Wouldn't the Japanese macaques (snow monkeys) be the most distant?

Adding this after nearly a year (didn't notice the "hippos can't swim" passage originally. Memory is tricky but I'm almost certain I've seen hippos swim. I seem to remember a mother hippo swimming circles in a pool, its baby following close behind. I was acquainted with the curator of that zoo (Johnny Werler at Houston) and he's now deceased. I know another guy with somewhat more extensive knowledge of hippos and, though i haven't spoken with him in some time, will try to reach him by phone to clear this point.

drHoward: Most of your observations are quite reasonable; but you've erred significantly with your "Prince and the Pauper scenario": you've botched any meaningful or even partially reliable conclusion being taken by comparing "apples to oranges." You'd exchange environments: an untrained westerner to the Amazon for an Amazonian tribesman to NYC. But, in the book (the reading of which, for me, was about 65 years ago), the "experiment" involved "changelings,"--infants separated at or shortly following birth--thus satisfying an elementary requirement of any "scientific" conclusion (that of control over significant "variables"--in such case the socialization eliminated by the age at which the exchange took place). to oranges"

Bayes: Even we atheists ought to appreciate the mindset of believers (with due allowance for hypocrisy) engaging in prayer (presumably for divine guidance) before deliberating as a jury.

Omar: If you think that's the "real difference between men and women," I think you've got to observe a bit more carefully. Why, I can (usually) tell the difference without askin' 'em any questions at all!

Biologist (in re: worm porn) I recall reading (title, author, lost to memory--or lack of), back in the mid-60s, a sci-fi short story in which one character, a wanted criminal pornographer on his own planet, comes to Earth and does well by contributing his photos for a Biology text (his life form resembled something here but I forget that, also).

"litigious cunts," Jason? Good'un!

JEB: 
 
I also "have no real problem with the idea that global warming is happening and that people are causing it" (though I tend toward being skeptical of the degree to which such concerned scientists are likely to make very accurate predictions on the basis of what are relatively limited--both in numbers and in period length--observations). 
 
What I (and very many others) do have a problem with is in shifting ever more of the efforts people all over the world make every day to improve various conditions of their lives--"those we term "economic"--to the control of those less concerned with those specific shortcomings than those most directly involved. 
 
I might be what you'd call a "free-market ideologue" and, as an Austrian-school economist, eschew all mathematical or "modelling" methods for better understanding of economic relationships and phenomena but hasten to point out that no empirical evidence whatever experienced over the past century can do other than attest the remarkable accuracy of Austrian methodology in the long term (though we do concur in the short-term efficacy of confiscation with supporting truncheons and prisons).  
 
It is not merely that the AGW proponents may be wrong on the science of the matter; it is that, even though they be right about those long-term environmental trends, there's no reason to expect that the changes sought--by and large, restrictions and the substitution of more expensive alternative materials and methods for the less expensive now in use (and coming along)--will have the desired effects (unless one of the desired effects--though unstated--is to cause the death by starvation of many millions of the world's least fortunate). Is it really (in your honest estimation) far-fetched for those who love liberty and are astonished witnesses to the enormous productivity it engenders to the benefit of nearly all to suspect chicanery, misdirection, and far worse in nearly every attempt to wield control, essentially by the non-productive of the productive (and especially of the super-productive)? 
 
Those in my belief camp laud the market (and the use of money) as the method developed by men over the course of the evolution of civilization that exploits the natural inequalities among men (as, similarly, between environmental factors) to achieve the nicest, most productive specialization of function and division of labor, making the welfare of each (to the very greatest extent) wholly dependent on the degree to which his activities meet with the approval of his fellows. There is no insistence that the market is "perfect," merely that it serves the enormous preponderance of human needs better than any thinkable alternative (each of which, without exception, is designed to substitute the opinion of its designer for the expression, on the market, of the opinions and wills of all those
More....

toto: 
 
You're not allowed to say that word--dredges up memories of "Little Black Sambo."

John Emerson: 
 
Never been to ND but I'll take your word on the "bling and poontang," though a lack of the former wouldn't bother me much. But, since you're a reliable store of information, I think I'll just move "visit North Dakota" quite a few steps further down on my "things I'd like to do" list. 
 
I think I must have seen something along the same line as Thorfinn (and it surprised me, too, for some of the same reasons as you cite with respect to places like Mississippi and Arkansas). To my memory, it said something like "if any European nation were to become a state of the U.S., none would be higher than 35th and most would fall in the 40th to 50th (in GDP, if I remember). I never even looked up any of the figures--just remembered the surprising comparison. 
 
