Studying genetics with Native American populations is extremely sensitive and so is the whole alcohol issue. Taken together, those working on such projects are well-advised to keep a low profile. It might take a Native American researcher to safely investigate. Prairie Mary

Too bad you left off the Unitarian Universalists. They generally give the Episcopalians a run for their money, so to speak. Prairie Mary

The media has mostly picked up on the exciting and confrontational parts of the Sixties and Seventies, but they don't spend much time pointing out that much of the disorder was demonstrations protesting social inequities. For instance, there certainly was an hedonic revolution but it wasn't just a desire for open sex -- a strong part of it was the demand to be the unique individual you were, whether straight, gay, trans-something or whatever. This was also the period of Headstart, the Diggers, early housing reform, and the founding of many communes, which persist. Minority groups resorted to violence that had previously been used against them by "law and order."  
 
I would suggest that the loosening of Fifties rigor did allow violence out into the open but that what people -- as in "the people's this and the people's that -- also learned was how to form organizations from scratch, skills that gradually contributed to more recognized civic dynamics. It was like one of those earthquakes that releases pent-up energy.  
 
I think we're getting about due for another one. 30% of the population in prison? Mostly drug offenses? 
 
Prairie Mary

There's a lovely classic sci-fi story about future archeologists investigating the ruins of a 20th century town and discovering that every building contains an altar. What a devout people they were! One is quite a ways into the story before realizing that the "altar" is a toilet, except upside down. 
 
Well . . .lots of joke possibilities. 
 
Prairie Mary

The Portland, Oregon, First Unitarian Universalist Church once had a singles group -- probably meant to be intellectual -- which hit the Age of Aquarius and flowered into a bit of a meat market for sexual cruisers. The name of the group was "Michael Servetus," an historical unitarian (or maybe anti-trinitarian) who was a cranky bachelor and finally burned at the stake for his strong independent moral stance. 
 
These things happen. (Both witch hunts and meat markets.) 
 
Prairie Mary

I am not the only person who would be overjoyed to see dog breeding based on genetic evidence and criteria rather than simple AKC provenance. "Having papers" means virtually nothing when it comes to dog quality, esp. when breeders are marginal operations who will not cull pups. I hate to see everything regulated by laws, but I would love to see a campaign to value and sell as "better" only dogs with proven genetics. 
 
Of course the AKC people would be over to throw rocks through your window. 
 
Prairie Mary

In the Seventies, when I was an animal control officer in Multnomah County (Portland, OR), we had to deal with a golden retriever that went into one of these rage states. The officer who answered the call put a snare on the dog, but it tore the wire loop off and forced the officer to jump for the top of his truck. People had been trying to contain the dog but by this time were peering around corners and through barely open doors. Finally a deputy sheriff just shot it. Our shelter vet spent a lot of time on an autopsy looking for some cause, but found nothing. It didn't have rabies. MUST have been this strange brain storm. It was especially mystifying since golden retrievers are usually sweet cookies, eager to please. 
 
Prairie Mary

An example to study in this regard might be the Indian Health Service, which exists to respond to the Treaty obligation to provide universal health care for all Indians. Because it is persistently and continuously underfunded, it constantly does unacknowledged triage. More sympathetic people get better care. Local public drives to help finance private medical care for local children work pretty well, but not for adults. Major joint replacements are postponed for years which means that the patients endure much pain, limited movement, and resultant diabetes or alcoholism. Patients who come in with results of bad behavior such as trauma from fights, alcoholism or drug addiction are sometimes treated badly because of being "expendable" and they come to represent the whole Indian population thus justifying constant shortages of medical infrastructure: medicines, bandages, cleaning supplies, sufficient staff, weak or confused protocols, and so on. (Most people think of medicine in terms of doctors. Volunteer doctors who come in from "outside" often complain about 3rd World budgets and disorganization.) 
 
Prairie Mary

Actually, there have been Unitarians all the way back to the invention of the Trinitarians. As soon as there are "three", some objected and insisted on "one." Some say that for a while there were "two" -- father and son -- which gives too (!) clear a contrast with one, so the third (Holy Ghost) was tossed in there just to fuzz up the argument. Eventually, it became a nice category to allow the ladies to haunt (!) the argument. 
 
