“(…)We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural

transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a
monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I
abbreviate mimeme to meme.” (DAWKINGS, Richard p.171)

“(…)As my colleague N. K. Humphrey neatly summed up an earlier draft of this chapter:'...

memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically.”
(DAWKINGS, Richard p.172)

“(…)Imitation, in the broad sense, is how memes can replicate. But just as not all genes that
can replicate do so successfully, so some memes are more successful in the meme-pool than
others. This is the analogue of natural selection. I have mentioned particular examples of
qualities that make for high survival value among memes. But in general they must be the same
as those discussed for the replicators of Chapter 2(from The Selfish Gene): longevity, fecundity,
and copying-fidelity.” (DAWKINGS, Richard .173)

“The memes are being passed on to you in altered form. […] It looks as though meme
transmission is subject to continuous mutation, and also to blending.”(DAWKINGS, Richard
p.174)

meme-as-germ takes epidemiology as its model science

meme-as-gene takes evolutionary genetics as its model science

Críticas
There are no cultural lineages.

Tim Lewens (2006): I could look into my genome and say (for most of my genes, at
least), which came from my father and which from my mother. Can we do this for
cultural items? Not always.

Memetics is a pseudoscience.

Luis Benites-Bribiesca (2001): But while genes are well defined and their molecular structure
has been extensively investigated, memes are ethereal and cannot be defined. Without an
adequate idea of these elusive elements it is no surprise that no scientific demonstration of such
an immaterial replicator exists and serious scientists disregard memes as the basis to explain
consciousness and cultural evolution. Memetics is nothing more than a pseudoscientific dogma
where memes are compared to genes, viruses, parasites, or infectious agents thriving for their
own survival in human brains.

Memes are not copied but recreated.

Memes are not like genes because there is no memetic code.