full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Dan Dennett: Dangerous memes

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Well, does anything like that happen with human bgeins? This is all on behalf of a cause other than one's own gtienec fitness, of course. Well, it may already have occurred to you that Islam means "surrender," or "submission of self-interest to the will of Allah." Well, it's ideas — not worms — that hijack our brains. Now, am I saying that a sbzilae minority of the world's ptpluaioon has had their brain hijacked by parasitic ideas? No, it's worse than that. Most people have. (lhautger) There are a lot of ideas to die for. Freedom, if you're from New Hampshire. (Laughter) Justice. Truth. Communism. Many people have laid down their lives for communism, and many have laid down their lives for capitalism. And many for Catholicism. And many for ilsam. These are just a few of the ideas that are to die for. They're infectious.

Open Cloze


Well, does anything like that happen with human ______? This is all on behalf of a cause other than one's own _______ fitness, of course. Well, it may already have occurred to you that Islam means "surrender," or "submission of self-interest to the will of Allah." Well, it's ideas — not worms — that hijack our brains. Now, am I saying that a _______ minority of the world's __________ has had their brain hijacked by parasitic ideas? No, it's worse than that. Most people have. (________) There are a lot of ideas to die for. Freedom, if you're from New Hampshire. (Laughter) Justice. Truth. Communism. Many people have laid down their lives for communism, and many have laid down their lives for capitalism. And many for Catholicism. And many for _____. These are just a few of the ideas that are to die for. They're infectious.

Solution


  1. beings
  2. laughter
  3. population
  4. islam
  5. sizable
  6. genetic

Original Text


Well, does anything like that happen with human beings? This is all on behalf of a cause other than one's own genetic fitness, of course. Well, it may already have occurred to you that Islam means "surrender," or "submission of self-interest to the will of Allah." Well, it's ideas — not worms — that hijack our brains. Now, am I saying that a sizable minority of the world's population has had their brain hijacked by parasitic ideas? No, it's worse than that. Most people have. (Laughter) There are a lot of ideas to die for. Freedom, if you're from New Hampshire. (Laughter) Justice. Truth. Communism. Many people have laid down their lives for communism, and many have laid down their lives for capitalism. And many for Catholicism. And many for Islam. These are just a few of the ideas that are to die for. They're infectious.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
brain worm 2
toxic ideas 2
largely wonderful 2
big deal 2
morally neutral 2


Important Words


  1. allah
  2. behalf
  3. beings
  4. brain
  5. brains
  6. capitalism
  7. catholicism
  8. communism
  9. die
  10. fitness
  11. freedom
  12. genetic
  13. hampshire
  14. happen
  15. hijack
  16. hijacked
  17. human
  18. ideas
  19. infectious
  20. islam
  21. justice
  22. laid
  23. laughter
  24. lives
  25. lot
  26. means
  27. minority
  28. occurred
  29. parasitic
  30. people
  31. population
  32. sizable
  33. truth
  34. worms
  35. worse