certainly seems true of slang, the way new words quickly spread within certain groups. And if it is true of some words, why not all? So I guess using this logic, each language would count as a memeplex —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.75.113.106 (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Memes do not imply any Duality

Accepting the idea of memes certainly does not create a dualism. The type of problematic dualism which is alluded to in the article is of a different type from that which is propped up for examination. The problematic dualism is one in which the individual is truly and completely separate from the rest of reality as in the famous "cogito ergo sum". The thinker sees his "virtual head space" as immaterial in the normal sense and so separate from all that is "outside" it including the body and the rest of reality.

The "duality" created by the acceptance of the idea of memes is a different thing - probably a semantic error. To prove the point, I am a body, part of the universe, and memes run as personality software on my brain. There is no implied duality —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.85.2.68 (talk) 03:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:The Selfish Gene3.jpg

The image Image:The Selfish Gene3.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --08:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Refutation of the meme by Alister McGrath

Just wanted to share this information with you: McGrath has written a good book about Richard Dawkins' worldview. He also discusses the concept of memes and why they lack scientific credibility. Please do yourself a favor and read it. The meme dies a painful death by self-reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.16.103.22 (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Clean up

Bluntly, the article in it's current state is a mess. Repetitive, incoherent, full of trivial miscellanea, way too long, unfocused, just a mess. Editors have been too tempted to play around in it, I think. But the topic warrants much more serious editorship, weeding out the junk, sticking to an outline, etc. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Since the science of memetics is a separate article, I propose that the sections exploring subdisciplines in memetics, memetic engineering, et al, be deleted. It's too esoteric to warrant discussion here.Professor marginalia (talk) 00:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The closer I look, the worse it looks and there's surprisingly little content worth keeping in the article. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:43, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Definition

Meme: something that can be learned. Is this a good definition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.74.126.23 (talk) 21:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Article rife with original research

The article is literally carpeted with policy violation templates-more than in any other article I've seen yet at wikipedia. There are easily an additional hundred inline tags alerting to violations in terms of reliable sources and original research, and now I'm finding serious problems in dozens of sources that were given, especially problems with synthesized claims. It is completely unallowed to incorporate content into the article, whether it be claims, arguments, examples, allusions, associations, conclusions, etc, unless that claim, allusion, etc, has already been published in a reliable source. So I'm posting this general reminder that editors must aquaint themselves with WPs core content policies, particularly verifiability and original research. Blogs, self published websites or uploads are almost never allowed to source claims at WP, and for this topic we need to focus especially on the key scholarly publications for sourcing.Professor marginalia (talk) 23:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

History

I've replaced the fact tags and removed sources given. This is important: editors may not tease out likely historical precursors or associate the meme to Girard's mimetics or group psychology. They must find sources that do this, explicitly. In other words, find a source that wrote "the historical precursors of the meme concept are ex, why, zed"--or a source that claims "memes are akin to the earlier such and such". WP editors cannot make these associations, or identify certain similarities with earlier concepts. To do this is to engage in original research. I have no idea why this article attracts so much of it, but it is unacceptable for editors to add their own analysis into the articles at wikipedia. This article had what may have been a WP record 18 warning templates tacked to it at a week or so ago - it still has one because all the original research isn't cleaned up yet. Please heed it and stop adding new original research to this article! Professor marginalia (talk) 20:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It is perfectly acceptable to use knowledge in writing encyclopaedic articles, most encyclopaedias do it and not to do it here would be nonsense because you would never stop, how far do you go, if someone hasn't said something precisely as given in the reference you must remove it. Every syntactic link or merely juxtaposed text must be backed by a reference!

