8fb8be45_ior__Darwin_s_Powerful_Science__Area
[Mechanism of Replication] Collections of meme (units of cultural inheritance) are passed on to the young by example of parents, peers and authority figures. Collections of memes acting in alliance can form distinct 'memeplexes' within the culture. Memes may be transient, like fashions in clothing, music and art, or longer-term, like language and religion. Memeplexes are subject to rapid change with most individuals changing many of their memes in a single lifetime. [Notes] Memeplexes act to isolate their cultures by including memes such as racial or cultural supremacy and paranoia about the intentions of other cultures. Like species with genetic replicators, cultures can be subject to free-loading parasitic memeplexes in which individuals and cultures may used by the memeplex to further the survival of itself, not the culture or the individual carrier. This has been proposed as an explanation for religions, religious wars and martyrdom. By this view, all cultures for a given species are equally evolved. [Area] 
Cultures. Custom and practice within a distinct group of sentient animals.
Rosa Rubicondior: Darwin's Powerful Science
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