ABSTRACT
Unless some clear picture emerges, showing what kind of entity memes are purported to be, the parallel between them and genes surely vanishes, and the claim to scientific status with it. Meme-language is not really an extension of physical science. As so often happens, it is an imagery which is welcomed, not for scientific merit but for moral reasons, as being a salutary way of thinking. At one point Dawkins himself speaks of it simply as an analogy ‘which I find inspiring but which can be taken too far if we are not careful’.1 Dennett, while making much stronger claims to scientific status, also adds that ‘whether or not the meme perspective can be turned into science, in its philosophical guise it has already done much more good than harm’.2
