The Meme Machine

THREE PROBLEMS WITH MEMES 59
Memetic evolution is ‘Lamarckian’
Biological evolution is not Lamarckian and cultural evolution is – or so I have
heard. This apparent difference has been frequently noted, and many treat it as a
problem (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Dennett 1991; Gould 1979, 1991; Hull
1982; Wispé and Thompson 1976). In a recent discussion of artificial life, the
British biologist John Maynard Smith asked what features are necessary for any
evolving system – natural or artificial – and suggested ‘digital coding and non-
Lamarckian inheritance’ (Maynard Smith 1996, p. 177). So is memetic
evolution really Lamarckian? And what would be the significance for memetics
if it were?
First, the term ‘Lamarckian’ has come to refer to just one aspect of the
evolutionary theory of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. Lamarck believed in all sorts
of things that have now been rejected, including the inevitability of progress in
evolution and the importance of organisms striving towards their own
improvement. However, what is now referred to as ‘Lamarckism’ is the
principle of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. That is, if you learn
something or undergo some change during your lifetime, you can pass it on to
your offspring.
Lamarckism (in this sense) is not true of biological evolution, at least in
sexually reproducing species. The way inheritance works (which was not
understood in Darwin’s or Lamarck’s time) makes it impossible. This is
sometimes known as ‘Weismann’s barrier’ after August Weismann who, at the
end of the nineteenth century, pointed out what he called the ‘continuity of the
germ-plasm’. In more modern terms we can see it like this – using the example
of sexual reproduction and human beings.
The genes are coded in DNA and stored in pairs of chromosomes in every
cell of your body. At any location on a chromosome different people may have
different alleles (versions) of the same gene and the total make-up of genes in
each individual is known as their genotype. Correspondingly, the various
characteristics of the final person is known as the phenotype. The genes are not
a blue print or a map of the future phenotype; they are instructions for building
proteins. These instructions control the development of the embryo as it grows,
and of the adult as it develops in its own unique environment. The result is a
phenotype which is highly dependent on the genotype it started from but is in no
sense a copy of that genotype or completely determined by it.
Now imagine that you acquire some new characteristics by, say learning a
language, practising playing the piano, or building up your thigh muscles – that
is, your phenotype changes. There is no way that this change in your body can