One controversial application of this “selfish meme” parallel
(compare the selfish gene) results in the idea that certain collections
of memes can act as “memetic viruses”: collections of ideas that behave
as independent life-forms which continue to get passed on — even at the
expense of their hosts — simply because of their success at getting
passed on. Some observers have suggested that evangelical religions and
cults behave this way; so by including the act of passing on their
beliefs as a moral virtue, other beliefs of the religion also get
passed along even if they do not provide particular benefits to the
believer.
Others maintain that the wide prevalence of human adoption of
religious ideas provides evidence to suggest that such ideas offer some
ecological, sexual, ethical or moral value; otherwise memetic evolution
would long ago have selected against such ideas. For example, some
religions urge peace and co-operation among their followers (“Thou
shalt not kill”) which may possibly tend to promote the biological
survival of the social groups that carry these memes. However, the idea
of group selection stands on shaky ground (to say the least) in the
field of genetics. Accordingly, some consider the idea of selection of
ideas beneficial to the group exclusively as unlikely.
Dawkins notes that one can distinguish a biological virus from its
host's normal genetic material by the fact that it can propagate alone,
without the entire genetic corpus of the host being propagated — or
half of it, in the case of diploid sexual reproduction; thus, a virus
can “sabotage” the host's other genes. This applies to memes in the
sense that a meme that requires the success of its hosts has a greater
likelihood of favouring the interests of these hosts than does a meme
capable of succeeding even if each host quickly dies. For example, the
commonplace meme encouraging people to wash their hands after they use
the toilet or before handling food, and to remind others to do the
same, is not at all harmful. In contrast, a cultish meme telling people
to quit their jobs, abandon their families, and run around spreading
the meme seems quite virulent.
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