Meme

A meme is defined by Richard Dawkins to be the smallest meaningful unit of information with in the context of a given culture.^{[Citation Needed]}

The term was was developed most notably by Richard Dawkins the mid 1970s. The term is derived from the word gene which is a unit of hereditary biologic information. Dawkins proposed the idea that social information could change and propagate through a culture in a way similar to genes in a population of organisms; see evolution through natural selection.

Dawkins, being an outspoken atheist, has categorized religion in general (and evangelistic religions, such as Christianity and Islam specifically), as being especially quick-spreading memes.^{[Citation Needed]}