Saturday, April 27, 2013
Memes to Genes?
When examining the concept of memes proposed by Darwin I was wondering if these led to evolution. Do memes facilitate natural selection? Is this this one of the basis for choosing which physical traits will succeed. Are those who don't follow memes weeded out? I was just wondering if memes could be one of the first steps in natural selection and then evolution. Or do memes come and go to fast to have any effect.
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ReplyDeleteI think memes, first of all, help make life interesting. Memes are things that we identify as certain social institutions, cultural practices, languages, ideas, creations, inventions, religion, etc. The way the book defines memes, they seem to encompass all of human creation and thinking, so I don`t think there is anyone who is human that doesn`t follow memes-it would be impossible. Memes influence us as a species, and the effect on evolution would be how it affects our interactions with other people, and what we look for when we are mating. For example, if-hypothetically speaking-being short and obese was considered more attractive than being tall and lean, it would effect how we look as humans. A greater number of people would be short and obese, and a lesser number would be tall and lean, because somewhere in history we decided collectively that those traits are more desirable.
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