coevolution of species and memes?

I wonder if there is a co-evolution of species and memes. Co-evolution comes from biology and is used with a specific meaning. Plants for instance could form flowers to replicate because there were insects. They coevolved because the flowers that attracted more insects would replicate better, and the insects could get food, and thereby had an edge. There are beautifull flowers that attract very specific species of insects. Another exaple is the red-queen stuff, where a predator co-evolves with a prey in that they both run faster and faster. So in biology co-evolution means that there are more species, that at least influence each other in their evolution. That means they interact in such a way that the presence of one catalyses the selection of specific forms of the other, and the other catalyses the selection of specific forms of the one. In the flower case this is symbiotic, but in the predator/prey relation it is not. If we look at species/meme coevolution this is a problem. At first sight it seems we have no two species. But we can view the pool of memes and the pool of genes from the species. The memes if they have an effect on survival of humans can influence the genetic pool. This means that groups with bad memes will go extinct. But do genes influence the memes? I don't think so. Not unless memes are one-to-one connected with memes, and they aren't. But coevolution in biology assumes that one pool affects the other and visa versa. If we are to use the word co-evolution in memetic science I propose not to do it in this way. You can say that the survival of groups is more memetic determined than genetic, but not that there is co-evolution.

Author: David W. Craig (dcraig@sparc.ncpa.olemiss.edu)
Date: Mar 25, 1995

REPLY: comment on coevolution of species and memes?

Do we understand how well coevolution would work with proto-humans who might have _some_ capacity for carrying memes, but not as much as we do? The difference between the cultural/linguistic capacities of modern humans and, say, _homo_erectus_ is not really known. Perhaps the "infectability" of large brains to memes, or certain memes, helped to drive us toward our present capacity. We don't know which (if any) memes a protohuman could absorb, but those who could absorb and propagate survival-positive memes would be on their way toward "culture"

Is "language" a meme? a proto-meme? a meta-meme? Genes drive it in development, but it seems the necessary substrate for memes to exist and propagate. But what if one's language ability is "incomplete" by our standards? It would be interesting to see how playground games propagate among young children.