Doubts about Memetics

A basic difficulty in the study of memes involves the frequent lack
of clarity as to what divides one meme from another. Whether this
matters may remain a matter of taste.

In much the same way that the selfish gene concept offers a fruitful
way of understanding and reasoning about aspects of biological
evolution, the meme concept can conceivably assist in the better
understanding of some otherwise puzzling aspects of human culture (and
learned behaviors of other animals as well). However, if one cannot
test for “better” empirically, the question will remain whether or not
the meme concept counts as a valid scientific theory. Memetics thus
remains a science in its infancy, a protoscience (to proponents) or a
pseudoscience (to detractors).