I object to the whole "theos" deal, which I think was only a reflection of a world of tribes and nation-cities with kings. This causes some to say that a person like me is an A-theist, but I'm not, because that would imply an entity to reject. I just don't address the issue, so I'm told I'm not doing "theo-logy" because a "theos" is necessary. I'm just doing philosophy, they say. Those who control the fiber tip, the white board, and the categories think they have won. 
 
Anyway, most "Christians," like most other people, don't believe what they are "supposed" to believe.  
 
Prairie Mary

Here on the Blackfeet reservation a split developed early (late 1800's) between those who stuck to the old ways (and religion), living in the more remote settlements, and those who were produced by white fathers with NA wives. These children, esp. the boys, were sponsored along by the fathers and sent to schools often run by Jesuits but also by the government. The full-blood children tried harder to evade school and when they got there ran into the problem of language.  
 
This split has persisted and been aggravated by differences in prosperity, location and religious affiliation, particularly because the government had the idea that "faith-based" agents would not be so corrupt. Therefore, they assigned the Blackfeet to the Methodists, so that being Protestant meant being aligned with the agent and the government. Protesting Blackfeet either stuck to the old ways or became Catholic. 
 
When white people came, mostly as agents of the government or as teachers, they tended to be Presbyterian or Methodist until to be white on this reservation was to be automatically Protestant. Then the old full bloods (except for the oldest ones who continued on with their ceremonies secretly) went Pentecostal. 
 
Gradually, with hard work, the Catholics began to build up a constituency among the mixed bloods who supplied country guitar bands and respectable school board members to admnister Communion. But along in the background have remained a few full-bloods, no longer old, who have introduced Pentacostal styles into both the Methodist and the Catholic churches. 
 
But now the new generation of educated adults, conversant to some degree with post-colonial theory, have decided to return to full-blood ways (whether or not they actually ARE) and have renewed the old ceremonies with what they claim is complete accuracy. (I was there with the old people in the Sixties and they are NOT replicating it, but coming close and doing their own version for their own reasons.) The most enthusiastic are NA's with white wives, often lawyers. They tend to be childless. 
 
As a Unitarian educated in the history of religions and a long-time observer of the rez scene, I find Razib's interpretation not only valid but enlightening. It seems to me that societies go back and forth between dualities and unities, with the transitions being quiet, multiple, and economic -- sometimes not attracting any attention until the movement is entrenched and has a base from which to operate. 
 
Prairie Mary

This truly was an enlightening and somehow encouraging quote. We think so much in terms of border-tight populations and fuss about border-rupture. But certainly the earliest Americans were full of traveling people, especially on waterways and along the coast. Very recently, compared to the thousands of years old traces of the earliest travelers on this continent, my great-great-grandmother walked across the continent from Tennessee to Oregon along the Oregon Trail. 
 
Prairie Mary

Vic -- I like the suggestion of "kindered" souls -- half way between being kinfolks and kindled -- as in, bursting into a display of energy? 
 
Albatross -- "evolution, genetics, intelligence, and statistics apply to all kinds of real-world situations"  
 
I couldn't agree more. I don't think we can properly interpret the daily news without this knowledge and intelligent discussion of the issues is scarce. 
 
Prairie Mary

What I would be interested in knowing is why the readers are interested in this material. 
 
1. Studying it in school. 
2. Working in the field. 
3. Science writers. 
4. Persons who might be in the arts field and interested in theories of creativity. 
5. Persons who have family members or friends who are challenged by some genetic situation. 
6. Teachers trying to understand what methods might work for students, esp. those of some special circumstance. 
7. Theologians who are NOT interested in whether God exists but ARE interested in the structure of the patterned and flowing world. 
8. Persons studying populations of living things. 
 
Prairie Mary

As so many commenters note, these are very rough, broad, and stereotypical categories, but that's probably necessary in order to get anything intelligible. Still, I always feel it necessary to object to being crammed into "atheist" as though it meant "a-religious" since I'm educated clergy whose heart is outside what Otto calls "Abramo-centric," i.e. based on monotheism. 
 
Again, the question about class is misleading, since in terms of education and past vocations I'm probably middle-class, but in terms of income I'm on the poverty line. And I'm not sure how helpful it is to know that I'm female, since I've been single most of my life and have no children. Again, my vocations have not been typical for females -- or at least weren't in the Fifties. Why no question about age? And being identified as "white" is again misleading since there are many kinds of "white." Anyway, my emotional identity is mostly with Native Americans and I've spent much of my life on a reservation. 
 