The references for Tarde, Le Bon and Locke (association of ideas) are so obvious (if you cared to read them) even a child could see them, not to mind someone who obviously knows something and is on here trying to add something. The current article is completely out in the air, it has no historical background which is in fact enormous, nor does it seem to have much input from the humanities or from philosophy a subject that has talked about such problems for thousands of years. Strictly speaking this article should have a big warning banner: an attempt by a biologist to get in on culture on the cheap, ie, without having to know anything about it, without having to have a read a jot regarding things that have been argued over and advanced and regressed for hundreds of years. And since no one who knows anything about the area where "memes", are supposed to operate, ie, the area called culture, has not even bothered to look at memes, it is no wonder that there are no baby-style references stating the precise link between what goes by the name meme and Tarde's ideas. So let me dispute then entire article as a pseudo-science ! 84.203.39.11a (talk) 01:50, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Just identify some published sources for the content or it comes out. "so obvious a child can see it" doesn't qualify. If you aren't familiarized yet with the content requirements, I recommend these content must be sourced, no original research and no biases. Thanks. Professor marginalia (talk) 02:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors often go overboard on needing references on these sorts of topics. A canonical example was someone who added "needs reference" regarding the symbol '#' "in Europe people use the word hash and not, as much, the phrase 'number sign'". This is common knowledge for anyone familiar with the topic. You can slap good work down with the "original research" rule, and delete huge swaths of Wikipedia. I'd say you could quasi-legitimately delete more than half of the entire website. What's important is not if a rule has been violated.... has the "spirit of contributing honestly to an encyclopedia" been violated here? Answer: NO. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules 69.134.54.59 (talk) 11:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Origin of term 'Meme'

The concept of a unit of social evolution predates Dawkins - it appeared in 1904 in a work by the German evolutionary biologist Richard Semon: Die Mnemische Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalenempfindungen, this was translated into English in 1921 as The Mneme. Dawkins certainly popularized the term, but the statement that he coined the term is not a NPOV.

Martin.Budden (talk) 09:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

NPOV isn't the issue. The Richard Semon article referenced, Forgotten Ideas, Neglected Pioneers: Richard Semon and the Story of Memory. Is the relationship between Semon's mneme and Dawkins' meme described in it do you know? Or any other published work? Professor marginalia (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I did a brief check and my initial impression is that Semon's mneme was not a unit of social evolution but about how memory works within the individual. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. What we need are published sources that would directly tie the Dawkins' meme to these earlier sound alikes for cultural concepts (Semon is one, but others have been proposed) that appear on the surface to relate. WP can't originate the argument that they're related. The claim has to be published somewhere else first. For example, the mneme doesn't have to be an evolutionary unit necessarily. But we do have to have an author that compares, contrasts, or associates the meme/mneme together. The linguistic similarity of two terms in two languages isn't enough, even if they both have something to do with cultural transmission. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

There are two points here: (i) coinage of the word 'meme', (ii) invention of the concept. On point (i): the article states that Dawkins coined the word 'meme'. Well, we can date the work 'mneme' to 1921, so it seems questionable at least to state that Dawkins coined the word. What's more the only citations to support this are works of Dawkins himself. I certainly think the pattern: "X did Y, reference to work by X" used here is not NPOV.

On the second point: Professor marginalia asks if there are any authors who compares/contrasts/associates meme/mneme? The answer to this is yes, the idea that they are related is not something I am trying to originate, I read it in an article in the Guardian newspaper "What exactly do you meme by that?", by John Reader. In this article Reader states: "...meme was introduced to evolutionary science in 1906 by the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) in his book 'Last Words on Evolution'. He credited the origin of the concept to one of his students, Richard Semon...'

So back to my original point. Crediting the origin of either the word or concept of 'meme' to Dawkins is not NPOV, an NPOV would at least acknowledge that there is some doubt in the matter.

Martin.Budden (talk) 09:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Well this is curious. Haeckel's book is available on google.books and there Semon's mneme does sound a bit like a gene that "remembers" but it remembers physical character, not cultural. It's all about biological inheritance. I can't find the Guardian article though. Do you have a publish date? Professor marginalia (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Meme denialist claim

There is no such thing as a meme.

Pass it on. Karpinski (talk) 17:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Haha... thank you. Memes are pseudoscience, as any psych, soc, or anthro student will tell you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.74.64 (talk) 00:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem of self-reference

The idea of a meme is fascinating because it appeals to an analogy from biological evolution. However, this alone doesn't justify its use in cultural evolution. Analogy is usually the first try to explain different things when the scientists have no clue what the phenomenon really is. This is best described with light and wave motion. "Light functions as a wave, therefore we need a medium through which it can travel". This analogy gave birth to ether, which is now widely believed to be false. Why should we invent an analogy from biology (just for the sake of it) if there's already scholarship on the evolution of cultures? First the "meme theoreticists" should criticize current ways of studying the progress and change in cultures and provide a better theory. In my opinion memetics just won't do it.

The whole concept of meme seems superfluous, because it "explains everything". Any idea can be explained through the filter of memetics. Additionally, the problem of self-reference is troubling me. The ideas that "there are memes" or "there are no memes" are both explained with the theory of memetics, which means it is inconsistent. 94.101.5.97 (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Seriously?

