Memes controlling evolution

[eng...@gmail.com]

I was thinking about memes and evolution. What do you think of the
following idea?

Darwinism is nearly always thought of as related to genetics. However,
I think the concept could be also alive and well in the idea of memes.

You probably have heard of the idea of memes. Little ideas or thoughts
that jump from mind to mind and survive like benevolent or malicious
little organisms preying on our minds. Einstein is the greatest genius
of all time, dancing baby, eating before swimming is bad, drugs make
you cool, are all examples of memes that live inside peoples minds.

I was thinking that memes might be altering our minds, just like
farmers tilling the soil. Memes that were able to help minds survive
that house a favorable environment for the memes themselves survive
would be at an advantage to memes that were not able to do this. Also
memes that were able to kill off minds that would destroy them would
also be at an advantage over memes that were unable to do this.

Wars for a religion might be an example of memes killing minds that
would harm them. Religious extremists who succeeded in killing people
that are against their religion have helped the memes inside their
head survive.

Given the absence of genetic survival pressure, maybe meme pressure
has become much more powerful in the evolution of the human being.
Thinking this way, patriotism, religion, elitism, people mating only
with those that share similar beliefs or cultural values, could all be
exampled by memes having control over our behavior and manipulating
our genetics (by adjusting our mating practices and causing us to kill
off people having inhospitable minds for the memes to survive).

This could also be partly the reason why people are often stubborn.
The memes have genetically altered us to become resistant to letting
them go (basically killing them off).