Darwin's Dangerous Idea (65 page)

(1) variation: there is a continuing abundance of different elements

—PETER MEDAWAR 1977, p. 14

(2) heredity or replication: the elements have the capacity to create copies or replicas of themselves

The nucleic acids invented human beings in order to be able to repro-

(3) differential "fitness": the number of copies of an element that are
duce themselves even on the Moon.

created in a given time varies, depending on interactions between the

—SOL SPIEGELMAN, quoted in Eigen 1992, p. 124

features of that element and features of the environment in which it persists

I
am convinced that comparisons between biological evolution and
human cultural or technological change have done vastly more harm
Notice that this definition, though drawn from biology, says nothing spe-than good—
and examples abound of this most common of intellectual
cific about organic molecules, nutrition, or even life. This maximally abstract
traps
—
Biological evolution is powered by natural selection, cultural
definition of evolution by natural selection has been formulated in many
evolution by a different set of principles that I understand but dimly.

roughly equivalent versions—see, e.g., Lewontin 1980 and Brandon 1978

—STEPHEN JAY GOULD 1991a, p. 63

(both reprinted in Sober 1984b). As Dawkins has pointed out, the fundamental principle is

Nobody wants to reinvent the wheel, a mythic example of wasted design work, and I have no intention of making that error here. Up till now I have that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities....

The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which been helping myself to Dawkins' term "meme" as the name for any item of prevails on our own planet. There may be others. If there are, provided cultural evolution, postponing the discussion of what kind of Darwinian certain other conditions are met, they will almost inevitably tend to be-theory of memes we might be able to devise. The time has come to consider come the basis for an evolutionary process.

more carefully what Dawkins' memes are or might be. He has done much of But do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replication the basic design work (drawing on the work of others, of course), and I and other, consequent, kinds of evolution? I think that a new kind of myself have drawn on his meme meme before, devoting considerable time replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is staring us in the and effort to building suitable explanation vehicles out of it. I am going to face. It is still in its infancy, still drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup, reuse these earlier constructions, adding further design modifications. I first but already it is achieving evolutionary change at a rate which leaves the presented my own version ( Dennett 1990c) of Dawkins' account of memes old gene panting far behind. [Dawkins 1976, p. 206.) 344 THE CRANES OF CULTURE

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Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, These new replicators are, roughly, ideas. Not the "simple ideas" of Locke ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate them-and Hume (the idea of red, or the idea of round or hot or cold ), but the sort selves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so of complex ideas that form themselves into
distinct memorable units
— such memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to as the ideas of

brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a arch

scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues wheel

and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.

wearing clothes

[Dawkins 1976, p. 206.]

vendetta

right triangle

alphabet

Meme evolution is not just analogous to biological or genie evolution, calendar

according to Dawkins. It is not just a process that can be metaphorically the
Odyssey

described in these evolutionary idioms, but a phenomenon that obeys the calculus

laws of natural selection quite exactly. The theory of evolution by natural chess

selection is neutral, he suggests, regarding the differences between memes perspective drawing

and genes; these are just different kinds of replicators evolving in different evolution by natural selection

media at different rates. And just as the genes for animals could not come impressionism

into existence on this planet until the evolution of plants had paved the way

"Greensleeves"

(creating the oxygen-rich atmosphere and ready supply of convertible nu-deconstructionism

trients ), so the evolution of memes could not get started until the evolution of animals had paved the way by creating a species—
Homo sapiens
—with Intuitively, we see these as more or less identifiable cultural units, but we brains that could provide shelter, and habits of communication that could can say something more precise about how we draw the boundaries—about provide transmission media, for memes.

why D-F#-A
isn't a unit, and the theme from the slow movement of Beetho-There is no denying that there is cultural evolution, in the Darwin-neutral ven's Seventh Symphony is: the units are the smallest elements that replicate sense that cultures change over time, accumulating and losing features, while themselves with reliability and fecundity. We can compare them, in this also maintaining features from earlier ages. The history of the idea of, say, regard, to genes and their components:
C-G-A,
a single codon of DNA, is crucifixion, or of a dome on squinches, or powered flight, is undeniably a

"too small" to be a gene. It is one of the codes for the amino acid arginine, history of transmission through various nongenetic media of a family of and it copies itself prodigiously wherever it appears in genomes, but its variations on a central theme. But whether such evolution is weakly or effects are not "individual" enough to count as a gene. A three-nucleotide strongly analogous to, or parallel to, genetic evolution, the process that phrase does not count as a gene for the same reason that you can't copyright a Darwinian theory explains so well, is an open question. In fact, it is many three-note musical phrase: it is not enough to make a melody. But there is no open questions. At one extreme, we may imagine, it could turn out that

"principled" lower limit on the length of a sequence that might come to be cultural evolution recapitulates
all
the features of genetic evolution: not only considered a gene or a meme (Dawkins 1982, pp. 89ff )• The first four notes are there gene analogues (memes), but there are strict analogues of of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony are clearly a meme, replicating all by phenotypes, genotypes, sexual reproduction, sexual selection, DNA, RNA, themselves, detached from the rest of the symphony, but keeping intact a codons, allopatric speciation, demes, genomic imprinting, and so forth—the certain identity of effect (a phenotypic effect), and hence thriving in contexts whole edifice of biological theory perfectly mirrored in the medium of in which Beethoven and his works are unknown. Dawkins explains how he culture. You thought DNA-splicing was a scary technology? Wait till they coined the name he gave these units:

start making meme implants in their laboratories! Not likely. At the other extreme, cultural evolution could be discovered to operate according to