That's what a meme is? I thought it was going to be something clever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.208.242.8 (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Mimetic desire

It would be interesting if the René Girard's notion of mimetic desire could be included in the article, which would explain how similar or how different it is to Richard Dawkins' theory. The ironic aspect of this is that Dawkins' theory almost looks like a meme of Girard's theory. Also, Girard believes that memes are very much compatible with the anthropological and sacrifical foundations of Christianity, while Dawkins takes the exact opposite view and sees it as evidence for atheistic evolutionism. ADM (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Confusing opening paragraph

Right now this is the opening paragraph:

A meme (pronounced /miːm/) comprises a unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices; such units or elements transmit from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for mimic.[1] Memes act as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures.[2]

This is most confusing since it fails to assert beyond any doubt what a meme is understood to be. I would like to know what a meme is asserted to be so that one can base one on such description to identify memes. A better alternative might be this:

A meme (pronounced /miːm/) is understood to comprises a unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices that IS transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena and that acts as A cultural analogue to A gene in that it self-replicates and responds to selective pressures.[2] The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for mimic.[1]

I'm not contending this description is at all correct, but if it would be correct it would leave no mistake as to what a meme is and it would allow one to test whether or not anything in particular is a meme or not. The existing opening reads too casual, and asserts less powerfully than is possible what a meme is understood to be.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.54.119 (talk) 01:19, 15 January 2009

1. Why are there no references to Susan Blackmore book, The Meme Machine" here? (page 43) "The new Oxford Dictionary; meme An element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation" She mention that imitation is a kind of replication or copying. Memes are replicators. She also devotes a chapter to the fact that not everything is a meme just also clarifies what are.
2. Dawkins "We need a new name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a UNIT OF CULTURAL TRANSMISSION, OR UNIT OF IMITATION." :I am using caps where I think the definition above varies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.194.159 (talk) 03:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The opening does speak of it as a "unit" of culture that replicates by imitation. The definition probably sounds hedgy trying to be NPOV but it can stand improvement. The trick is that science of memes is considered pseudoscience, and many dispute they exist at all. Professor marginalia (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree transmission can occur via vectors such as writing/reading as well. Exnewfie (talk) 16:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Relevent image?

Dawkins on memes.

For some reason, this image was removed from the main page. Does anyone have any opinions on how to better integrate it into the article? Redwoodneo (talk) 23:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how this image would help the article. Further, it's rather unencyclopedic to have a picture with overwritten text, particularly somewhat in-your-face text. Is there a reason for the text? Did Dawkins say that? Johnuniq (talk) 02:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It's VERY meaningful. It's a self-referential statement, presenting the concept of a meme as a meme itself. If you understand the the picture you have understood the concept of a meme. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.152.169.80 (talk) 14:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this image should be included. It's not very encyclopedic for the reasons as Johnuniq pointed out. I don't think it's an actual quote from Dawkins as the image might imply, and if it is, chances are it's not in a tone he would of used (I would think). Moreover, I wouldn't classify this image as bing “VERY meaningful” as its more like a humorous anecdote better suited for icanhascheezburger or failblog. Since I don't see how it adds anything to the understanding of the article and I'm not alone in this I have removed it. LeGrosW (talk) 20:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I recently noticed that the original image (without made-up text) is used here with caption "Dawkins lecturing on his book The God Delusion, June 24, 2006." The made-up text appears in File:Dawkins-Memes.jpg which is also used at Internet meme. I think that Wikipedia should not take Flickr pictures and overlay text as if spoken by the subject of the picture. It could be argued that as a parody there is no problem, but whereas many web sites feature stuff like this, it seems rather non-encyclopedic and out of place on WP. Johnuniq (talk) 02:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

well that is what a meme pic is174.131.0.138 (talk) 19:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

otoh it sure spices up the talk page --Utopianfiat (talk) 20:46, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Rhyming with

