Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes

'''Dawkins, Richard. "Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes.'" Excerpt from The Selfish Gene''. New York: Oxford UP, 1976. Anthologized in The Mind's I, q.v. under Anthologies (124-44).

Living things as "survival machines" for genes, including the interesting subset of complex "purpose machines," which may be conscious, but don't need to be. Ultimately presents a belief not only in subjective consciousness but in the importance of the "meme," short for "mimeme," RD's new word — which soon established itself in academic and some popular discourse — for "a unit of cultural transmission."