The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment

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The Selfish Gene is a 1976 book on evolution by the ethologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's Adaptation and Natural Selection (1966). Dawkins uses the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution (as opposed to the views focused on the organism and the group), popularising ideas developed during the 1960s by W. D. Hamilton and others. From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave cooperatively with each other. These examples might suggest that there is a power struggle between genes and their interactor. In fact, the claim is that there isn't much of a struggle because the genes usually win without a fight. However, the claim is made that if the organism becomes intelligent enough to understand its own interests, as distinct from those of its genes, there can be true conflict. The original replicator (Dawkins Replicator) was the initial molecule which first managed to reproduce itself and thus gained an advantage over other molecules within the primordial soup. [13] As replicating molecules became more complex, Dawkins postulates, the replicators became the genes within organisms, with each organism's body serving the purpose of a 'survival machine' for its genes. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2008). Five misunderstandings about cultural evolution. Human Nature, 19, 119. doi: 10.1007/s12110-008-9037-1. Williams, G. C. (1996). Evolution and healing. The new science of Darwinian medicine. London: Phoenix.

culture can be seen analytically and persuade that memetic gives important role in the exploration of sociological theory, especially in the cultural studies. We show that we are not allowed to assume meme as smallest information unit in cultural evolution in general, but it is the smallest information we use on explaining cultural evolution. We construct a computational model and do simulation in advance presenting the selfish meme powerlaw Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin’s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meaning of life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Gray, J. A., Feldon, J., Rawlins, J. N. P., Hemsley, D. R., & Smith, A. D. (1991). The neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14, 1–84.

What does God say about a selfish person?

Heylighen F. (1993): "Selection Criteria for the Evolution of Knowledge", Proceeding 13th International Congress on Cybernetics. International Association of Doebeli, M., & Ispolastov, I. (2010). A model for the evolutionary diversification of religions. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 267, 676–684. According to Art Markman, Ph.D., professor of psychology, narcissists and psychopaths “tend to be quite selfish and manipulative”. Lubow, R. E. (1989). Latent inhibition and conditioned attention theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. It is possible that this error has hindered both critics and champions of memetics from better availing themselves of the meme concept. The gene’s eye view has been particularly useful for explaining phenomena that are not easy to account for at other levels of biological organization. For example, self-sacrificing behaviour is difficult to account for in terms of individual benefit, but the gene’s eye view can explain this through kin-selection. Phenomena like meiotic drive and mate choice is similarly easier to account for in terms of benefiting the gene-selection than benefiting populations. It is precisely in predicting adaptations that do not necessarily help and might even run counter to the interests of units involved at these other levels that gene-selection thinking has proved most useful. Similarly, it is where cultural phenomena flourish while causing no genetic benefit, rather than where the interests or memes and their hosts are coextensive, that meme-selection thinking might be most fruitfully applied.

Richerson, P. J., & Boyd, R. (2006). Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Being concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself; Having no regard for the needs or feelings of others.” In a sensible manner, let them know that they never do anything for you and expect the world for themselves. You’re just as important as they are. 7) Don’t spend too much time with themWilkins, John S; Hull, David (January 2014). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Replication and Reproduction". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). So it’s crucial that you keep your wits about it and don’t play their game. If you feel like they’re manipulating you so you can help them out, put a stop to it. Radcliffe, N.J. & Surry, P.D. (1994). “Formal Memetic Algorithm”. In Fogarty, T. (ed.). Evolutionary Computing. pp. 1-16. Springer-Verlag. Have any stood out for you recently? They go straight out of my mind I'm afraid. There are things like "hope you get cancer" and "we'll enjoy laughing at you frying in hell" and that kind of thing.

a b Richard Dawkins (1999). The Extended Phenotype (Daniel Dennett prefaceded.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191024337. In this book I am using the word 'vehicle' for an integrated and coherent 'instrument of replicator preservation'. p. 114 Bring up random and interesting stories that you love to talk about. If they can’t handle it and want to get away from you, even better! 6) Stop doing everything that they demand you to do They may use phrases like “If you really loved me, you’d never question me” or “I couldn’t take that job. I wouldn’t want to be away from my kids so much.”They only think that you are attempting to devalue their work and their potential. This situation will always end up with the selfish person defending themselves. In Mind in Life, the philosopher Evan Thompson has assembled a multi-sourced objection to the "selfish gene" idea. [49] Thompson takes issue with Dawkin's reduction of "life" to "genes" and "information": For example, if you open up your emotions to them, they may try to manipulate you to get what they want or make you feel guilty. In a chapter of the book, the author asks herself whether it is possible to find something that plays in the theory of cultural evolution the same role that DNA plays in the theory of genetic evolution. The author is right in thinking that this is an important question, but she does not seem to understand why this is so and, thereby, she gives the wrong kind of answer. Because of their way of thinking, they expect other people to do things for them. When you see that this is happening, do not let them have what they want.

Suzanne Degges-White Ph.D. says that “narcissists are unable to tolerate failure of any sort and public humiliation is considered the worst type of failure that could happen.” Take charge and carve out some “me time.” Take care of yourself first and remember that it’s not your job to fix them.” Barto, A. G. (1985). Learning by statistical cooperation of self-interested neuron-like computing elements. Human Neurobiology, 4, 229–256. In the foreword to the book's 30th-anniversary edition, Dawkins said he "can readily see that [the book's title] might give an inadequate impression of its contents" and in retrospect thinks he should have taken Tom Maschler's advice and called the book The Immortal Gene. [2] Deep down, they fear that they are not right and will pass this judgment to others, from a distance.Franz, M., & Nunn, C. L. (2009). Rapid evolution of social learning. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22, 1914–1922. According to Timothy J. Legg, PhD, CRNP in Health Line, narcissists “can be too busy talking about themselves to listen to you….[they] won’t stop talking about themselves…[and] won’t engage in conversation about you.” Dawkins's gene-selectionism has been criticised by many authors (myself included, Mameli 2004) and for many reasons (sometimes good, sometimes not so good). But the importance of The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype is undeniable. In those books, Dawkins summarised and developed some new strategies for thinking about evolutionary processes that authors like William D. Hamilton, John Maynard Smith, and George C. Williams had elaborated in the previous decades. Dawkins's writings contributed to the spread of these important ideas and engendered an interesting debate about the relative merits of different conceptions of biological change. My opinion is that gene-selectionism has some important limitations (and, thereby, mischaracterises in some important ways biological evolution) but is an interesting (and sometimes useful) way of looking at evolutionary processes. Can we say the same about meme-selectionism? Can The Selfish Meme do for culture what The Selfish Gene did for biology? According to Timothy J. Legg, PhD, CRNP in Health Line“don’t try to beat them. Two people shouldn’t play this game.”