Videos · October 20, 2026 · 39 seconds
'The Selfish Gene' at 50: How 'Meme' Outlived Its Own Theory
Fifty years ago this autumn, Richard Dawkins needed a name for ideas that copy themselves from mind to mind, and coined one in the last chapter of The Selfish Gene. The science built on it fizzled, the internet rewired its meaning, and the word spread anyway, which is roughly what his theory predicted.
Read the full articleby Adam Cannizzaro
Transcript
'THE SELFISH GENE' AT 50: HOW 'MEME' OUTLIVED ITS OWN THEORY
[THE COINAGE] A biologist needed a new word.
- In 1976, the Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins needed a name for tunes, catchphrases, and fashions that spread from person to person by imitation.
- In the last chapter of his first book, The Selfish Gene, he coined "meme" and suggested that ideas might evolve the way genes do.
[THE AFTERLIFE] Science faded. The word spread.
- Scientists tried to build a science of memes, but its journal closed in 2005 for lack of quality submissions.
- By our count, "memes" now appears about 37 times as often in English-language books as it did in 1976.
Read the full article at noozify.com. Images: Images: a DNA double-helix model at the Indian Museum, Kolkata, by Biswarup Ganguly (CC BY 3.0); Richard Dawkins in 2009 by Mark Coggins (CC BY 2.0); both via Wikimedia Commons. Chart by Noozify from Google Books Ngram Viewer data. Music: an original score for Noozify.