Journal of Memetics -
Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/1997/vol1/editorial.html

Dear reader,

You are browsing the pages of the new on-line `Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission (JOM-EMIT)'. The editors are delighted that the collaborative work of over a year has resulted in the first issue of this forum for the presentation and discussion of ideas. Memetics, and evolutionary models of information and communication in general, are a fascinating new subject, which deserves in-depth investigation. The journal's list of aims outlines our position on this topic.

Some fourteen months have passed since we first thought about starting a journal. We needed to find editors, advisors, reviewers, and most important of all, authors. Moreover, we had to agree about aims, organization, formats, procedures, and methods of publication. We had to set-up a web server, and prepare the main pages with information for readers and authors. Finally, we had to solicit interesting papers, review them, edit them, and finally publish them on the server. In this age when information overload and lack of time are rampant, we may be proud of our achievement.

During the past year we have contacted a multitude of potential contributors, in order to make sure that this first issue could open with a selection of high-quality papers. We are grateful to the authors who have taken the risk to submit to an as yet non-existent journal, at a time when web-based journals are not yet a generally accepted medium. It is up to the readers, authors and the editors to make sure that this journal will become an established and respected channel for scientific publications.

What matters most is that there is a place for debate, and that it is used by the community. Therefore, we are glad to have four papers and a review available in this first issue. Some dozen more papers are being prepared or reviewed. They will appear as soon as they are accepted for publication.

The papers we have received give us hope that progress will be swift. The first contributions come from very different disciplines. We were pleasantly surprised to find evolutionary perspectives increasingly present not only in biology, but also in economics, linguistics, anthropology, and organizational science, although conceptual overlap is sometimes obscured by different terminologies.

Although we cannot foresee future developments, we believe that our journal will contribute to the development of evolutionary theory and memetics. We hope that it may help turn memetics into an accepted scientific discipline, and lead to the development of fundamental concepts applicable in the biological, social and information sciences.

Endorsements:

In the past, references to "memetics" have tended to be casual and programmatic. However, increasing numbers of workers are taking the science of memetics seriously. If the "Journal of Memetics" can encourage this attention and channel it in productive ways, it will have fulfilled an important need.

The arrival of a journal devoted to memetics fulfills a crucial requirement in the emergence of memetics as a serious science. I applaud this development, and wish it the best in transmissivity, receptivity, and longevity!

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