So what has really been learned? 
 
Prairie Mary

But it was a funny typo -- I mean, which IS the right testicle as opposed to the wrong one? 
 
Prairie Mary

I'm taking metformin, which I'm told affects not just insulin efficiency, but also high androgen syndromes and fluid management in the body. To me, that suggests a whole cascade of molecule loops -- but I'm not a scientist and I can understand that isolating ONE effect is the general idea. 
 
No one in my family tree has diabetes, but several female ancestors have bald heads/hairy chins and strong startle reactions even in safe situations. 
 
Prairie Mary

As a recent Diabetes2 "operator", I often think about two aspects that are not mentioned here: 
1. Some think that "diabetes2" is often better thought of as "metabolic syndrome" (in the same way that global warming is probably more accurately called "climate change") because it is so often connected to disturbance in other feedback loops like management of fats in the body or blood pressure. It might be a form of early aging, system breakdown. 
 
(I like the stress theory, having always chosen occupations with high adrenaline components and usually showing high cortisol in blood tests.) 
 
2. The element of environmental contamination (maybe Teflon in pans or rising ag chemical levels or dioxin -- so many are very small amounts but globally pervasive.) 
 
I also think that the marketing opportunities offered by the diabetes "pandemic" are seriously interfering with both individual health and good science, mostly in the US. 
 
Prairie Mary

Thanks, John. This is very helpful. I never thought about the use of skin color for identity verification. But I have thought a bit about the differences of skin color in terms of either indicators or causes of physiology. We know that one can't tan without melanin, but I know people who say they can prevent sunburn by taking melanin orally. Also, there are studies that indicate that redheads metabolize pain-killers differently and even handle fluids either intra- or inter-cellularly in different ways. My dentist, a red-head, says that fair people are more prone to inflammation and swelling. 
 
I wonder whether people with what I think of as a "blue" cast to their skin (aside from sufferers from anoxia) have even been studied. Native Americans are very wary about genetics and skin color, with good reason. 
 
I've been thinking about this since a cosmetician custom-mixed a powder compact for me about sixty years ago. I noticed that one of her powder pigments was quite purple.  
 
Prairie Mary

I had the idea that there were TWO skin-coloring molecules: melanin which is brown and a second the color of a carrot. I'm Scots/Irish, a fair "strawberry-redhead" which means pale red, with pale freckles. But the carrot color means that I'm not the milky white of fairytale princesses -- rather a kind of ivory. 
 
In plants, I'm aware that there is a purple pigment in leaves as well as flowers -- but is it ever in people? I've seen very dark black people with a blue-purple sheen -- very striking. To my eye, Native Americans don't look red but rather more like the lavendar of a Weimeraner dog, at least if they don't work outside much.  
 
It occurs to me that our skin-color categories are maybe too ideological to be strictly accurate. When one buys cosmetics, the categories tend to be poetic. What the heck color is "rachel," anyway? (And who is she???!!) 
 
Prairie Mary

Byrne's statement is very much along the lines I've been pursuing for forty years or so. I've gotten so I can design an experience (geez-- that sounds so grandiose!) that will truly affect people, using some very specific guidelines, such as Victor Turner's notion of the three steps: crossing a threshold, occupying a sacred space, and stepping back out over the threshold again. It does mean carefully studying the context: the symbols, styles, associations, and so on. Theories of play, flow, mimesis, and other such material all come to bear. 
 
For instance, I had a congregation that dearly loved to light candles "in honor of" something during the Sunday morning service. They never got enough of it. So one year for the candlelight service on Christmas Eve, I set up tables down the middle of the sanctuary and lined along them candles stabilized in salt in fireproof tumblers. The service was in seven parts and was all about babies: first babies, lost babies, the Christ child, unwanted babies, babies not quite here yet, etc. I started each part with a general statement meant to be sort of poetic. Then the congregants were invited to light candles and "testify." It was amazing. People who had said nothing ever before said immensely powerful things. We all had tears running down our faces. I sent them out of the building singing Christmas carols while they put on their coats. 
 
Theologically, there was little or no content. And we damn near burned the building down. More than fifty candles generate an incredible amount of heat. But as human experience, it was good as a rave. Michael B and I are on the same page here. 
 
Prairie Mary