Memes versus signs: On the use of meaning concepts about nature and culture

In recent years, the so-called 'meme' concept, originally introduced by Richard Dawkins and modelled analogously after the phenomenon of gene, has aroused much discussion. There have also been attempts to develop a systematic discipline of 'memetics' upon this notion, and suggestions that this opens up unforeseen possibilities for studying human culture in a new way, as compatible with biological evolution. This article argues that these attempts are misguided. The meme is a new word but not a new concept, it is only a new version of the traditional semiotic concept of sign. More pointedly, the meme is not merely an old idea in new clothing, it is in all important respects an inferior alternative to the semiotic sign. The consequence of this is that the suggested memetics would leave open the cleavage between the study of nature and culture that semiotics traditionally has attempted to close.