Some researchers have proposed that a culture is made up of smaller units called memes, akin to how an organism is composed of genes. Because researchers have not yet agreed on a working definition of what a meme is, the definition I will be using is: memes are patterns in neural networks, akin to how genes are patterns in DNA. Other definitions have included vague references to information and ideas stored in brains, which must replicate, but these definitions do not point to any observable physical matter that can be tested empirically and assume if a meme exists, it must replicate in a similar manner to genes.
Before genetics, researchers thought hereditary traits were blended in offspring through some vague, overarching mechanism—like culture is thought of at present. Researchers define a sequence of DNA as a gene when they knock it out and observe an effect in its absence. While it would be more difficult to knock out a meme from someone’s brain, I argue using literary review that we can postulate the process of memetic replication by explaining how memes blend (recombine) for imaginative and creative purposes within one person’s head, and mutate between heads during communication errors—which is the opposite of how genes recombine (between organisms) and mutate (within an organism).
The explanatory power of memes lies beyond reduction; memetics can inform cultural anthropology by the provision of a proximate causation in addition to the ultimate cultural explanation by which anthropologists are already familiar.
NOTE: I didn’t post my proposal earlier because I had already submitted it. I was under the impression the posts were to be edited, and then subsequently forgot to post this anyway until now.