Why Did Memetics Fail? Comparative Case Study
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F20%3A00116162" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/20:00116162 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00350" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00350</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/posc_a_00350" target="_blank" >10.1162/posc_a_00350</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Why Did Memetics Fail? Comparative Case Study
Original language description
Although the theory of memetics appeared highly promising at the beginning, it is no longer considered a scientific theory among contemporary evolutionary scholars. This study aims to compare the genealogy of memetics with the historically more successful gene-culture coevolution theory. This comparison is made in order to determine the constraints that emerged during the internal development of the memetics theory that could bias memeticists to work on the ontology of meme units as opposed to hypotheses testing, which was adopted by the gene-culture scholars. I trace this problem back to the diachronic development of memetics to its origin in the gene-centered anti-group-selectionist argument of George C. Williams and Richard Dawkins. The strict adoption of this argument predisposed memeticists with the a priori idea that there is no evolution without discrete units of selection, which in turn, made them dependent on the principal separation of biological and memetic fitness. This separation thus prevented memeticists from accepting an adaptationist view of culture which, on the contrary, allowed gene-culture theorists to attract more scientists to test the hypotheses, creating the historical success of the gene-culture coevolution theory.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>SC</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach
Others
Publication year
2020
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Perspectives on Science
ISSN
1063-6145
e-ISSN
1530-9274
Volume of the periodical
28
Issue of the periodical within the volume
4
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
29
Pages from-to
542-570
UT code for WoS article
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EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85090682352