The Selfish Meme
A Critical Reassessment

This book presents for the first time a fully developed and workable concept of cultural DNA.

Kate Distin (Author)

9780521844529, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 March 2005

238 pages
23.7 x 15.4 x 2.3 cm, 0.52 kg

The Selfish Meme is a very readable and thought provoking book, and I would have no hesitation in recommending it to open-minded students and scholars in any biological, anthropological or sociological field.' Cambridge (the Magazine of the Cambridge Society)

Culture is a unique and fascinating aspect of the human species. How did it emerge and how does it develop? Richard Dawkins suggested culture evolves and that memes are cultural replicators, subject to variation and selection in the same way as genes are in the biological world. Thus human culture is the product of a mindless evolutionary algorithm. Does this imply, as some have argued, that we are mere meme machines and that the conscious self is an illusion? This highly readable and accessible book extends Dawkins's theory, presenting for the first time a fully developed concept of cultural DNA. Distin argues that culture's development can be seen as the result of memetic evolution and as the product of human creativity. Memetic evolution is perfectly compatible with the view of humans as conscious and intelligent. This book should find a wide readership amongst philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and non-academic readers.

1. Introduction
2. The meme hypothesis
3. Cultural DNA
4. The replication of complex culture
5. Variation
6. Selection
7. The story so far
8. The human mind: meme-complex with a virus?
9. The meme's eye view
10. Early cultural evolution
11. Memetic DNA
12. Memes and the mind
13. Science, religion and society: what can memes tell us?
14. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], Psychological theory & schools of thought [JMA], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Cultural studies [JFC]