Richard Dawkins Memetic Ideas

“The Selfish Gene:” a paradigmatic novel in which Richard Dawkins describes evolution in terms of the gene and ultimately depicts the fitness that is maximized by organismal beings on the genetic level. Similarly to the gene, Dawkins implements the term “meme” in his description of societal evolution regarding the spread of ideas throughout civilization. As stated by Scott Atran, a meme is “an element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, especially imitation.” Memes begin as ideas and continue to spread when those ideas become communicable. Those concepts then continue to proliferate by eliciting thoughts in other human minds, thus causing those notions to flourish in the behavior they inspire. Similarly …show more content…
Dawkins’ ideology regarding the nature of ideas, for example, affects the philosophies of numerous theorists, three of whom are Kuhn, Popper, and Lakatos. Those philosophers provide distinctive theories as to how paradigms arise in science. Despite the differences in their ideologies, however, Kuhn, Popper, and Lakatos all demonstrate Dawkins’ memetic ideas. Kuhn, for example, crafted a systemic, three-step ideology consisting of “pre-science,” “normal” science, and revolutionary science. Kuhn’s ideology emphasizes acceptance of falsification: if an anomaly arises, it is the researcher’s fault, not the paradigm’s. Kuhn’s philosophy also concludes that prior paradigms are superseded during periods of crisis, which often create a bandwagon effect. Popper, however, employs a mentality of falsifiability in which one falsification nullifies an entire theory. Popper’s falsification analysis utilizes the belief that sciences can never be proven, only disproven. Popper also exemplifies an ideology in which organismal beings are goal-oriented with a principal regulator mechanism: in the case of humans, this control mechanism is the …show more content…
This system permits Lakatos to create a program in which anomalies are permitted and in which the program is broadminded enough to endure such irregularities. Lakatos also believes that any theory cannot be falsified until a superior theory comes along to replace it. Despite the individualistic demonstrations of Dawkins’ ideas in each philosopher, the interrelatedness of the three mentalities serves as perhaps the best exemplification of Dawkins’ perspective. Kuhn, Popper, and Lakatos present interconnected ideas, all of which build off of and are inspired by one another. This demonstrates the evolution of ideas and the variety of interpretations of ideas amongst individuals. As such, Dawkins’ ideas support the methods by which the three aforementioned philosophers envisioned scientific evolution. This can be further exemplified by the paradigm shift of transitioning from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics – one of the causal motivators of the three aforementioned philosophers. For centuries, Newtonian physics dominated the global perception of