An essay review of The Selfish Meme:: A critical reappraisal by Kate!Distin and not by genes alone:: How culture transformed human evolution by Peter J.!Richerson and Robert!Boyd

The essay explores the adequacy of the 'meme' concept to explain the basic mechanism of cultural evolution. Distin's defense of 'memetics' is deficient because it is based on a flawed analogy with genetics. Although Richerson and Boyd's 'cultural variant' is not based on a flawed analogy with genetics, their alternative appears primarily to be operant conditioning in disguise and presents no novel innovations in learning theory. Both models of gene-culture co-evolution are examples of one-sided cultural determinism with no genuine biological component. Analysis of the information metaphysics of memes and cultural variants reveals that both concepts are also committed to mind-body dualism.