Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 13:12:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Wesley Schwein <schwein@pegasus.montclair.edu>
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Falsifiability of memetics
In-Reply-To: <01BCC98B.CA7A96C0.RBrodie@brodietech.com>
I'm a relative newcomer to the idea of memes (I only read Dawkins'
_Selfish Gene_ and _Blind Watchmaker_ this summer), so I don't know if
this subject has come up before.
Memetics is an extremely powerful hypothesis which can be used to explain
a great deal about culture, technology, Zeitgeisten, and so forth. But is
it scientific, in the sense that it is subject to empirical test and
possibly falsification? What data could there be which could falsify the
hypothesis?
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