Dawkins invented the word "meme" and wrote "It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'." That seems an excellent reason to keep the word "cream" in the lead. There have been a number of edits to the "rhyming with" word recently. Most have been without edit summaries so it is not clear what the motivation for proposed changes is. Would anyone care to comment on what word should be used in the lead? Meanwhile I think changes with no stated reason should be reverted. Johnuniq (talk) 01:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Memes are something that emerged from human evolution in our faces. They began appearing when mothers recognized that certain screaming fits their children were having, were from the children as members of the population of their own age - often three year old young children. The 'screaming fits' were quickly called the Screaming Me-Me's because children would recurrently cry out - screaming - Me! Me! as if no other word would mean anything, though a dinosaur would imagine the word should mean "Us! Us!". That children could recognize their age group was being quartered by callous treatment was a shock to grownups. SyntheticET (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no difference between "cream", "steam", "team", "beam", "stream", "deem", or "scream"--they all rhyme, they all do they job. It's not a big deal, it's not worth edit warring about. Professor marginalia (talk) 03:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right of course, however I was hoping that if some consensus could be reached here, then a week of reverting to the consensus would stop the excitement. In the last two weeks we have had edits inserting: beam, cream, dream, scream, seamy, seem, team. There are three other suggestions in your message above. What do you suggest? Should we accept any new word that is reasonably correct? Maybe it would have settled down if I hadn't got involved, but it looked as if we were going to have at least one edit per day just to change that one word. Johnuniq (talk) 04:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I think most are drive-by test edits, harmless enough. There's no reason to play with it like they have been, but then again building a consensus here is unlikely to discourage these edits. I doubt drive-by IPs pay much attention to talk page consensus. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

As you say, drive-by editors won't notice or care what is written here. My point was that I have seen cases where a couple of days of reverting to consensus was enough to bore joke editors who then moved elsewhere. Another approach would be to wait a couple of weeks for the jokes to subside – I'm happy either way. Johnuniq (talk) 00:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

One way to make edits less likely is to simply include the direct quote from Dawkins. Then, when drive-by editors change it, it can simply be reverted on the grounds that the section is Dawkins' own words, and direct quotes should not be edited, unless they are incorrectly copied from the source. This might help to deal with this. As such, it might even be considered vandalism and the three revert rule wouldn't apply. Edhubbard (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the pronunciation immediately follows the first use of the term meme, and that's an awkward and overly-wordy place for the quote (which would need an inline cite link right there as well). I think it's fine to leave any alternative in place so long as it's correct. This article was blanketed with tags and non-compliance warnings for such an extended period of time, and some of it still remains to be cleaned up. So I'm inclined at this point not to sweat over the small stuff. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Dawkins did NOT invent the word meme, he says so in 'The Selfish Gene', which apparently was not read by the people citing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.167.254.100 (talk) 15:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to say he invented the word, you better site it correctly. Otherwise, it's baseless information and has no place in an encyclopedia type entry. I'll keep reverting your vandalism edits until you can cite your source.--Mattbrown04 (talk) 07:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

It's crystal clear from reading TSG that Dawkins believed that he invented the word "meme": see note 1 in the article and read the book. Of course, many new concepts are separately re-invented by different people over an extended period, so it is quite possible (and I think Dawkins acknowledges this somewhere) that others have also invented the same or similar concepts (and see the article). If the TSG had not been written, it is unlikely that this article would exist because the topic would not be notable. I'm not particularly worried about this point, and if it makes people feel better to think that Dawkins merely "used" the word I can live with that for a while (although if someone comes up with an independent reliable source, it should be used). Dawkins also makes it crystal clear that his meme discussion is speculation and is not a field in which he has worked. Indeed, the 30th anniversary edition of TSG has a note confirming that the intention was merely to illustrate the general concept of a replicator – something that is copied with a good fidelity but with a randomly-varying component, and which is subject to natural selection. The only known example of such a replicator is the gene, and Dawkins invented the "meme" concept to speculate about what may be a second instance of such a replicator. Johnuniq (talk) 10:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Again, cite book, page, publisher, etc., or else it's irrelevant information that is pure speculation from the reader. When you cite a book, cite it right. I'm not going to do the work for you by reading an entire book. YOU read it, YOU cite the source.--Mattbrown04 (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

As I mentioned, note 1 (used as a reference for rhyming with "cream" and elsewhere) shows that Dawkins thought he was inventing "meme". I have just updated that note with a link and some minor tweaks. Note 4 is used as a ref on the para we are discussing, and I see that note 4 needs some fixes: the ISBN and page number seem to be wrong. I hope to fix that in due course, and I might see if I can find an independent source confirming that the word "meme" was invented by Dawkins. Some reference should go on the actual sentence saying that Dawkins invented the word, rather than the vague [4] at the end of the para. Johnuniq (talk) 00:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)