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It's obvious this idea is crap if you think about fads. These are ideas that propagate rapidly until they become quite popular and then mysteriously vanish. Thi

It's obvious this idea is crap if you think about fads. These are ideas that propagate rapidly until they become quite popular and then mysteriously vanish. This flies in the face of an inherent superiority driving the propagation of the idea. As an evolutionary biologist and a student of cultural transmission this idea (memetics) has always annoyed me from both ends. It is a bad idea, and I wish it would die. It's even more annoying that it somehow manages to add to Dawkins' misplaced prestige.

agumonkey 11y ago
Any references for counter arguments ? I'm very curious about that.
tetrep 11y ago
> These are ideas that propagate rapidly until they become quite popular and then mysteriously vanish. This flies in the face of an inherent superiority driving the propagation of the idea. isn't that because fads become "locked" in time? the fad is well evolved for the current culture but as the cluture changes the fad becomes very poorly suited for it, and dies. i could make the same argument that you make against fads against any once-prolific-but-now-dead species, e.g. how could species x be wiped out by a change in its environment? that flies in the face of evolution creating a superior species. evoltuionary advantage stems from a superior adaption to the current environment, and culture happens to change vastly more frequently than the environments most (if not all) species live in. hence the rapid rise and fall of memes.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  No. Fads happen too quickly; culture doesn't change significantly on the scale of weeks or months.
greggyb 11y ago
A biological analog that pops into mind is fermentation. Bacteria produce alcohol in an environment until the alcohol reaches toxic levels and all the bacteria die. I am not saying they are equivalent, just that the propagation of a fad has similarities to the propagation of alcohol-producing bacteria in a closed environment.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  So now the analogy is to growth and dying off rather than selection, and the analog of the meme is the bacterial population, rather than a gene? Why are we trying to make these ham-fisted analogies at all? Ideas do not behave anything like genes; they have almost no properties in common with genes.
Geee 11y ago
No, propagation speed is equal to viral factor. A fad is analogous to a very contagious, but a mild virus. Infected people will gain immunity after a while and the virus vanishes. This happens when a fad becomes boring and not worth sharing with other people.
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agumonkey 11y ago

Any references for counter arguments ? I'm very curious about that.

tetrep 11y ago

> These are ideas that propagate rapidly until they become quite popular and then mysteriously vanish. This flies in the face of an inherent superiority driving the propagation of the idea. isn't that because fads become "locked" in time? the fad is well evolved for the current culture but as the cluture changes the fad becomes very poorly suited for it, and dies. i could make the same argument that you make against fads against any once-prolific-but-now-dead species, e.g. how could species x be wiped out by a change in its environment? that flies in the face of evolution creating a superior species. evoltuionary advantage stems from a superior adaption to the current environment, and culture happens to change vastly more frequently than the environments most (if not all) species live in. hence the rapid rise and fall of memes.

astazangasta 11y ago
No. Fads happen too quickly; culture doesn't change significantly on the scale of weeks or months.

greggyb 11y ago

A biological analog that pops into mind is fermentation. Bacteria produce alcohol in an environment until the alcohol reaches toxic levels and all the bacteria die. I am not saying they are equivalent, just that the propagation of a fad has similarities to the propagation of alcohol-producing bacteria in a closed environment.

astazangasta 11y ago
So now the analogy is to growth and dying off rather than selection, and the analog of the meme is the bacterial population, rather than a gene? Why are we trying to make these ham-fisted analogies at all? Ideas do not behave anything like genes; they have almost no properties in common with genes.

Geee 11y ago

No, propagation speed is equal to viral factor. A fad is analogous to a very contagious, but a mild virus. Infected people will gain immunity after a while and the virus vanishes. This happens when a fad becomes boring and not worth sharing with other people.

deleted 11y ago

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