Chapter 11

In Chapter 11, Dawkins speaks more directly about humans. He believes that the thing that sets humans apart from other organisms is our shared culture. This includes language, shared thoughts, art and everything that makes our civilization the way it is.  Culture evolves through “cultural transmission,” and it evolves much faster than genes do. The unit of evolution of culture, however, is not a gene, but a “meme.” A meme is the replicator of culture, the smallest unit that we can imitate. Culture is exclusive to humans, but cultural transmission can occur in other species, like birds. Songbirds, for example, can learn songs from each other. Sometimes, a songbird can change the song for mistake or a human can come up with new slang and this is called “cultural mutation.” At this point, Dawkins manages to go on a weird “God” tangent about how dumb people are for believe the God meme and how smart he is for seeing through it.