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Over a decade ago, Richard Dawkins, who contributes a foreword to this book, coined the term "meme" for a unit of culture that is transmitted via imitation and naturally "selected" by popularity or longevity. Dawkins used memes to show that the theory known as Universal Darwinism, according to which "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities," applies to more than just genes. Now, building on his ideas, psychologist Blackmore contends that memes can account for many forms of human behavior that do not obviously serve the "selfish gene." For example, a possible gene-meme co-evolution among early humans could have selected for true altruism among humans: people who help others (whether or not they are related) can influence them and thus spread their memes.

Table of contents

1	Strange creatures	1
2	Universal Darwinism	10
3	The evolution of culture	24
4	Taking the meme's eye view	37
5	Three problems with memes	53
6	The big brain	67
7	The origins of language	82
8	Meme-gene coevolution	93
9	The limits of sociobiology	108
10	'An orgasm saved my life'	121
11	Sex in the modern world	132
12	A memetic theory of altruism	147
13	The altruism trick	162
14	Memes of the New Age	175
15	Religions as memeplexes	187
16	Into the Internet	204
17	The ultimate memeplex	219
18	Out of the meme race	235
	References	247
	Index	259