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Memetics and Cultural Evolution

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A group for people interested in the study of memes, viral ideas, and cultural evolution.

A meme is any unit of shared cultural information.

Memetics is the study of the propagation of this information.

Members: 80
Latest Activity: Feb 19

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Memes, Genes And Religious Beliefs - Richard Dawkins @ UC Berkeley

Discussion Forum

Word frequency reflects liking

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Joan Denoo Feb 14. 1 Reply 0 Likes

Many Atheists continue to talk about theism for decades after they've stopped buying into the spooks. My position ,that it's better develop a theism-meme free world is often incomprehensible to some.…Continue

Tags: word use implies liking

Video on Religion as virus

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Joan Denoo Feb 2. 2 Replies 0 Likes

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Tags: virus mutation, religion, memetics

Review of The Mocking Memes

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Steph S. Jan 29. 1 Reply 1 Like

Tim Tyler reviews The Mocking MemesThe Mocking Memes:A Basis for Automated…Continue

Tags: The Mocking Memes

Bullying still attractive in leaders yuck!

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Steph S. Dec 20, 2012. 1 Reply 1 Like

For Power and Status, Dominance and Skill Trump LikabilityYou'd think we'd advanced culturally in selecting…Continue

Tags: prestige, leadership, bullying, intimidation

Submit climate crisis memes

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner Dec 17, 2012. 3 Replies 1 Like

What’s Your Meme? Changing the Climate Change ConversationMemetics is…Continue

Tags: climatememe

The Psychology of "Memes"

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Joan Denoo Nov 7, 2012. 1 Reply 1 Like

Yes, this is the derivative sense of "meme", but it still says something important about cultural evolution in the information age. By Julia Mitelman.The…Continue

Tags: belonging, internet community, The Psychology of Memes, Julia Mitelman

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Comment by Richard Healy on April 11, 2009 at 3:23pm: I'll get to Blackmore. Promise. I've got Dennet, Coyne, Pinker, Sagan on my selh already, and coming into the post two books about the roman empire and the Persian empire respectively.

Then. Then, I'll read Blackmore.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on April 11, 2009 at 2:55pm: Max, Put Mirror Reversal on the list okay? The Selfish Gene is the Dawkins' book and MR is a story based on it. The reversal refers to genes flipping: shy genes becoming fast, and dove gene becoming hawk. Makes for one helleva story; gets crazier and crazier from page to page once Cynthia goes through the mirror—hence, Mirror Reversal.

Comment by Mac Rex on April 11, 2009 at 2:32pm: Dam, it sure is hard to keep up with all the cool discussion groups in here. I've been wanting to get Susan Blackmore's book "Conversations on Consciousness" since seeing her talk on TED last year. Unfortunately, I live far away from any decent book store, and I have to pay down my credit cards more before I can order on line.
Memes have interested me since I first read about them in one of Dawkins books (Can't remember which book, as I've most of his books and have read them a few times each.).

Comment by Richard Goscicki on April 11, 2009 at 1:03pm: I get right to the Blackmore. Read it twice. Pretty much the bible of memetics. "Humans are peculiar apes infested by memeplexes." Can't beat it.

Comment by Richard Healy on March 28, 2009 at 12:46pm: Sign me up.

I'm currently reading Dan Dennet's Consciousness Explained, next up: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon and I've got The Meme Machine on my Amazon wishlist.

I was once asked in my university teacher training course to offer a definition of culture (regrettably I hadn't at that stage heard of memes and memetics and so didn't have a complete response) but I do recall mine was the only one to refer to how culture was transmitted across and between generations hence counter cultures, sub cultures etc.

This puzzled most of my fellow trainees who didn't think of culture in these terms, I am therefore very interested in learning more about how culture and the theory of meme transmission interact and in particular how this relates to cognitive development.