Memelab

 

Memelab was originally a group of memeticists based in Bristol who met together regularly to talk about memes, evolution, human nature, and other related topics.
We usually met in Sue Blackmore's garden, about once a month or so from early 1998. In the winter we squashed into the turret on top of the house. These meetings lasted until Nick and Paul moved away from Bristol in 2001-2.

Left to right: Larry Bull, Nick Rose, Susan Blackmore, Paul Marsden 
(with experimental animals).

Although we carried out only a few experiments as a group, the discussions we had contributed to many of our publications on memetics. 

Memelab has now started up again (as of spring 2006) with the addition of Alan Winfield and Owen Holland.

Over the years we've enjoyed visits from (among others) ...

Visitors to Memelab

Dr Derek Gatherer - Then Lecturer in Molecular Genetics in the School of Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University.

Rob Clewley - then at Bristol University, now at Center for Biodynamics
Boston University,

and a group from Cambridge who climbed trees and played table tennis as well as exchanging memes.

Cambridge memelab visit on August 4-5th 2000...

Left to right: Kevin Laland, Gillian Brown, Larry Bull, Sue Blackmore, Paul Marsden, Rob Clewley, Nick Rose, and Jeremy Kendal.

 

Pascal Jouxtel visited Bristol in October 2003.

Here he is making meme soup in Sue Blackmore's kitchen. Is there a memotype/phenotype distinction here?

2006

Spiral Dynamics uses the term 'meme' but not in its original meaning - causing much confusion. In May 2006 Chris Cowan and Natasha Todorovic, who were teaching a course on Spiral Dynamics, came to visit and explore the differences.

Eric de Rochefort and Pascal Jouxtel, who attended the course, also visited memelab. Note the new animal !

July 2006

John Wilkins visited from Australia to discuss speciation, natural selection and how well the meme-gene analogy can be made to work. We also had a fine barbecue.