But one other anecdotal incident--comparing Sweden and U.S.--has stuck with me for around 30 years. It was a call to a very popular local (Philly) talk show from a man who'd immigrated from Sweden, where he'd been a farmer, to southern New Jersey, where he was, again, a farmer. (This section of NJ is where the Swedes first settled and farmed--5 miles south of me is Swedesboro. In my own town, we have a log cabin continuously occupied at least from 1639--the date of the receipt for bricks for the fireplace in the addition to the house.) 
 
He could not quite express how wonderful he felt we had it here in comparison to Sweden. In Sweden, he worked from dawn to dusk at farming for 2-1/2 days and spent even longer hours for 3-1/2 just doing paperwork required by the government. Selling his farm enabled him to buy a much larger farm here, and with the aid of machinery and hired help (and more fertile land), to produce more than 10X the produce, which, even though it brought less than half the prices in Sweden, was making him deservedly wealthy, though living in a much larger, better-equipped house and having several vehicles. Sounded like a slam-dunk to me, though, of course, I've no real idea of how typical his situation might have been. 
 
Also, insofar as Europe in general is concerned, Sweden is atypical in that it was unravaged by WW II and, as a neutral, was actually able to increase its wealth during the period by trading with both sides; postwar, it was 'way ahead. My own supposition is that, even though socialism can work a little better in such a place, characterized by relative homogeneity and people known throughout the world for industriousness, frugality, and future-oriented thinking and innovation, eventually the fact of a stultifying, egalitarian disconnect between risk and reward cannot but dampen all but the brightest of lights (and these might very well tend to leave).  
 
Sweden is, indeed, a model--just not the one most seemed to have expected of it.

Razib: 
 
I couldn't help noticing a certain pronounced squishiness of expression used in your post (outstanding examples being basic intuition, supernatural intuition, and psychological intuition), to the extent that, by the time I finished the piece, I had't any idea what you were writing about, much less what you were saying about whatever that happened to be. Is it me? (I haven't smoked anything more hallucinogenic than old-fashioned Camels for years and had only two lite beers before falling asleep at half-time during yesterday's game.) Just tell me you've got the same feeling from reading the cited books, etc.--then I'll know I'm OK. Maybe I should bone up on this whole intuition thing?

liberalbiorealist: 
 
I've never before commented on the matter but I think you're pretty much right. Though I haven't read any of what Dawkins might have said or maintained and know only what I've read in other, similar discussions, my initial (and unchanged) reaction is that, with the exception of the relatively techno-catchy term (meme) itself, the whole matter is nothing more than a subject that occasionally formed the matter of a BS-session back ('50s) when I was in school. The formation, extension, and progress of an idea (or ideas) is fascinating but (whether unfortunately or not) one we're never liable to know very much 
about (my snap judgement on the matter being that it's something whose comprehension would require a superhuman intelligence).

gcochran: 
 
Good you cleared up that matter of percentages. I was beginning to wonder about my fondness for linguini aliol with broccoli rabe; now I understand.

Razib: 
 
Neither global trade nor common capital markets 
are in any way responsible for business cycles.

I've tried to explain before that is it unlikely that Behe (and others) are actually "arguing" anything at all.  
 
Behe is a sideshow operator and carnival midway pitchman, "turning" the "marks" (or suckers). 
 
The marks are the believers, whose contributions, donations, book purchases, etc., afford Behe a vwery fine maintenance. He's made a prominent "name" and honored place for himself in their universe 
 
His show is what is called a "geek" show, where the marks paid to see a degenerate (alcoholic, retard, other unlovely and unsympathetic unfortunate) debase themselves with grotesqueries like eating live snakes, biting off chicken heads, eating chicken entrails, etc. 
 
In Behe's show, you guys are the geeks whose debasement amuses the marks. It doesn't matter even a little bit that Behe's arguments are refuted repeatedly. The marks don't understand the arguments (as some of you've noticed), can't really be expected to, and it doesn't matter anyway. The ONLY way to deal with Behe is not to volunteer as geeks (and, I'd also note, the actual true geeks at least got food and drunk money from the show-and occasional coins tossed by a mark; you are the butts of ridicule). If you ignore Behe, he'll lose his "tip" (audience) and their financial support--their type only pays for action and spectacle.

Back around 1946 or 7, a book, THE REPAIRMAN MAY GYP YOU--IF YOU DON'T WATCH OUT!, by John Patrick, was published, with the support (and serialization) of The Reader's Digest. 
 
