Darwinizing Culture The Status of Memetics as a Science [Hardcover]

The publication in 1998 of Susan Blackmore's bestselling 'The Meme Machine' re-awakened the debate over the highly controversial field of memetics. In the past few years, there has been an explosion of interest in 'memes'. The one thing noticeably missing has been any kind of proper debate over the validity of a concept regarded by many as scientifically suspect.
This book pits leading intellectuals, (both supporters and opponents of meme theory), against each other to battle it out, and state their case. With a forward by Daniel Dennett, and contributions form Dan Sperber, David Hll, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a thrilling and challenging debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field, and for future research. Superbly edited by Robert Aunger, this is a thought provoking book that will fascinate, stimulate, (and occasionally perhaps infuriate) a broad range of readers including psychologists, biologists, philosophers, linguists, and anthropologists.

Foreword,Daniel Dennett
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction,Robert Aunger
2. The memes' eye view,Susan Blackmore
3. Taking memetics seriously: Memetics will be what we make it,David Hull
4. Culture and psychological mechanisms,Henry Plotkin
5. Memes through (social) minds,Rosaria Conte
6. The evolution of the meme,Kevin Laland and John Odling-Smee
7. Memes: Universal acid or a better mousetrap?,Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson
8. An objection to the memetic approach to culture,Dan Sperber
9. If memes are the answer, what is the question?,Adam Kuper
10. A well-disposed social anthropologist's problems with memes,Maurice Bloch
11. Conclusion,Robert Aunger
Index

[P]rovides the platform for a challenging debate on the subject and pits leading intellectuals (both supporters and opponenls"