An objection to the memetic approach to culture by Dan Sperber, French anthropologist and cognitive scientist. Note the ‘strong’ definition of memes — cultural elements non-genetically transmitted and subject to a process of selection; selected for because transmission benefits themselves, not necessarily their human carriers. Sperber’s objection to a memetic notion of culture is the low fidelity of reproduction of memes when they are transmitted, i.e the ‘Lamarckian’ reproduction of characteristics acquired in each generation. If, cultural patterns have high stability despite this low copying fidelity, something other than the meme, ‘behind it’ in a sense, is being transmitted and shaping consistency. He concludes:

Memeticists have to give empirical evidence to support the claim that, in the micro-processes of cultural transmission, elements of culture inherit all

or nearly all their relevant properties from other elements of culture that they replicate (i.e. satisfy condition 3 above). If they succeeded in doing

so they would have shown that developmental psychologists, evolutionary psychologists and cognitive anthropologists who argue that acquisition

of cultural knowledge and know-how is made possible and partly shaped by evolved domain-specific competencies are missing a much simpler

explanation of cultural learning: imitation does it all (or nearly so)! If, as I believe, this is not even remotely the case, what remains of the memetic

programme? The idea of a meme is a theoretically interesting one. It may still have, or suggest, some empirical applications. The Darwinian

model of selection is illuminating, and in several ways, for thinking about culture. Imitation, even if not ubiquitous, is of course well worth

investigating. The grand project of memetics, on the other hand, is misguided.

More about Sperber here.