In a previous entry, I wrote about how cable company Comcast had created a new slang term for slow, ...   more »

Written by Aaron Lynch, Thought Contagion is a book packed full of hypothetical examples of memetic effects. If Richard Brodie’s ...   more »

In Virus Of The Mind, author Richard Brodie explains in smooth, well-written, laymen’s terms what memes are and all ...   more »

Darwinizing Culture, published in 2000, is a collection of essays written by both opponents and proponents of the memetic ...   more »

I recently finished reading 6 Steps To Free Publicity by Marcia Yudkin, which is a great book that explains how ...   more »

We live in an overcommunicated society, so claim Al Ries and Jack Trout, authors of the 1981 book Positioning. ...   more »

What is an advertiser to do when the population simply tunes out most ads? Some of them turn to Campfire ...   more »

In a previous entry, I wrote about a new theory of autism that was explained in the November 2006 issue ...   more »

First, it is claimed that those with autism do poorly at the bouba-kiki test, and that this is likely caused ...   more »

In the previous entry, a theory of the activities of so-called “mirror neurons” and how they might relate to autism ...   more »

This is a review of a two-article special report in the November 2006 issue of Scientific American last year. I ...   more »

In the December 2006 issue of Scientific American is a mini-article in the “news scan” section about voting behaviors. It ...   more »

When explaining what a meme is, sometimes it is helpful to explain what it is not. Many ideas in society ...   more »

Sometimes activists exaggerate. Often, they do this not to create a lasting deception for sinister purposes, but instead to merely ...   more »

With the development of psychohistory, the not-quite-yet-if-ever-science of predicting cultural evolution, comes the ability to predict whether certain behaviors, if ...   more »

For approximately a century and a half, every president of the USA (and the vast majority of those in other ...   more »

Like all memes, conspiracy theories spread by bringing benefit to the ones doing the spreading. This can be as simple ...   more »

In addition to the primary effects of conspiracy theories, meaning the growth of large numbers of people believing in the ...   more »

Although chain letters can often be troublesome and a drain on resources, it is important not to be too overzealous ...   more »

It was a while ago when I received the following bulletin on myspace.com. It seems that someone named Matt ...   more »

Lately I have been hearing ads on the radio for cable high-speed internet. In these ads, various unrelated things in ...   more »

Several weeks ago, Steven Colbert broke his wrist. Since then, he has been selling “wriststrong” bracelets to raise “wrist awareness”. ...   more »

In the interest of preventing an overestimation of the power of memetics, the author has decided to write this entry. ...   more »

In the interests of preventing an underestimation of the power of memetics, the author has decided to write this ...   more »

A while ago a rumor was circulating that not only were cops and reporters pretending to be young girls online ...   more »

It has been that for quite some time there has been an atheistic and even anti-religious streak running throughout the ...   more »

Recently, Daniel Dennett, a philosopher, wrote the book Religion As A Natural Phenomenon. There has been much written ...   more »

The new atheists are coming. Although some say it is less of a political movement than a social networking opportunity ...   more »

Memes (ideas that spread from one person to another) often spread quickly throughout a society, cutting across socio-economic classes and ...   more »

For many years, the author’s conception of relish was that of chopped pickled cucumbers, although additional ingredients were possible. It ...   more »