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Bookreview: Thought Contagion    _title_:      Thought Contagion    Sub_title_:   How Belief Spreads through Society    Author:     Aaron Lynch    Publisher:  Basic Books, New York, 1996    ISBN 0-465-08466-4 Lynch puts forward his book as an introduction to a new social science, made accessible to the masses. While the book is persuasive, it has flaws which make it unsuitable as an introduction to memetics for the layman, and make it controversial at best for social scientists. The subject itself is presented in a such a manner that makes the book more of a proselytic pamphlet for yet another thought contagion. The term meme to describe a single unit of an idea was coined by Richard Dawkins in _The Selfish Gene_. Lynch suggests that his work is a continuation of work in social psychology, and provides an encompassing model for explaining the existence of a large variety of human behaviors, customs, and institutions. This model he proposes to call memetics. The book is readable, and not overly long. There are far fewer footnotes or references than the material seems to demand. There is an unnecessarily lengthy bibliography (it isn't clear if it is a list of references, or if the author is attempting to lend caché to his treatise by citing a reading list which would daunt Newt Gingrich - it apparently does not comprise the sources for most of Lynch's claims) and a fairly sloppy index. In the book's first two chapters, Lynch describes his thesis of thought contagion as a form of mental virus - an infection of human thought processes that spreads much like a computer virus spreads from one computer to another. Such a mental infection, Lynch writes, may even change human behavior to promote the spread of the belief. Lynch then spends the remainder of the book providing what he considers illustrative examples of thought contagion at work, which he sees in everything from child rearing practices, to religious beliefs, to political controversy. Whether or not the subject of thought contagion turns out to be validated by scientific investigation, there are a few observations that can be made without expertise in any particular field of science: * The meme is never actually defined. The reader is led to consider   various aspects of human behavior as memes, including behavior that   is constrained, behavior that may be genetic, and behavior that is   learned. It is not clear that the notion of thought contagion is   valid in relation to any of these types of behavior. More   significantly, without a precise definition of memes it is   impossible to consider such concepts as memetic mutation, or any of   the other notions Lynch proposes in his book. It remains a slippery   bit of hand-waving, and a source of frustration to anyone trying to   get a handle on it. * While memetics might be used as an epidemiological model for the   spread of an idea, it is far too limited in scope to account for all   human behavior, from learning to social organization. Lynch does not   convincingly show how memetics can lay claim to being a new social   science. * Some of Lynch's illustrative examples, notably those involving   religion, make those with a suspicious bent of mind (like this   reviewer) think that he has an axe to grind. It is this perception   which has prompted some of the most heated noise about thought   contagion. The noise appears to serve no purpose other than to   uncritically spread the notion of thought contagion, and to distract   social scientists from a serious discussion of the science (if any)   involved.

Bookreview: Thought Contagion    _title_:      Thought Contagion    Sub_title_:   How Belief Spreads through Society    Author:     Aaron Lynch    Publisher:  Basic Books, New York, 1996    ISBN 0-465-08466-4 Lynch puts forward his book as an introduction to a new social science, made accessible to the masses. While the book is persuasive, it has flaws which make it unsuitable as an introduction to memetics for the layman, and make it controversial at best for social scientists. The subject itself is presented in a such a manner that makes the book more of a proselytic pamphlet for yet another thought contagion. This book is the ONLY SOURCE for nearly all of the memetics hypotheses it expresses. You will not find the material in journal articles or web sites anywhere. It is not, therefore, a made accessible to the masses introduction, but rather an original science work which has been rendered in readable prose. To get the hypotheses tested empirically will require perhaps thousands of scientists spending millions of dollars

Bookreview: Thought Contagion :Lynch puts forward his book as an introduction to a new social science, :made accessible to the masses. While the book is persuasive, it has :flaws which make it unsuitable as an introduction to memetics for the  : This book is the ONLY SOURCE for nearly all of the memetics  : hypotheses it expresses. You will not find the material in journal Really? That is immaterial. The comment you are responding to comments on your claim that it is a way to `make a new social sciences accessible to the masses'. To meet that de_script_ion, it needs to be a competent and valid text on `memetics'. : articles or web sites anywhere. It is not, therefore, a made : accessible to the masses introduction, but rather an original : science work which has been rendered in readable prose. To get the : hypotheses tested empirically will require perhaps thousands of : scientists spending millions of dollars