Viruses of the Mind Viruses of the Mind "Viruses of the Mind" is an essay by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, first published in the book "Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind" (1993). Dawkins originally wrote the essay in 1991 and delivered it as a Voltaire Lecture on 6 November 1992 at the Conway Hall Humanist Centre. The essay discusses how religion can be viewed as a meme, an idea previously expressed by Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" (1976). Dawkins analyzes the propagation of religious ideas and behaviors as a memetic virus, analogous to how biological and computer viruses spread. The essay was later
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection chapter, Fisher considers the nature of inheritance, rejecting blending inheritance, because it would eliminate genetic variance, in favour of particulate inheritance. The second chapter introduces Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection. The third considers the evolution of dominance, which Fisher believed was strongly influenced by modifiers. Other chapters discuss parental investment, Fisher's geometric model, concerning how spontaneous mutations affect biological fitness, Fisher's principle which explains why the sex ratio between males and females is almost always 1:1, reproductive value, examining the demography of having girl children. Using his knowledge of statistics, the Fisherian runaway, which explores how sexual selection can