Main Description
Memes are ideas, behaviours, or skills that are transferred from one person to another by imitation. The term was coined by Richard Dawkins in his bestselling The Selfish Gene (OUP 1976), in which he described how biological design arises as genes compete selfishly to replicate themselves. Inhis final chapter Dawkins suggested that memes are also `replicators', and that they compete to get themselves copied into as many brians as possible. Examples include tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, and new ways of building arches. If memes are true replicators, then our minds are fashionedby memes just as our bodies are fashioned by genes. After twenty years the word `meme' is to be included in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. However, most academics avoid the word, and a true science of memetics has not yet developed. This book will lay the foundations for such a science, starting with a clear definition of thememe and applying the principles of general evolutionary theory to understanding memetic selection. This approach provides new theories of memetic altruism, the development of language and the origins of the enormous human brain.BDS Summary
Memes are the way that ideas, behaviours or skills are passed on from person to person by imitation, in the way that our bodies pass on genes. Examples include tunes, fashion and ways of building arches.Long Description
What is a meme? First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation: stories, fashions, inventions, recipes, songs, ways of plowing a field or throwing a baseball or making a sculpture. The meme is also one of the most important--and controversial--concepts to emerge since The Origin of the Species appeared nearly 150 years ago. In The Meme Machine Susan Blackmore boldly asserts: "Just as the design of our bodies can be understood only in terms of natural selection, so the design of our minds can be understood only in terms of memetic selection." Indeed, Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive--making tools, for example, or using language--survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible. These memes then passed themselves on from generation to generation by helping to ensure that the genes of those who acquired them also survived and reproduced. Applying this theory to many aspects of human life, Blackmore offers brilliant explanations for why we live in cities, why we talk so much, why we can't stop thinking, why we behave altruistically, how we choose our mates, and much more. With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, our very sense of "self," The Meme Machine offers a provocative theory everyone will soon be talking about.Publisher Fact Sheet
Memes are ideas, behaviors, or skills that are transferred from one person to another by imitation. The term "meme" was coined by Richard Dawkins, who provides a foreword for this definitive book on the burgeoning science of memetics.
What is a meme? First coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 study The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation: stories, fashions, inventions, recipes, songs, and ways of plowing a field, throwing a baseball, or making a sculpture. It is also one of the most important and controversial concepts to emerge since Darwin's Origin of the Species.PHere, Susan Blackmore boldly asserts: "Just as the design of our bodies can be understood only in terms of natural selection, so the design of our minds can be understood only in terms of memetic selection." Indeed, The Merne Machine shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began: a survival of the fittest among competing ideas and behaviors. Those that proved most adaptive -- making tools, for example, or using language -- survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible. These memes then passed themselves on from generation to generation by helping to ensure that the genes of those who acquired them also survived and reproduced. Applying this theory to many aspects of human life, Blackmore brilliantly explains why we live in cities, why we talk so much, why we can't stop thinking, why we behave altruistically, how we choose our mates, and much more. With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, and our very sense of "
Richard Dawkins writes about such topics as DNA and genetic engineering, virtual reality, astronomy, and evolution. Dawkins was educated at Oxford University and taught zoology at the University of California and Oxford University, holding the position of the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. He is a member of the International Academy of Humanism. Dawkins's books include The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, and Climbing Mount Improbable.