"Viruses of the Mind" is an essay by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, first published in the book Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind (1993). Dawkins originally wrote the essay in 1991 and delivered it as a Voltaire Lecture on 6 November 1992 at the Conway Hall Humanist Centre. The essay discusses how religion can be viewed as a meme - an idea which Dawkins had previously expressed in The Selfish Gene (1976). Dawkins analyzes the propagation of religious ideas and behaviors as a memetic virus, analogous to how biological and computer viruses spread. The essay was later published in A Devil's Chaplain (2003), and its ideas are further explored in Dawkins's documentary television programme The Root of All Evil? (2006).
"Viruses of the Mind" is an essay by British evolutionary biologist Ric?hard Dawkins, first published in the book Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind (1993). Dawkins originally wrote the essay in 1991 and delivered it as a Voltaire Lecture on 6 !November 1992 at the Conway Hall Humanist Centre. The essay discusses how religion ca?n be viewed as a meme - an idea which Dawkins had previously expressed in The Selfish Gene (1976). Dawkins analyzes the propagation of religious ideas and behaviors as a memetic virus, analogous to how biological and computer viruses spread. The essay was later published in A D,evil's Chaplain (2003), and its ideas, are further explored in Dawkins's documentary television programme The Root of All Evil (2006).