The problem isn't so much the /concept/ of memetics as how it's implicitly used to sweep details under the rug. Consider a mathematical "culture" where proofs

The problem isn't so much the /concept/ of memetics as how it's implicitly used to sweep details under the rug. Consider a mathematical "culture" where proofs are generated by some AI, propagated between nodes, and each node that receives a proof checks if it seems valid before propagating it to the next node. What kind of proof survives that kind of culture has a lot more to do with the nature of mathematics and the proposer AI than it has to do with the dynamics that every replicator system has in common. In other words, it's very easy for pop memetics to go back and forth between a position where "it's all replicators, the memes are just using you to replicate themselves" and where "obviously, the objective content of the idea matters more than their replicability". How much the spread of ideas in a society is one compared to the other depends on parameters that differ from system to system. Treating them all alike does a big disservice to the grand variety of systems that exist, and using the concept of replicator dynamics to pretend that the intellect is always a servant to the system is worse still.