CHAPTER 11 : Conclusion

This book seeks to determine whether the idea of memes might provide the foundation for a progressive line of research on cultural diversification and evolution. In this, the concluding chapter, I don’t intend to make the definitive statement concerning the future of memetics. Rather, I attempt to make sense of what has gone before, and to find where there might be grounds for coming down on one side or another of the key issues identified by the authors of the preceding chapters. My comments will be arranged by academic discipline, as it is from these varying perspectives that problems naturally come into view. Indeed, the entire book is arranged -by default -in a similar fashion. It works out (roughly speaking) that meme promoters, put first in this book, tend to be biological in background or inclination, while the more critical voices dominating the later chapters tend to come from psychology and especially the social sciences. I follow the same order in setting out my comments here.