In case you missed it in 2022; YAH BOI dropped his debut book, The Case Against Memes. In it, I criticized Dawkins’ landmark work. Why did I do this? Simple; much of the so-called scientific literature often cited his book The Selfish Gene to prop up their crackpot hypotheses. Thus, I opted to go straight to the tumor to disabuse my readers of the flawed notion that the clearly-outdated book was pushing.
And note my word choice in that last paragraph; clearly outdated. I said this in The Case Against Memes back in 2022 and I will repeat it here; I do not judge Dawkins circa 1976 for these stances. Why is that, you ask? Simple, because his ideas were either correct, or at least not provably wrong back when the Steelers were still a dynasty. With that said, many of these knuckle-dragging fanboys ivory-tower elites kept citing his re-releases in both 2006 and 2016 to bolster their 75 IQ takes claims. As I published the hardest-hitting-and most accurate- book on the topic of memes, I wondered how the 2026 version would address my points.
I knew that the calendar was against me when my book launched. After all, Dawkins is no spring chicken, and I was hoping that the Grim Reaper would stay away from the misguided Englishman long enough for 2026 to roll around. I wanted Dawkins to live long enough to re-release his 50th anniversary edition. I praise Allah, Colonel Sanders, Lord Xenu, and Donald Trump that he did. I grabbed a copy and thumbed through it to see if he picked up the gauntlet that YAH BOI threw down years ago. Well, that day has finally come…
Judgement Day
The new version is nothing more than an effortless cash-grab. The elderly grifter did not update his views in the face of the overwhelming evidence that I had presented. Me, the world’s leading anti-meme voice, had put that fucker on blast. And did he respond to any of my arguments in the new edition? Nope. Did anyone of the pro-meme academics citing this fucking snake-oil salesmen ever respond to me? Nope. Facebook refused to run my ads in the beginning though. It’s almost like the ivory tower pro-meme bias that I spent a majority of the book discussing absolutely exists or something…
Why run ads for something that threatens your business model, amirite?
I spilled barrels of ink in the book discussing the folly of citing post-1976 Dawkins. This is because the meme landscape in 2006 had clearly evolved lightyears beyond what it was before the Rubix Cube existed. So, while Dawkins couldn’t be judged harshly for his Carter-administration views, raking the pompous Brit over the coals for failing to modernize in the face of new evidence is definitely on the table. Fast forward to 2016 and the meme-scape had changed again and this time there was no hiding from it. Thus, the senile scientist rightfully earned his evisceration from YAH BOI during the pandemic.
The Execution
“Alright Dan, so give me an example of Dawkins failure to update his claims, tough guy.” Gladly, Karen; still in 2026, the below-average Boomer peddled the debunked claim that memes persist “in my brain will last only for the rest of my life” (page 252). I dedicated nearly an entire chapter to utterly disemboweling this 75-IQ claim in my book. The tl:dr is that the relevancy of memes is measured in mere hours, not decades. The kicker? YAH BOI demonstrated this point in his book using a published study from 2012. Thus, his paint-chip-eating claim wasn’t even accurate in 2016, let alone today.
But I can tell that Karen still needs another point of proof. Dawkins still hammers on the same point of memes being equivalent to genes in terms of proliferation in their respective pools. However, this is yet another claim whose corpse I dragged through the canyon during the days of the ChinaVirus. This is off by a mile; genes are propagated through sexual reproduction and when a sperm fertilizes an egg, the result is a new organism. However, a meme that reaches virality is not only soon washed away, but there is nothing to show for it after the fact.
Dawkins, much like he did when Luke Skywalker was blowing up the Death Star, kept harking on about the copy-fidelity of the meme being low. However, we’ve observed this as untrue. Modern subreddits often have a fierce no cross-posting rule that I pointed out back when I first wrote my book. Copy-fidelity in this art form is so high that, as I argued in my book several years ago, it becomes literal plagiarism. So again, Dawkins has done nothing to update his stances even when his claims get debunked.
Post-Mortem Analysis
I dunked on the OG so hard that he hasn’t even bothered to show up to the court. Rather than engage the points I made and use his allegedly-superior intellect (a non-existent advantage of his) to outwit me, he instead has chosen to avoid me entirely. He’s had years to build a case, but he didn’t. It’s hard to say why this is the case for certain. But one thing is abundantly clear; one cannot defend the indefensible. Siding with Dawkins regarding memes in 2026 is like arguing Israel isn’t trying to genocide the Palestinians; not only is it untrue, it’s just such a bad look.
The way I see it is that there’s two possible explanations for his despicable behavior. Option A is that Dawkins legitimately didn’t know that my book was published. Given the accessibility of the internet and the fact that my book is titled as straightforward as possible regarding its topic means that Dawkins undeniably lives in a bubble and did zero research prior to re-releasing his book. This explanation would prove the point made earlier that this was nothing more than a no-effort cash-grab. Bruh, my book wasn’t hard to find; you just didn’t fucking look.
Option B is that he knew about me and my work, and consciously chose to ignore it anyways. If that is the case then he truly is morally bankrupt. He is little more than the Church in the days of Galileo; acknowledging the truth hurts the narrative. Thus, the systemic silence was malevolently intentional.
The worst part isn’t even that Dawkins failed to modernize. It’s that he still cosplays as a scientific advocate while ignoring the truth (kinda like all those religious scholars he loves debating so much; go figure). If you won’t objectively evaluate evidence that has mounted for decades now. and identify that your stance is wrong, then you aren’t a scientist. Call yourself a preacher, a lobbyist, a salesman, a cheerleader, or any similar term, but you sure as fuck aren’t a scientist anymore.
How This Happened, And What to Do
A part of me almost cannot blame him in 2006 and 2016. Why? simple; Nobody was pushing back against him on this issue. It’s easy to see why; Dawkins’ name carries significant weight in the scientific community as a whole; doubly so within the study of memes. I‘m going to keep confidence, but there was a wise man whom I consulted during the release of the book who advised me to peel back my criticisms of Dawkins. By criticizing memes in that era, I was already steering into territory that many deemed sacred. But criticizing Dawkins himself was akin to pissing on the third rail. The cult of personality surrounding the scientist celebrity was strong, and I was the only one who dared to state the obvious fact that the emperor had no clothes.
Honestly, Dawkins isn’t the only one to blame. His readers deserve their share of admonishment as well. Let’s face it, the Logan Paul of Science only keeps hucking garbage at us because we keep fucking buying it. For full disclosure; I paid for the 2016 and 2026 versions in good faith, though I endorse only reading library copies; I gave him money so you won’t have to. Once we collectively stop buying his waste of paper-and-ink, maybe Dirty Dawkins will finally either update his views or go away. Companies and organizations that keep hiring him for speaking gigs ought to be publicly shamed and boycotted for doing business with him. Vote with your wallets, people!
Hang up the lab coat and retire, Dicky Dawkins; you’re a disgrace to the scientific community.
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