Yes, Phil, I know. The least controversial part of Darwin's theory - the part that nobody has ever seriously doubted - was based on Malthus. It is the argument that natural selection exists at all ie. some organism fail to reproduce or reproduce less successfully than they could potentially reproduce. This argument needn't be based on Malthus - it's bleedin' obvious.
No that is not the part that's based on Malthus. That's why Darwin's reading of Malthus struck him as a revelation: it wasn't obvious at all. The part that is based on Malthus concerns the causality of evolution. Malthus led Darwin to believe--wrongly--that evolution is caused by the competitive adaptation of individual organisms to their environment, as opposed for example to an asteroid crashing into earth and killing loads of things.
I think we're all agreed not to bother with memetics. It's just odd that you and revol and yapping on about it as if it were relevant.
The second post on this thread called it the meaning of life or something. Lots of people take it seriously, you ever read New Scientist or similar pop-evo rags?