Evolution and Memes: the Human Brain as a Selective Imitation Device

The meme is an evolutionary replicator, defined as information copied from person to person by imitation. I suggest that taking memes into account may provide a better understanding of human evolution in the following way. Memes appeared in human evolution when our ancestors became capable of imitation. From this time on two replicators, memes and genes, coevolved. Successful memes changed the selective environment, favouring genes for the ability to copy them. I have called this process memetic drive. Meme-gene coevolution produced a big brain that is especially good at copying certain kinds of memes. This is an example of the more general process in which a replicator and its replication machinery evolve together. The human brain has been designed not just for the benefit of human genes, but for the replication of memes. It is a selective imitation device. Some problems of definition are discussed and suggestions made for future research. The concept of the meme was first proposed by Dawkins (1976) and since that time has been used in discussions of (among other things) evolutionary theory, human consciousness, religions, myths and mind viruses (e.g. Dennett 1991, 1995, Dawkins 1993, Brodie 1996, Lynch 1996). I believe, however, that the theory of memes has a more fundamental role to play in our understanding of human nature. I suggest that it can give us a new understanding of how and why the human brain evolved, and why humans differ in important ways from all other species. In outline my hypothesis is as follows. Everything changed in human evolution when imitation first appeared because imitation let loose a new replicator, the meme. Since that time, two replicators have been driving human evolution, not one. This is why humans have such big brains, and why they alone produce and understand grammatical language, sing, dance, wear clothes and have complex cumulative cultures. Unlike other brains, human brains had to solve the problem of choosing which memes to imitate. In other words they have been designed for selective imitation. This is a strong claim and the purpose of this paper is first to explain and defend it, second to explore the implications of evolution operating on two replicators, and third to suggest how some of the proposals might be tested. One implication is that we have underestimated the importance of imitation.