So let's get down to it. First off, no one has ever seen a meme. They have not mapped them as they appear in the human organism, as they have genes. They have not studied them under microscopes, as they have viruses. I mention this because, though sometimes memes are treated as metaphors or similes, they are also sometimes treated as if they have the same effects as genes and viruses---that they are genes and viruses of a sort.

But of what sort? And in what realm? Here is a source of major confusion. Genes are physical things that get passed on from person to person through sexual reproduction. The genes themselves pass on stuff that interacts with other stuff that forms yet other stuff into organized stuff that becomes feet and ears and brains. We say "Genes pass on information" but really, that in itself is pretty close to a metaphorical description. This is how we describe what genes do, in effect.

But memes aren't physical in the sense that genes are. So if genes replicate in the body, and viruses operate in the body, where do memes replicate and operate? Damn good question. (Remember, these are evolutionary biologists, philosophers, anthropologists, etc. talking about memes, not neuroscientists.) Name the realm better, then we can talk. Maybe you're making some sort of sense, or maybe you're just you're violating the categorical imperative by telling me that apples act like automobiles on television except when they don't.

But memes are very popular. The idea that ideas are infectious is infectious. We're enthralled by the speed at which commercial culture, corporate buzz-words, fad-driven media and electronic communication pass "facts", fashions, catch-phrases, images and ideas around.

But look at the words I've used so far, and how many different kinds of ideas and information they describe (don't forget "dogma"). Just exactly what do we gain by grouping them all, and more, under a single heading? Far less than what we lose, I think.

Sure, a phrase, a slogan, a hairstyle, a "look" will "catch on." Melodies can be "catchy," they are "infectious melodies." Certain books and authors, or political leaders, or movie stars, will "catch fire" with the public. Those are nice descriptions of particular phenomena. But they aren't all the same.

A fad is not the same as a dogma, though they both have a social component, a "belonging," a sense that exhibiting the same idea or image is a necessity of membership. But we have far more to learn by finding likenesses and differences, contrasting and comparing, and going deeper, than we do by equating them.

And they are certainly not the same as dogma, as cultural norms, as expectations, as legends, as discoveries, as new theories, as old assumptions, as wisdom. Yes, we can probably learn a few things by looking at them together. But we learn a lot more, with more accuracy and significance, by analyzing them separately, or within a restricted domain, and then comparing them, relating them, synthesizing something from them.