Reading time: ~3 min read
The Discovery Channel also devotes space to the claims of Richard Dawkins, an unrepentant Darwinist, atheist, and Oxford University zoologist. Dawkins considers all forms of cultural behavior (ideas, gestures, etc.) under the heading of "meme." Dawkins describes memes as ideas passed on by one human being imitating another, and suggests that in the same way that the genes copy DNA and pass it on from person to person, the memes that constitute the mind and shape behavior are similarly copied and handed on from one person to another. The idea is that, just as the so-called competition between genes shaped biological evolution, so too the competition between memes shaped the brain and culture. Dawkins later suggests that memes—i.e., mimicry or assimilation—are the propulsive force behind human evolution.
The ideas Dawkins describes with the concept of memes can of course change and develop. For instance, ideas can be discussed and other ideas added as a result. Cultural progress can thus take place. In addition to this, human behavior and the behavior of other human beings may be imitated. There is nothing wrong with Dawkins' account up to this point. The error lies in suggesting that this is evidence for so-called human evolution. Mimicry is concerned with abstract thought. Man is the only being possessed of reason and capable of transmitting, copying, and developing ideas.
No relationship based on mimicry can possibly be established between man—who creates works of art, develops scientific theories, and designs and debates political regimes—and animals, bereft of all capacity for abstract thought. Instead of considering and defining a property that is unique to man, Dawkins should first of all explain how abstract thought might have emerged during the so-called transition from animal to man. What evolutionists are unable to explain is this: How is it that an animal that is unable to think or speak and unable to establish detailed connections between itself and its surroundings, could possibly turn into a human being able to speak and think and possessed of reason and high intelligence? By what evolutionary mechanism could this mental gulf have been bridged?
Naturally, neither Dawkins nor other evolutionists have a consistent reply to these questions. That is because it is impossible to account for abstract thought by adopting a materialist approach, as Colin McGinn has admitted.
Dawkins has no evidence at all of how so-called evolution might have bridged this gulf, and his claim is a totally imaginary one.
"If cultural heritage replicates itself, like DNA molecules, then a new theory of Darwinism might emerge."
No further comment is made after The Discovery Channel puts this suggestion forward. Yet, an explanation of what a cultural accumulation is and how human culture might emerge from the replication of such an accumulation needs to be made. For that reason, these superficial statements have no meaning at all on the scientific level.
Finally, the claim that there is competition between genes and that this competition shaped biological evolution is invalidated by the effect of chance mutation. Like all evolutionists, Dawkins has adopted the dogmatic idea that the vast amount of information concealed in DNA emerged by chance. Genetic research has demonstrated that it is impossible for chance mutations to add information to species' DNA and thus turn them into other species.