“All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.”

I had never thought about animals having their own culture, but this chapter in The Selfish Gene made me realize how true that was. Dawkins starts talking about animal culture, and then proceeds to talk about genes and evolution in human for almost the first time since the start of the book. However, he gives the chapter a completely different approach than the one I expected by mentioning what he names memes. According to the dictionary, memes are “cultural items are transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.”

He exemplifies his point by stating that “God exists, if only n the form of a meme with high survival value, or ineffective power, ion the environment provided by human culture.” (pg 193.) Although highly controversial, this statement is completely true. There is no evidence at all that confirms the existence of a being such as “God”, he exists merely in people’s faith, which according to Dawkins I “blind trust, in absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence… Blind faith can justify anything.” (pg 198.) Who can tell you you’re wrong when you don’t need anything to confirm that you are right? I respect people that have such strong convictions, but I cannot personally relate. How can you believe in something you don’t know exists? How can you blindly trust some old papers that were written by people that would probably be considered insane in our modern world?

Dawkins ends the chapter by saying that our genes are survival machines, yet they were not created to be, nor can we expect them to be, immortal. They are bound to change because of the nature of evolution itself, but memes, on the other hand, can last for a longer time. They will not be exactly the same, since everyone changes ideas to fit certain circumstances and to fit their own understanding, but their essence will remain. Can we consider, then, that our ideas are more important than our bodies?