Editing Meme (section)

=== Criticism of meme theory ===
One frequent criticism of meme theory looks at the perceived gap in the gene/meme analogy. For example, Luis Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of a "code script" for memes (analogous to the DNA of genes), and to the excessive instability of the meme mutation mechanism (that of an idea going from one brain to another), which would lead to a low replication accuracy and a high mutation rate, rendering the evolutionary process chaotic.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Benitez Bribiesca |first=Luis |title=Memetics: A Dangerous Idea |date=January 2001 |url=http://redalyc.org/pdf/339/33905206.pdf |journal=Interciencia: Revista de Ciencia y Technologia de América |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=29–31 |access-date=11 February 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180920145421/http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/339/33905206.pdf |url-status=live |issn=0378-1844 |quote=If the mutation rate is high and takes place over short periods, as memetics predict, instead of selection, adaptation and survival a chaotic disintegration occurs due to the accumulation of errors. |archive-date=20 September 2018}}</ref> In his book ''[[Darwin's Dangerous Idea]]'', Daniel C. Dennett points to the existence of self-regulating correction mechanisms (vaguely resembling those of gene transcription) enabled by the redundancy and other properties of most meme expression languages which stabilize information transfer.<ref name="Dennett19952">{{cite book |last=Dennett |first=Daniel C. |title=Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life |date=1995 |location=New York |publisher=Simon and Schuster}}</ref> Dennett notes that spiritual narratives, including music and dance forms, can survive in full detail across any number of generations even in cultures with oral tradition only. In contrast, when applying only meme theory, memes for which stable copying methods are available will inevitably get selected for survival more often than those which can only have unstable mutations (such as the noted music and dance forms), which, according to meme theory, should have resulted in those forms of cultural expression going extinct.

A second common criticism of meme theory views it as a [[Reductionism|reductionist]] and inadequate<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fracchia |first1=Joseph |title=The price of metaphor |date=February 2005 |journal=History and Theory |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=14–29 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00305.x |issn=0018-2656 |jstor=3590779 |quote=The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to 'evolution.' ... We conclude that while historical phenomena can always be modeled selectionistically, selectionist explanations do no work, nor do they contribute anything new except a misleading vocabulary that anesthetizes history. |first2=Richard |last2=Lewontin |author2-link=Richard Lewontin}}</ref> version of more accepted anthropological theories. Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths noted the cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection-pressures neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation-rates, while pointing out there is no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes.<ref>{{harvnb|Sterelny|Griffiths|1999}}; p. 333</ref> [[Semiotic]] theorists such as [[Terrence Deacon]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Deacon |first1=Terrence |author-link=Terrence Deacon |title=The trouble with memes (and what to do about it) |journal=The Semiotic Review of Books |volume=10 |page=3}}</ref> and [[Kalevi Kull]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kull |first1=Kalevi |author-link=Kalevi Kull |date=2000 |title=Copy versus translate, meme versus sign: development of biological textuality |journal=European Journal for Semiotic Studies |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=101–120}}</ref> regard the concept of a meme as a primitivized or degenerate concept of a [[Sign (semiotics)|sign]], containing only a sign's basic ability to be copied, but lacks other core elements of the sign concept such as translation and interpretation. Evolutionary biologist [[Ernst Mayr]] similarly disapproved of Dawkins's gene-based view of meme, asserting it to be an "unnecessary synonym" for a [[concept]], reasoning that concepts are not restricted to an individual or a generation, may persist for long periods of time, and may evolve.