Editing Memetics (section)

==Criticisms<!--This section is linked from [[Meme#Criticism of meme theory]]: do not rename without fixing incoming link or including an anchor to previous name ([[MOS:HEAD]])-->==
{{expand section|date=February 2021}}
Critics contend that some of the proponents' assertions are "untested, unsupported or incorrect."<ref name="Polichak" /> Most of the history of memetic criticism has been directed at Dawkins' earlier theory of memetics framed in ''The Selfish Gene.'' There have been some serious criticisms of memetics. Namely, there are a few key points on which most criticisms focus: mentalism, cultural determinism, Darwinian reduction, a lack of academic novelty, and a lack of empirical evidence of memetic mechanisms.

Luis Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of memetic mechanisms. He refers to the lack of a ''code script'' for memes which would suggest a genuine analogy to DNA in genes. He also suggests the meme mutation mechanism is too unstable which would render the evolutionary process chaotic. That is to say that the "unit of information" which traverses across minds is perhaps too flexible in meaning to be a realistic unit.<ref>Benitez-Bribiesca, Luis (2001): ''[https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/339/33905206.pdf Memetics: A dangerous idea] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090704104711/http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/pdf/339/33905206.pdf|date=2009-07-04}}''. Interciecia 26: 29–31, p. 29.</ref> As such, he calls memetics "a [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] [[dogma]]" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of [[consciousness]] and cultural evolution" among other things.

Another criticism points to memetic triviality. That is, some have argued memetics is derivative of more rich areas of study. One of these cases comes from Peircian [[semiotics]], (e.g., Deacon,<ref>[[Terrence Deacon]], The trouble with memes (and what to do about it). ''The Semiotic Review of Books'' 10(3).</ref> Kull<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Kull | first1=Kalevi | author-link=Kalevi Kull | year=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>) stating that the concept of meme is a less developed [[Sign (semiotics)|Sign]]. Meme is thus described in memetics as a sign without its triadic nature. Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory involves a triadic structure: a sign (a reference to an object), an object (the thing being referred to), and an interpretant (the interpreting actor of a sign).  For Deacon and Kull, the meme is a degenerate sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.
<!-- This last paragraph could be better explained. I'm familiar with the subject but was confused. "Tdiadic nature" "degenerate sign" the article would benefit from clarification of these terms. This may not be the proper place to put this but I don't know if there is a discussion page for this article.

As of Dec 2022, I have added some details related to the initial semiotic critique of memes. -Jelly0wen -->

Others have pointed to the fact that memetics reduces genuine social and communicative activity to genetic arguments, and this cannot adequately describe cultural interactions between people. For example, [[Henry Jenkins]], Joshua Green, and Sam Ford, in their book ''Spreadable Media'' (2013), criticize Dawkins' idea of the meme, writing that "while the idea of the meme is a compelling one, it may not adequately account for how content circulates through participatory culture." The three authors also criticize other interpretations of memetics, especially those which describe memes as "self-replicating", because they ignore the fact that "culture is a human product and replicates through human agency."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jenkins |first1=Henry |title=Spreadable Media |last2=Ford |first2=Sam |last3=Green |first3=Joshua |date=2013 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0-8147-4350-8 |series=Postmillennial pop |location=New York; London |page=19}}</ref> In doing so, they align more closely with Shifman's notion of Internet Memetics and her addition of the human agency of ''stance'' to describe participatory structure.

[[Mary Midgley]] criticizes memetics for at least two reasons:<ref>Midgley, Mary. The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene. Acumen, 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-84465-253-2}}</ref> 
{{block indent |1="One, culture is not best understood by examining its smallest parts, as culture is pattern-like, comparable to an ocean current. Many more factors, historical and others, should be taken into account than only whatever particle culture is built from. Two, if memes are not thoughts (and thus not cognitive phenomena), as Daniel C. Dennett insists in "[[Darwin's Dangerous Idea]]", then their [[Ontology|ontological]] status is open to question, and memeticists (who are also [[reductionism|reductionists]]) may be challenged whether memes even exist. Questions can extend to whether the idea of "meme" is itself a meme or is a true concept. Fundamentally, memetics is an attempt to produce knowledge through organic metaphors, which as such is a questionable research approach, as the application of metaphors has the effect of hiding that which does not fit within the realm of the metaphor. Rather than study actual reality, without preconceptions, memetics, as so many of the socio-biological explanations of society, believe that saying that the apple is like an orange is a valid analysis of the apple."<ref>[[Nancy Stepan|Stepan, Nancy L.]] Race and Gender: The Role of Analogy in Science. In Goldberg, David Theo (ed.) The Anatomy of Racism. University of Minnesota Press, 1990.</ref>}}

Like other critics, Maria Kronfeldner has criticized memetics for being based on an allegedly inaccurate analogy with the gene; alternately, she claims it is "heuristically trivial", being a mere redescription of what is already known without offering any useful novelty.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books/about/Darwinian_Creativity_and_Memetics.html?id=VxZOYgEACAAJ Kronfeldner, Maria. ''Darwinian Creativity and Memetics''. Acumen, 2011.]</ref>