Your Popper quote is from a German broadcast program which is reprinted in "Alles Leben ist Problemlösen" (Piper 1994): "Die Amöbe flieht vor der Falsifikation: Ihre Erwartung ist ein Teil von ihr, und vorwissenschaftliche Träger werden oft durch die Widerlegung der Hypothese vernichtet. Einstein dagegen hat seine Hypothese objektiviert. Die Hypothese ist etwas außerhalb von ihm; und der Wissenschaftler kann seine Hypothese durch seine Kritik vernichten, ohne selbst mit ihr zugrunde zu gehen. In der Wissenschaft lassen wir unsere Hypothesen für uns sterben."

So it's more like "The scientist can annihilate his theory by his critique, without perishing along with it. In science, we let our hypotheses die in our stead." It's a bit distorted, but I still think it's the source of your aphorism (unless someone discovers a better one).

By the way, I'm currently reading "Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer. It tries to shed some light on the origin and propagation of some very popular memes.

"gets me no closer to understanding how decisions are made when there is insufficient information"

Making decisions without adequate information to rationalise or support the decision is called leadership.

Doesn't Gladwell talk about meme propagation in his tipping point book?