0100,0100,0100Why do people say the meme is based on the gene? Because then it can be assumed that the meme is a sociobiological concept and therefore by default cannot explain all of the truly human aspects of how people think and behave. Here, from the perspective of a libertarian lies the political kernel of this particular comparison between meme and gene; all of the criticisms aimed at sociobiology shift and the meme can become the main target. Life is made easy for meme critics because all of the arguments offered in sociobiology can be rubbished all over again. Easy! But Nothing will be gained; the meme is not based on the gene! EVOLUTION IS THE UNDERLYING ALGORITHM WHICH ENABLES GENES OR MEMES TO TAKE ON PARTICULAR FORMS. 0100,0100,0100The extent that memetics poses as science in no way compares to the challenges that now face social theory or at least those social theorists who do not get misled by false cries of 'metaphor', 'analogy' and the likes. The meme does not draw all explanations back to analogues of biological and genetic examples, but those who assume it does are misled and seduced by the readily available critiques. The challenge (if your point of view includes a disdain for memetics) however, is to say why the evolutionary algorithmic nature of memes are not relevant to explanations of social phenomenon. To say 'because it is based on a genetic unit and that this is of a fundamentally different kind' is wrong and very lazy. =============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://cfpm.org/jom-emit