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A review by alexander0
The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore
3.0
This book takes Richard Dawkins' somewhat brief description of memetics to its logical/scientific theoretic ends within a biological framework. To a large extent this book would make sense with older biological theories of neo-Darwinian evolution, but this is not accurate anymore. The Selfish Gene, while influential and important as an idea in genetic theory, is not empirically supported. Genes are ecologies. Thus if the memetic theory still holds, so are memes.
Ultimately, this means that memes for Blackmore are not quite as analogous and causal as she assumed. Also, it means that she perhaps got a lot of things right, but with the wrong rhetorical focus. She admits memes are just communicative practices within the first 75 pages, but continues formulating them to be in line with outdated biology. For this theory to survive, she would have done better to start with Information and Communication, and argued out a critical perspective of biology instead of the other way around. It seems, although that subverts the scientific dominance of biological forces and Dawkins, it would have made her theory more accurate to biology today.
Ultimately, this means that memes for Blackmore are not quite as analogous and causal as she assumed. Also, it means that she perhaps got a lot of things right, but with the wrong rhetorical focus. She admits memes are just communicative practices within the first 75 pages, but continues formulating them to be in line with outdated biology. For this theory to survive, she would have done better to start with Information and Communication, and argued out a critical perspective of biology instead of the other way around. It seems, although that subverts the scientific dominance of biological forces and Dawkins, it would have made her theory more accurate to biology today.