I have been planning to write over this topic for a long time now. Ever since I read this book by Sir Richard Dawkins (British ethologist), named “The selfish gene” (my favourite), I was fascinated by the idea that “Ideas” evolve. To talk about this book in brief, it puts forth how evolution of organism is gene centered (rather than organism as a basic unit of its action). This is the basis of neo-Darwinism. This book also introduces to a term, “meme”. Most importantly the book calls the gene 'selfish', itself is a big topic of discussion (as this statement imparts a charateristic of consiousness onto genes, which are till date only known to replicate as a result of “so called” simple process of Replication).
Coming back to the original topic, if we define 'gene' as a structural unit of life, then 'meme' has to be defined as 'the cultural unit of life'.
Web definition of meme: a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation); "memes are the cultural counterpart of genes"
(Source: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).
It has been more than 3.5 billion years that life is evolving. From its original state of some basic chemical reactions guided by some catalysts (enzymes) to very complex mechanisms of K+/Na+ nerve impulse transmissions and reaction to stimulus, it has achieved a great degree of organisation. Throughout this course all the forces of nature, which caused evolution (i.e. Natural selection, mutation, variation), acted upon the basic units, 'genes'. Approximately 15000 years ago man began its journey of becoming the highest evolved organism on earth and today he has reached its peak, using tools like techology, innovation and imagination. But what led to this extraordinary process of we the humans (Homo sapiens) reaching such greater heights? What boosted such a rapid change in the normal organismal behaviour? What would you bet on, genes? Or something else?
Initially may be yes, since we do not have an answer even to the sudden cranial expansion, that resulted into intellectuals like us ;-)
But there was something else that was moving through the generations and through the populations, faster than genes could: “MEMES”.
These ideological units could transfer faster, since the breakthrough of scripts, languages etc. That was a better medium of passing them, than other biological mediums, like learning by experience. The theory of evolution tells us that rate of evolution is proportional to the variations available in the population. More the variation, better is the selection process and faster is the adaptation (from nature's point of view). As we can see that memes take less time to pass down from person to person and are easily mutable. It is quite clear that a gene will take a complete generation to show its effect of mutation, but a meme can mutate 'N' number of times during a generation and that results into a group of people with variable ideas at the same time, such that selection process can act on such a varied/distict forms of memes in such a short span. This helps building better concepts and ideologies in very short period. This is how I believe that man could come to this state. Well I am going to comment on the other aspects of this issue in my forthcuming articles (as and when possible, as this was just an introduction to the concept).
So we can conclude that, till the time humans came into this big picture of evolution 'genes evolved', then 'memes took over' (offcourse this doesn't mean that genetic mode of evolution is on hold).
I would like to end this article with few of the best lines I have read in any biological books which make me think deeper into this vast expanse of biological world (but they might not be related to the current article): I quote #
“Our genes made us. We animals exist for their preservation and are nothing more than their throwaway survival machines. The world of the selfish gene is one of savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit. But what of the acts of apparent altruism found in nature-the bees who commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, or the birds who risk their lives to warn the flock of an approaching hawk? Do they contravene the fundamental law of gene selfishness?”
# Introduction to the book 'The selfish gene - Richard Dawkins' by Jeffrey R. Baylis.
