For instance, as Blackmore affirms, significant numbers of people in the modern world beleive in such things as alien abduction, astrology, magic crystals, tarot cards, clairvoyance, palmistry, Feng Shui, divination, and dowsing. I think these disturbing facts are better explained in terms of the power of the memes to replicate themselves than by writing off so many people as simply stupid, ignorant or gullible. All too often memes become little more than mantras. This is why memes are both so powerful, and often so pernicious. Philosopher I.C. Jarvie was a student of Sir Karl Popper, whose philosophy of science is one of the most important accomplishments of the 20th century.
Scientific theories are memes, but so are popular songs and spectator sports.
The Sociology of Knowledge was invented to study, describe, and explain these symbolic phenomena. Karl Mannheim, Alfred Schutz, Peter Burger, and Thomas Luckman have been some of the more notable sociologists of knowledge. Popper's work synthesized their conclusions, and Jarvie extends Popper's insights. But as Blackmore explains the power of imitation, that is exactly what would happen. According to Jarvie, the point of Popper's philosophy of science is that criticism is always an essential part of the process of science.