The first use of the term memetic algorithms in the computing literature appeared in work by Moscato (1989).
He presented a heuristic that combined simulated annealing for a local search with a competitive and cooperative game between agents interspersed with the use of a crossover operator. The term memetic algorithm comes from ‘meme’ (Dawkins 1976). Meme (pronounced ‘meem’) is a contagious information pattern that replicates by parasitically infecting human and/or animal minds and altering their behavior, which causes them to propagate the pattern.
计算机文学中的记忆算法的第一次使用是在莫斯科(1989年)的作品中出现的。他提出了一个“启发式”，将模拟退火与一个具有竞争性和合作博弈的本地搜索结合起来，并使用交叉运算符。“memetic”这个词来源于“meme”(Dawkins 1976)。模因(发音为“meem”)是一种具有传染性的信息模式，它通过寄生感染人类和/或动物的思维来复制，并改变他们的行为，从而使他们传播这种模式。
All transmitted knowledge is memetic. Dawkins (1976), who coined the word in his book The Selfish Gene, defines the meme as simply a unit of intellectual or cultural information that survives long enough to be recognized as such and that can pass from mind to mind.
所有传递的知识都是记忆。道金斯(1976)在他的书《自私的基因》中创造了这个词，他把模因定义为仅仅是一个知识或文化信息的单位，它能保存足够长的时间，可以被认为是这样，并且可以从头脑中传递给大脑。
mems 和 genes的区别：
Memes will be positively selecte d mainly for increased communicability among the hosts (described as frogs in the SFLA). Genes will be selected mainly for sexual reproducibility (Heylighen 1992).
Memes将会是积极的选择，主要是为了增加宿主之间的交流(描述为在SFLA中的青蛙)。基因的选择主要是性重现性(Heylighen 1992)。
Gene replication is restricted by the rather small number of offspring from a single parent, whereas the number of individuals that can take over a meme from a single individual is almost unlimited.
基因复制受到单亲家庭数量较少的后代的限制，而能够从单个个体中获得基因模因的个体数量几乎是无限的。
Moreover, it seems much easier for memes to undergo variation since the information in the nervous system is more plastic than that in deoxyribonucleic acid and since individuals can come into contact with many different sources of novel memes.
此外，由于神经系统中的信息比脱氧核糖核酸(脱氧核糖核酸)中的信息更具有可塑性，因此模因的变化要容易得多，因为个体可以接触到许多不同的新模因.
Therefore, meme spreading is much faster than gene spreading. The other difference between‘memes’and‘genes’is that memes are processed and possibly improved by the person that holds them–something that cannot happen to genes.因此，模因传播比基因传播快得多。“模因”和“基因”之间的另一个区别是，模因是经过处理的，可能是由持有这些基因的人改进的——这是不可能发生在基因上的。