REVIEW

THE SELFISH MEME

Distin, Kate, The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 231. US$24.99 PB.

By John Wilkins

Meme theory is the hypothesis that there are elements of culturethat evolve like DNA does in biology. It was first posited underthis name by Richard Dawkins in Chapter 11 of his The SelfishGene in 1976, although similar ideas can be traced back to thenineteenth century. In this book, independent scholar Kate Distindiscusses the issues surrounding the idea of a meme and the philo-sophical implications it raises.

Like Dawkins, Distin begins with a distinction between replica-tors and their phenotypic effects, the so-called �Hull–DawkinsDistinction’. However, also like Dawkins, the phenotype level ofmemes is not greatly stressed, as the analogy seems hard to apply.However, Distin offers a solution: memes are representational itemsin brains. Memes have intentionality: they are about the effects theyevoke, just as genes are about the phenotypic traits they evoke. Ashort discussion follows, which those who are familiar with thatdebate will be able to slot into.

The question how memes pass on the complexity of culture isaddressed in Chapter 4, in which Distin argues that the mechanismis imitation, but imitation of a particular kind, based on hierarchi-cal learning, or the passing on of �assemblies’ (a term taken fromHerbert Simon). These are subsystems in biology, akin to modules,and in cultural evolution, they are invariant rules for learning.Assemblies comprise units that are constrained by the functionalstructure of the whole, for they must work together with the rest ofthe assembly. They are integrated, but allow some variation in the�strategies’ employed. The analogy is again made with genes, inwhich the effect of a gene can depend on the environment, but its

Metascience (2008) 17:269–271 � Springer 2008DOI 10.1007/s11016-008-9189-y

basic structure and function are fixed. Complex replication relies onthese assemblies, both genetically and memetically. The dynamicsof meme replication are explained as the retention of parts that arecompatible with existing assemblies of knowledge, that is, represen-tational content. This is an argument for gradualism in culturalevolution, although memes have a much higher rate of replication,and therefore evolution, than genes.

Variation in memes is given the standard Dawkinsian �nearlyexact’ high-fidelity replication. Biased variation is not considerednon-Darwinian, that is, with respect to fitness, but Distin allowsfor biases in the choice of memes and the innovation of culture canbe directed by best guesses. This doesn’t mean that memetic �muta-tion’ is not random with respect to fitness. Indeed, it might tendtowards fitness lowering. Selection will sort those variants out.However, it is popularly thought that human mental simulationallows us to bias towards successful choices; and according toDistin this merely means that we have run many simulations.However, most innovation is recombinatorial of existing memeticvariation rather than selecting likely novelties. This echoes the ideasof Margaret Boden, and her distinction between deep novelty andcombinatorial novelty. She takes issue with Sperber’s argumentthat memes are inappropriate abstractions from tokens of culturalpractices. She argues that we need to abstract a meme, and identifyits alleles, in order to even know that they are alternatives.

Selection of memes requires a struggle for existence, and theresource competed for is ‘‘the limited resource of human attention’’(p. 57). In other words, the ecology of memes includes the psycho-logical and cognitive capacities of human brains, and the othermemes that are in the culture of those brains. Social compatibilitymeans that novel memes have a hard time displacing existingmemes, at risk of alienating the meme bearers. There is also, partic-ularly in the sciences, the physical environment. A meme must beuseable in the physical environment of its bearers, and thatincludes the genetic environment of the bearers themselves, espe-cially the psychological dispositions of humans. The nature of themind, she says, is the prime factor in a meme’s success or failure.Emotions can bias memetic fitness by reacting to memes positivelyor otherwise.

A difference between the replication of DNA and memes is thatDNA �carries its own means of ensuring success’, while memes do

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not. Memetic content does not usually carry its own instructionsfor replication, whereas DNA does. But self-instructing memes donot swamp the �meme-pool’ because their success does not dependon that but on their fitness in the receiving context, which includesthe rational considerations of the receiver. And the fitness of thememe depends on the mental environment or �world’, regardless ofwhether or not it is accurate in its representation of the physicalworld.

From Chapter 8 onwards, Distin considers some general aspectsof meme theory. The first issue is the �mind virus’ conception thatDawkins presented for religious memes. Here they are parasitisingthe (proper?) replication process of culture. Dawkins calls memeslike this viral, while memes that do not so parasitise are �good’memes. Distin notes that this is a value judgement, and that thesame account can be given of scientific ideas as for religious, froma memetic perspective, a point with which I fully concur.

Chapter 9 covers the major competing views of memes, fromSusan Blackmore’s and Dan Dennett’s view, which Distin rejects,that mind is just a complex of memes, to the role of mimetics inmemetics (that is, whether imitation is the reproductive mechanismof meme transmission) and the importance of instruction copying.Distin offers a good critique of these matters, before moving on toconsider the views of Sperber and Boyd and Richerson. There isinsufficient space here to outline this, and the discussion after it onthe origins, and the �DNA’, of culture.

Distin’s book is a good attempt to clarify and discuss theabstract issues with memetics. Unfortunately, as with all othergeneral accounts of memes so far, she fails to offer any empiricallyuseful methodology for research. Memes remain abstract and with-out application. This is not the author’s goal, but it would havebeen nice to see some meat on the memetic skeleton.

Biohumanities ProjectUniversity of QueenslandBrisbaneAustralia

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