Journal of Memetics

The Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Modes of Information Transmission (stylised as JoM-EMIT) was an open access, peer-reviewed academic journal that was active between 1997 and 2005.

Scope and Aims

• The mechanics of evolutionary processes, especially comparisons of different models of evolution
• The philosophy of evolution and epistemology
• The boundaries of the evolutionary approach
• Empirical research
• Fundamental work towards developing memetics into a science

Organisation

Advisory board

Susan Blackmore, Gary Cziko, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Liane Gabora, and David Hull.

Editors

• Michael Best, Media Lab, MIT, USA.
• Gary Boyd; Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
• Bruce Edmonds (also publisher); Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
• David Hales, (Co-Managing Editor); Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
• Francis Heylighen; Senior Research Associate for the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (NFWO), Associate Director Center "Leo Apostel" at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium.
• Paul Marsden, (Co-Managing Editor);
• Martin de Jong, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.
• Mark Mills; Computer Consultant, Veridion, Dallas Texas.
• Aaron Lynch.Thought Contagion Analyst, Evanston, Illinois.
• Hans-Cees Speel Department of Policy Analysis, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
• Mario Vaneechoutte; Department of Microbiology, University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.

Additional Reviewers

Onar Aam, Derek Gatherer, Sigrid Glenn, Todd Grantham, Christopher Horvath, George Modelski, Edward Morris, John Nightingale, Martti Nyman, If Price, John Wilkins, Tony Witten and many others.

List of all JoM-EMIT articles

1997 - Volume 1

Issue 1 - May

• The Six Essentials? Minimal Requirements for the Darwinian Bootstrapping of Quality by William H. Calvin
• Cultural R/K Selection by Agner Fog
• The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity by Liane Gabora
• Macromemetics: Towards a Framework for the Re-unification of Philosophy by Derek Gatherer

Issue 2 - December

• Models for Interacting Populations of Memes: Competition and Niche Behavior by Michael L. Best
• Creativity, Evolution and Mental Illnesses by Antonio Preti and Paola Miotto
• A Memetic Analysis of Policy Making by Hans-Cees Speel
• Bird Song as a Possible Cultural Mechanism for Speciation by Mario Vaneechoutte

1998 - Volume 2

Issue 1 - June

• What's in a Meme? Reflections from the perspective of the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology by John S. Wilkins
• Units, Events and Dynamics in Memetic Evolution by Aaron Lynch
• Controversies in Meme Theory by Nick Rose

Issue 2 - December

• The Memetic Origin of Language: modern humans as musical primates by Mario Vaneechoutte and John Skoyles
• On Modelling in Memetics by Bruce Edmonds
• Why the `Thought Contagion' Metaphor is Retarding the Progress of Memetics by Derek Gatherer
• Imitation and the Definition of a Meme by Susan Blackmore
• Memetics and Social Contagion: Two Sides of the Same Coin? by Paul Marsden

1999 - Volume 3

Issue 1 - June

• Survival of the institutionally fittest concepts by Martin de Jong

Issue 2 - December

• Applying Memetics to Financial Markets: Do Markets Evolve towards Efficiency? by Joshua Frank
• Do Animals Have Memes? by Simon Reader and Kevin Laland
• Different Types of Memes: Recipemes, Selectemes and Explanemes by John Langrish

2000/1 - Volume 4

Issue 1 - June

• Replicating Sonorities: Towards a Memetics of Music by Steven Jan
• Mathematical Models for Memetics by Jeremy Kendel and Kevin Laland

Issue 2 - Special Issue on Computational Memetics

• Cultural evolution of "guiding criteria" and behaviour in a population of neural-network agents by Gianluca Baldassarre
• Modelling the effects of memetic taboos on genetic homosexuality by Derek Gatherer
• Transmission Of Cultural Traits By Emulation: An Agent-Based Model Of Group Foraging Behavior by Robert Reynolds, Robert Whallon, and Steven Goodhall

2001 - Volume 5

Issue 1 - March

• Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons by John Gottsch
• Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics by Paul Marsden
• Towards a Cognitive Memetics: Socio-Cognitive Mechanisms for Memes Selection and Spreading by Cristiano Castelfranchi

Issue 2 - September

• Reconstruction of organisational phylogeny from memetic similarity analysis: Proof of feasibility by Andrew Lord and If Price
• Mergers and Takeovers: A Memetic Approach by Ed Vos and Ben Kelleher

2002 - Volume 6

Issue 1 - March

• Syntactic Structure in Birdsong: Memetic Evolution of Songs or Grammars? by William Majoros
• Darwinian Processes and Memes in Architecture: A Memetic Theory of Modernism by Nikos Salingaros and Terry Mikiten
• The Spread of Irrational Behaviours by Contagion: An Agent Micro-Simulation by Derek Gatherer

Issue 2 - September

• Chess moves and their memomics: a framework for the evolutionary processes of chess openings by João Dinis de Sousa
• Cultural Transmission and the Capacity to Approve or Disapprove of Offspring’s Behaviour by Laureano Castro and Miguel Toro

2003 - Volume 7

Issue 1 - March

• The Evolutionary Ecology of Science by Marion Blute

Issue 2 - September

• Competing Memes Analysis by David Dirlam
• Inferring Potential Memetic Structure from Cross-Sectional Data: An Application to American Religious Beliefs by Carter Butts and Christin Hilgeman

2004 - Volume 8

Issue 1 - March

• The Redefinition of Memes: Ascribing Meaning to an Empty Cliché by Michael Lissack
• The Evolution of Language and Science Studied by means of Biological Concepts by Börje Ekstig

Issue 2 - September

• The Inherent Instability of Memetic Systems: Use of a Genetic Algorithm to Solve a Parameter Optimisation Problem in a Memetic Simulation by Derek Gatherer

2005 - Volume 9

Final Issue - Retrospectives and Prospects

• Memetics and evolutionary social science by Marion Blute
• Using Memetics to Grow Memetics by David Dirlam
• The Revealed Poverty of the Gene-Meme Analogy – why memetics per se has failed to produce substantive results by Bruce Edmonds
• Finding a Niche for Memetics in the 21st Centuary by Derek Gatherer