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This chapter develops an evolutionary approach to the process of technological innovation. It shows how a theory of knowledge evolution can be executed in a manner analogous to the Darwinian models of evolution in living systems. The chapter warns that while much can be learned from this analogy, there are important differences.

This chapter argues that memeticists have been far too fascinated with one of Darwin's conceptual advances: the identification of natural selection as the mechanism for cumulative adaptation. It also argues that population thinking is the key to conceptualizing culture in terms of material causes, and can play an important, constructive role in the human sciences. It is thought that Darwinian models of culture are useful for two reasons. First, they serve to connect the rich models of behavior based on individual action developed in economics, psychology, and evolutionary biology with the data and insights of the cultural sciences, anthropology, archaeology, and sociology. Second, population thinking is useful because it offers a way to build a mathematical theory of human behavior that captures the important role of culture in human affairs. The problem of human cooperation should be considered in order to know how useful population-based models can be. It is stated that memes are not a universal acid, but population thinking is a better mousetrap.

This chapter determines a major empirical hurdle for any future discipline of memetics. It mainly shows that one can find very similar copies of some cultural item, link these copies through a causal chain of events which faithfully reproduced those items, and nevertheless not have an example of memetic inheritance. In addition, the stability of cultural patterns is proof that fidelity in copying is high despite individual variations. It is also believed that what is offered as an explanation is precisely what needs to be explained; what is offered as a solution is in fact the very problem to be solved. Moreover, the issue is whether the relative stability observed in cultural transmission is proof of replication. The example of the acquisition of language is briefly addressed. The Darwinian model of selection is informative, and in various ways, for thinking about culture. Imitation is of course well worth investigating. On the other hand, the grand project of memetics is misled.