Darwin's meme: or the origin of culture by means of natural selection
Out of context: Reply #44
- Started
- Last post
- 100 Responses
- flagellum0
Scrutin gives a very accurate definition of Dawkin's view of the meme:
"A meme is a mental entity that colonises the brains of people, much as a virus colonises a cell. The meme exploits its host in order to reproduce itself, spreading from brain to brain like meningitis, and killing off the competing powers of rational argument. Like genes and species, memes are Darwinian individuals, whose success or failure depends upon their ability to find the ecological niche that enables reproduction. Such is the nature of ‘gerin oil’, as Dawkins contemptuously describes religion."
------
Now, I doubt that Dawkins would take issue with that characterization.
Scrutin then, rightly, asserts:
------
"It only begins to look like an explanation when we read back into the alleged cause the distinguishing features of the effect, by imagining ideas as entities whose existence depends, as genes and species do, on reproduction."
------
He then cogently identifies the glaring problems with Dawkins's notion:
------
"We should still remember that not every dependent organism destroys its host. In addition to parasites there are symbionts and mutualists — invaders that either do not impede or positively amplify their host’s reproductive chances. And which is religion? Why has religion survived, if it has conferred no benefit on its adepts? And what happens to societies that have been vaccinated against the infection — Soviet society, for instance, or Nazi Germany — do they experience a gain in reproductive potential?"
"In any case, why are there so many competitors among religions, if they are competing for the truth? Shouldn’t the false ones have fallen by the wayside, like refuted theories in science?"
-----
I find Scrutin's treatment (much like Alistair McGrath's) to be captivating and rather dooming to the Dawkins meme notion.