> 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

> 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.