Dawkins’ Genes and Memes, Book Review Example

Richard Dawkins in his book ‘ the selfish gene’ talked about both genes and memes.  The latter subject of ‘memes’ relates to a concept of living structures. It is the concept of planting ideas in your mind e.g. a notion, idea, concept, process etc.  Hence as you populate your brain with these thoughts you are propagating parasites within your brain.  Similar to the way a virus reacts the meme is propagated in the brain in order to spawn other concepts from the original notion.  This contrasted with genes that move from body to body by sperms or eggs. Both examples of propagation. ” What, after all, is so special about genes ?  The answer is that they are replicators.  The laws of physics are supposed to be true all over the accessible universe.”  (Dawkins, 1989 edition).

Dawkins book was essentially a paradigm shift  in evolutionary biology.  He changed original thought concepts and provided a new framework of thinking ..” Before the publication of The Selfish Gene, many biologists were happy to accept the idea that natural selection acted to maximise the success of a species or a group”  (Ridley, 2007).  Dawkins when on to discuss the concept of altruism in animal behaviour and cited numerous examples relative to gene centred as opposed to group centred  with evolution working on the basis of an individuals inclusive fitness.  The concept of bees being the perfect analogy ” This gene-centred – rather than group-centred – perspective leads to neat explanations for a wide range of animal behaviour, including the altruism of worker bees, which under the new theory turns out to be a strategy for maximising their genetic  progeny. (Ridley, 2007).

The  meme concept was widely controversial and stimulated a great deal of discussion.  It is considered that a number of people were not quiet sure what Dawkins was referring to.  Earlier critics were later said to be unfounded as they did not interpret the true purpose of Dawkins meme concept ” What on earth does the introduction of the meme concept add to what is already obvious to anyone? To claim that he has provided reasons ‘why the idea of God is copied so readily by successive generations of individual brains’  is to explain nothing at all beyond William James’s more common-sense claim that we use ideas from the culture we inherit to suit our own purposes… “(Johnstone, 1997).  The meme concept does appear to go wide of scope at times and probably none more so when it attacks religion.  The “hell fire” concept of religion supporting torturous punishment that is perpetuated through the ages of priests and this in turn feeding the deity concept of religions. One feeds off the other and props up the God theory.  ” The digression into the meme does enable Dawkins to do what he really seems to enjoy a great deal—take a lot of cheap shots at religion for providing what he calls “superficially plausible” answers to deep and troubling questions about existence to which his theory of the selfish gene cannot offer any answers at all. ”  (Johnstone, 1997).

In the context of cultural evolution a meme may best be thought of as an information stream retained in a persons memory. This can be anything that the person can learn or remember.  In order for this to achieve repitition it must go through  four distinct stages: (1) Assimilation – the individual who subsequently becomes the host of the meme (2) Retention – the person retains the data in the memory ( 3)  Expression – a behavioural characteristic expressed by the use of a language  (4)  Transmission – the information is communicated to one or more individuals.

In the cultural context it is difficult to identify or recognise adaption.  In this regard the meme is very different to the gene. Whereas the gen require biological reproduction the meme is not like this and spreads freely by communication.  Hence the analogy of cultural and genetic evolution id diminished in the meme concept.  The nearest comparison of memes is that of viruses. ” Dawkins himself makes the comparison with viruses, but does not pursue its implications as far as I would wish. The key point is this: in so far as cultural traits are the product of evolution by the natural selection of memes, this gives us no reason to suppose that they will in general be useful, by contributing to reproductive fitness or in any other way, to individual humans or societies.”  (BURBRIDGE, 2003)

The Selfish Gene has received wide literary acclaim but it is not without a considerable degree of criticism.  After all the gene is but a metaphor, for example no gene is an island, but must work in orchestration with the rest of the organisms genome.  As such competition occurs with many other species in the defined ecosystem…” it is not the allele that is most effective at performing its usual task that is propagated in the gene pool, but the allele that works best with the rest of its genome to generate a successful phenotype that survives.”  (Rhoads, 2009)

It is worthy of note that Richard Dawkins has several leading academic works to his credit. He is acclaimed as a strong supporter of evolution by means of natural selection.  This is no way singles Dawkins out nor differentiates him from an array of other leading biologists that support this view.  Perhaps one of the reasons that Dawkins received a large amount of controversy is because of his compelling and interesting style of writing.  He has a very good ability of converting difficult subject matter into ‘layman’ terms that is easy to understand by a wide population of readers.  Dawkins does, however, appear to have a hidden agenda other than just to educate the wider masses on biology and evolution.  He is motivated to bring forward the scientific view of the myth in a creator and replace this with a more holistic worldview, as such devoid of any supernatural beliefs.  Hardly surprising then that he receives rebuke from the religious fraternity and those supporting the alternate viewpoint.  Hence considering the memes once more ” In Dawkins world there is no god. There is no need of a god and no room for God. God is viewed as nothing more than an archaic superstition of unenlightened human beings. God and religion are hypothesized to be nothing more than parasitic “memes,”7 or as Dawkins is fond of saying, a virus of the mind.”  (Clark, 2007).

