The Meme Metaphor

In 1976, Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, arguing that natural selection must be understood from the perspective of the genes because they alone--not individuals, not groups, not species--are the replicators on which selection ultimately acts. He also stressed that the concept of the replicator, not the gene per se, is the key to this understanding: "The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which prevails on our own planet. There may be others" [1]. In his concluding chapter, Dawkins speculated that human culture might actually be hiding another such replicator, which he dubbed the "meme," a neologism combining memory and mimetic with gene to suggest "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation." [1]