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MALEABLE. "In biology, for instance, mutation and selection take place at the level of genes and organisms. But while cultural evolution also occurs at the individual level, the unit of selection — behavior — seems more susceptible to drastic change than a gene." https://lnkd.in/dnqbPdK View in LinkedIn

CULTURAL REPLICONS. "Memes are “cultural replicators, the cultural equivalent of a gene, the cultural equivalent of DNA...the internet is a first-class ecology for memes to spread." (Richard Dawkins). https://lnkd.in/e9Xs9Hj View in LinkedIn

MEMES AS CULTURAL GENES. "Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures." https://lnkd.in/d6Cxzi3 View in LinkedIn

CULTURAL INHERITANCE. "A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme." https://lnkd.in/d6Cxzi3 View in LinkedIn

A MEME is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture". https://lnkd.in/d6Cxzi3 View in LinkedIn

NEW HUMAN ECOLOGY. "The internet is the decisive technology of the Information Age, and with the explosion of wireless communication in the early twenty-first century, we can say that humankind is now entirely connected." https://lnkd.in/dsHe6fk View in LinkedIn

LOSS OF TOOL PLASTICITY. "Due to developmental constraint, these core GRNs have been highly conserved since the Cambrian. Disruption of these core developmental networks is generally catastrophic, and so, once established, they are very difficult to modify and change (i.e., have low “evolvability”)." (GRNs = gene regulatory networks). https://lnkd.in/dTKCkih View in LinkedIn

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE. "The invention of the printing press was at its time perceived as a threat to European culture, social order and morality. “Ever since they began to practice this perverse excess of printing books, the church has been greatly damaged,” lamented Francisco Penna, a Dominican defender of the Spanish Inquisition." There are modern parallels of course. https://lnkd.in/d8-nHvR View in LinkedIn

TOOL REWIRING. "Some of these “experiments” were successful, producing the animal body plans that we see today. Each of the many diverse body plans would have been formed by a distinct regulatory network, formed by roughly the same set of regulatory genes acting in different combinations and regulated by a different set of developmental enhancers." https://lnkd.in/dTKCkih View in LinkedIn

COMMUNICATION IMPACT. "Throughout human history new technologies of communication have had a significant impact on culture." The printing press. Morse code. The telegraph. The telephone. TV. Radio. The internet. https://lnkd.in/d8-nHvR View in LinkedIn