... a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of
imitation.
'Mimeme' comes entirely different principles ( as Gould suggests ), so that there was no help at from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like all to be found amid the concepts of biology. This is surely what many

'gene'....It could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory'

humanists and social scientists fervently hope—but it is also highly unlikely, or to the French word
meme
___

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for reasons we have already seen. In between the extremes lie the likely and Mozart is in good company. Rare is the novelist who
doesn't
claim char-valuable prospects, that there is a large (or largish) and important (or merely acters who "take on a life of their own"; artists are rather fond of confessing mildly interesting ) transfer of concepts from biology to the human sciences.

that their paintings take over and paint themselves; and poets humbly submit It might be, for example, that, although the processes of cultural transmission that they are the servants or even slaves to the ideas that teem in their heads, of ideas are truly Darwinian
phenomena,
for various reasons they resist being not the bosses. And we all can cite cases of memes that persist unbidden and captured in a Darwinian
science,
so we will have to settle for the "merely unappreciated in our own minds, or that spread—like rumors—in spite of the philosophical" realizations we can glean from this, and leave science to general disapproval of that spreading by those who help spread them.

tackle other projects.

The other day, I was embarrassed—dismayed—to catch myself walking First let's consider the case for the claim that the phenomena of cultural along humming a melody to myself. It was not a theme of Haydn or Brahms evolution are truly Darwinian. Then we can turn to the skeptical compli-or Charlie Parker or even Bob Dylan: I was energetically humming "It Takes cations. At the outset, the meme perspective is distinctly unsettling, even Two to Tango"—a perfectly dismal and entirely unredeemed bit of chewing appalling. We can sum it up with a slogan:

gum for the ears that was unaccountably popular sometime in the 1950s. I am sure I have never in my life chosen this melody, esteemed this melody, or in A scholar is just a library's way of making another library.

any way judged it to be better than silence, but there it was, a horrible musical virus, at least as robust in my meme pool as any melody I actually I don't know about you, but I am not initially attracted by the idea of my esteem. And now, to make matters worse, I have resurrected the virus in brain as a sort of dungheap in which the larvae of other people's ideas renew many of you, who will no doubt curse me in days to come when you find themselves, before sending out copies of themselves in an informational yourself humming, for the first time in over thirty years, that boring tune.

diaspora. It does seem to rob my mind of its importance as both author and Human language, first spoken and then, very recently, written, is surely the critic. Who's in charge, according to this vision—we or our memes?

principal medium of cultural transmission, creating the
infosphere
in which There is no simple answer to that important question. There could not be.

cultural evolution occurs. Speaking and hearing, writing and reading—these We would like to think of ourselves as godlike creators of ideas, manip-are the underlying technologies of transmission and replication most ulating and controlling them as our whim dictates, and judging them from an analogous to the technologies of DNA and RNA in the biosphere. I needn't independent, Olympian standpoint. But even if this is our ideal, we know that bother reviewing the familiar facts about the recent explosive proliferation of it is seldom if ever the reality, even with the most masterful and creative these media via the memes for movable type, radio and television, minds. As Mozart famously observed of his own brainchildren: xerography, computers, fax machines, and electronic mail. We are all well aware that today we live awash in a sea of paper-borne memes, breathing in When I feel well and in a good humor, or when I am taking a drive or an atmosphere of electronically-borne memes. Memes now spread around the walking after a good meal, or in the night when I cannot sleep, thoughts world at the speed of light, and replicate at rates that make even fruit flies crowd into my mind as easily as you would wish. Whence and how do they and yeast cells look glacial in comparison. They leap promiscuously from come? I do not know and /
have nothing to do with it
[emphasis added].

vehicle to vehicle, and from medium to medium, and are proving to be Those which please me I keep in my head and hum them; at least others virtually unquarantinable.

have told me that I do so.3

Genes are invisible; they are carried by gene vehicles (organisms) in which they tend to produce characteristic effects (phenotypic effects) by which their fates are, in the long run, determined. Memes are also invisible, and are carried by meme vehicles—pictures, books, sayings (in particular languages, oral or written, on paper or magnetically encoded, etc.). Tools 3. Peter Kivy informed me after the Mandel Lecture that this oft-quoted passage is counterfeit—not Mozart at all. I found it in Jacques Hadamard's classic study,
The Psychology of Inventing in the Mathematical Field
( 1949, p. 16), and first quoted it myself overheard a guide at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, commenting on the Gilbert Stuart in Dennett 1975, one of my first forays into Darwinian thinking. I persist in quoting it portrait of George Washington: "This may not be what George Washington looked like here, in spite of Kivy's correction, because it not only expresses but exemplifies the thesis then, but this is what he looks like now." That experience of mine, of course, illustrates that memes, once they exist, are independent of authors and critics alike. Historical another of my themes: the role of serendipity in all design work.

accuracy is important ( which is why 1 have written this footnote ), but the passage so well suits my purposes that 1 am choosing to ignore its pedigree. I might not have persisted in this, had I not encountered a supporting meme the day after Kivy informed me: I 348 THE CRANES OF CULTURE

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