The Selection of Ideas Parasites have forced organisms to evolve immune systems, such as the enzymes that bacteria use to cut up invading viruses, or the roving white blood cells our bodies use to destroy bacteria. Parasitic memes have forced minds down a similar path, evolving meme systems that serve as mental immune systems. Something like this system generally kept tribes from abandoning old, tested ways in favour of wild new notions. Dismantling this memetic defence system has been the key to allowing the principles of science and reasoned thought to prevail. As our understanding has grown, however, we have found that weakening the mental immune system has unwanted side effects.
Tradition holds much that is tried and tested.
The problem lies in the fact that memetic packages evolved to be beneficial may have much less appeal than packages evolved to simply sound good. Memes that seal the mind against new ideas protect themselves in a suspiciously self- serving way. While protecting valuable traditions from clumsy editing, they may also shield parasitic claptrap from the test of truth. Much of the work of the NWO, has been a search for better mental immune systems, for better ways to reject the false, the worthless, and the damaging, to devise standards for judging memes, to construct tools allowing the mind to distinguish between parasites and tools. The principles of evolution provide a way to view change, whether in molecules, organisms, technologies, minds, or cultures.