The meme concept is explored in much greater detail in Dawkins book ‘ the god delusion’. Beyond the selfish gene he starts to really focus in on the religious angles and dispute of spiritualistic deities and mans primitive needs for supporting them.  In this book Dawkins has took the gloves off and really gets to grips with what he believes about religion ” Dawkins has concluded faith is an unthinking submission to tradition, authority, and unverifiable revelation with absolutely no evidence to support it. Faith, in Dawkins’ vocabulary, is always blind faith and involves believing things without evidence, or worse, in spite of evidence. He writes with biting sarcasm in The God Delusion”  (Clark, 2007). 

Dawkins really got to grips with Christianity and the Bible.  Dawkins dismisses the bible and refuses to acknowledge that it has any reliable sources of information.  Further he completely dismisses the Old Testament as any reliable or dependable form of historic information ” the New Testament as having been corrupted and tampered with. He discounts the Gospels as having been written at such a late date that their value as historical documents is almost zero.” (Dawkins, 1989 edition)

Essentially Dawkins is telling us that religion and historians when merged into the singular religious context are simply unreliable from an evidential point of view.  The repeated translations of works by different authors over time distort any true representation of meaning or fact.  Equally the spiritualistic aspect of religions is one born out of fantasy as opposed to fact.  No hard materialistic evidence supports it and as such it has no real scientific value.  There is also the question of information being withheld by those in power that would otherwise support the scientific viewpoint.  Most of the religions cling on to the faithful by a doctrine of fear – those that behave in accordance with what they are told is good will be rewarded with a place in paradise whilst those that disobey these rules will be scourged and placed in eternal damnation in the afterlife.  All of this has no basis in reality or any scientific evidence that supports this point of view ” The actual history of morality and religions and their actual functioning in the web of genes, mind and culture are very complex, and therefore not clear. The complexities of culture and mind should not be glossed over in short-cuts from genes to human behaviour and social institutions”  (Wilson, 1999)

Combining the knowledge and theories of both Darwin and Dawkins we are living in a substantially challenged period of time and possibly the emergence of a third replicator.  To place this into context the very first replicator was the gene, our basis of biological evolution.  The second replicator was that of memes, as defined by Dawkins and the basis of cultural evolution.  The enormous explosion in technological advancement, as a species, gives rise to the yet unknown third replicator.  We have yet to fully realise what is to emerge from this Pandora’s box.  It is considered that a new evolutionary process will emerge and this will be one that is born from destruction.  The assemblages of genes come from the first replicators of plants and animals.  Hence as these fade into extinction on our planet by destruction of the climate, rainforests, plants and animals – hence we change the balance for a third replicator to appear. Once memes began to evolve there was no controlling the cultural evolution of their development ” What began as an adaptation soon became like a parasite – a new evolving entity that changed the apes and their world forever. Once memes were proliferating, individuals benefited from copying the latest and most successful ones, and then passed on any genes that helped them do so. This “mimetic drive” forced their brains to get bigger and bigger, and to become adept at copying the most successful memes, eventually leading to language, art, music, ritual and religion – the successful designs of human culture.”  (Blackmore, 2009).

As memes replicated our brains got bigger.  Small brains suffice if you are not involved with information replication.  Evolution shows our brains getting bigger.  The problem is that as memes begin to continue replication then there must be scope for brain enlargement.  Our Ancestors survived this process but never have we seen replication on the scale that we are witnessing it today.  The technology explosion takes us into  uncharted country ” Either of these dangers might have finished our ancestors off, but they pulled through. The result was a compromise, with human brains being just about as big as our bodies could stand, and yet selective enough to avoid copying lethal memes. In the same way that parasites tend to co-evolve with their hosts to become less lethal, so memes co-evolved with us”  (Blackmore, 2009)

Works Cited

Blackmore, S. (2009, 7 31). Evolution’s third replicator: Genes, memes, and now what? . Retrieved 2 6, 2010, from New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327191.500-evolutions-third-replicator-genes-memes-and-now-what.html

BURBRIDGE, D. (2003, 5 11). Cultural Evolution: The Meme Is the Theme. Retrieved 2 3, 2010, from Gene Expression: http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000229.html

Clark, W. A. (2007). The Worldview of Richard Dawkins: from The Selfish Gene to The God Delusion. Retrieved 2 4, 2010, from iics: http://www.iics.com/files/Clark_Paper.pdf

Dawkins, R. (1989 edition). The Selfish Gene. In R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (p. Chapter 11). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Johnstone, I. (1997). Lecture on Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. LBST. Nanaimo: Malaspina University-College.

Rhoads, D. (2009, 2 11). Selfish genes and gene centred evolution. Retrieved 2 3, 2009, from Bitesize Bio: http://bitesizebio.com/2009/02/11/selfish-genes-and-gene-centered-evolution/

Ridley, A. G. (2007). The Selfish Gene+ and Richard Dawkins: How a scientist changed the way we think. Science in School , Issue 4.

Wilson, R. D. (1999). Against the Possibility of the Truth of Religion. Retrieved 2 6, 2010, from Counterbalance: http://www.counterbalance.org/ghc-redu/richa-frame.html