Patrick tested service stations over almost the entire US of the day. He had a brand-new 1937 
Lincoln Zephyr built especially by Ford for the purpose and cosmetically aged. By pulling one (of the two) coil wires (the model was a V-12), he could run it into a station on 6 cylinders for attention and, subsequently, observe how he was treated. 
 
The most honesty was displayed in very rural areas, where he was cheated only 50% of the time. 
The worst scenarios occurred in cities where he was cheated almost every time (100% in the special case of garages associated with big-city hotels), and about midway between the extremes in smaller towns and suburbs. No one was ' 
"called" on their dishonesty and every bill presented was paid in full. He routinely requested return of any parts that had been replaced and was told--every time--that they had gone out with trash that had just been collected. 
People that had treated him fairly (including charging for re-attaching the coil wire) got a certificate and a lifetime subscription to the Digest after the study was completed.  
 
John had also toured (walking, hith-hiking) Japan  
in the '30s (and Korea and China, too) on a total of $300, working his way on a Japanese merchant ship. He wrote "YANKEE HOBO IN THE ORIENT" from the experience (serialized in the Digest). 
 
I met John Patrick (while hitch-hiking) in the summer of 1951. Later that year (or early in the next--I forget) he brought me to meet DeWitt Wallace as a guest for lunch (Eisenhower and Co. were the guests at breakfast). 
 
I was 14 at the time and these two were the very first people I'd ever met who identified themselves as "conservative" or as Republicans; I was duly amazed: even in those days, such folks were routinely vilified every place I'd ever been, including the relatively affluent Philly suburb which was my home (and I never met any others for another 5 or 6 years).

j: 
 
AFAIK, Herbert Hoover was actually the originator of the modern relief agencies.

j: 
 
You're right. The presumably charitable activity simply perpetuates dependence and, likely, tends toward the increase of those dependent. 
 
But the ideal of personally and even religiously-driven charity, I think, can be managed in such way as to minimize the negative impact on self-sufficiency, etc. What simply cannot but be eventually disastrous is charity managed by the socialistic state and, even most particularly, by the democratic socialistic state, where recipients may form the deciding votes cast in elections (and this is true whether the "charity" is a domestic matter or "foreign" aid, where the largesse distribution keeps the corrupt in power. 
Not to stray from the topic--but illegal immigration is very similar. Without a vast array of socialized benefits and "safety nets," such immigration would attract far fewer; but, even more importantly, and though the still-remaining numbers might not please everyone, those that did come would clearly add value to the gross economy (though still tending to drive down wages in many sectors sensitive to their competition). 
 
Socialism is the enemy of nearly everyone--even of most socialists, themselves.

I've been suspicious for many years that there are underlying genetic "endowments' simply for excellence/achievement, whose carriers are possessed of outsized "will to win" and to be "champions." Examples are everywhere to notice and i believe there's even a strong likelihood that there are mutual attractions between males and females possessing such traits, whether driven primarily by nature or nurture I could not begin to guess. 
 
In 1984, I went to watch (at the Meadowlands) the NCAA wrestling finals, along with 6 or 7 others from the town where I live. A match came up between a returning champ--a guy liked greased lightning named Garcia or Rivera from somewhere in CA) and a guy named Orr from Princeton. My companions were discussing (and betting among themselves)as to how long it would take the Hispanic-surnamed guy to pin Orr (as he had everyone else).  
 
I offered to bet $20 each with as many who wanted it that Orr would not only not be pinned but would not be put on his back and (!) would, in fact, manage to get the other guy on his back at least once during the bout. I explained that my only knowledge of Orr was that I had known an Orr more than 30 years previously who had also gone to Princeton; all I asked was that they be related if I was a loser and offered to inquire about the relationship if necessary. 
 
It wasn't necessary. Orr lost but was never on his back and even managed, not once but twice, to put his much-better opponent on his back enough to get "back points." And I collected my $100 immediately when the announcer said, after the medals award, that John Orr, Princeton, '57, the wrestler's uncle, had come in from Houston to watch his nephew.

Sounds like that one needs a lot more study. For instance, might the operative genetic component not be more related to some other physical similarity (such as, for instance, age at onset of menses--which, in turn, I believe, is related to body weight)? The size of the study also seems extremely small. Remember, some significant proportion of "first intercourse(s)" will likely be between siblings, half-siblings, and cousins--simply, in many cases, as a result of proxmity and access. If these are included, it uneccesarily adds to difficulty in isolating actual causation, as well as increasing the likelihood that some other aspect of relatededness is the responsible (or more responsible) one.