It's all well and good to claim memetics will create a more humane psychology and social policy, protect the aged and young and address global climate change without resorting to the extermination of our species...but it's all a little...too much.
Too many grand, philosophical dreamscapes, a pinch of magical thinking...out of touch with reality.
Reality is
: the peer reviewed journal(s?) went belly-up a decade ago.
: most regard meme theory as a metaphor with little to offer.
: the inertia of the current paradigm encourages meme theorists to conform memetics to existing disciplines (as any responsible, normal science will do).
Wake up folkies. We aren't a normal science yet. Let's cut the pretense.
We need to be flexible. think outside the biology box and design methodologies to test meme theory. (A great example of this cutting edge research is Daniel VanArsdale's work on the Evolution of Chain Letters).
Hold onto your hats meme-mourners, philosophers and bespectacled lab-rats...we're about to tour a world where memes aren't just an ancillary concern but where they are given the full consideration that genes have been granted for the last hundred years.
Continue to Memes, Not Metaphors
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