"No comment on X thousand years of genetic modification giving dogs this ability?" 
 
There is also indication that certain birds (corvids) are superior to chimps on "theory of mind" related tests. I don't see how that can be due to evolutionary/genetic proximity or selective breeding.

"That violence should be correlated with lack of trust in the government and a sense of solidarity with fellow citizens is a no brainer. How much solidarity will you feel with your neighbors when your community is wracked by gang violence? How much trust will you have in government when it cannot protect you? ( And of course, a high crime rate means the police must arrest more people, which will result in more cases of police brutality). 
 
Does the book American Homicide actually present evidence that the causation runs from lack of trust to violence? Or is this the typical social science BS (plot some broad correlations and then read into it your favorite theory)?" 
 
I was thinking the exact same thing. I trust people a lot less in my home in California than my college town in New England, precisely because my California home has so much more crime.  
 
I suppose you could say a similar thing about television. If you don't trust the people in your community, then you're going to spend more time at home alone. Consequently, you'll likely resort more to TV to keep yourself entertained.  
 
At the same time, however, I never understood why people who blame TV for causing so many social problems don't criticize books, as well. There's lots of violence/sex in books, which, if anything, is less censored than TV. Furthermore, reading is an extremely socially isolating activity. When I see someone watch TV, at least I can hop on the couch next to them and watch along. If I see someone read a book, however, there's not much I can do to participate. The "Gina Ford Books" article mentioned many countries where TV viewing has become more common, but it doesn't mention that the literacy rate has also climbed in these countries.

I've never quite understood the concept of "food deserts" or "food insecurity." The San Joaquin Valley of California has a very high obesity rate, and yet there's plenty of fresh produce available there. When I visited there for a project, I saw a lot of overweight Latinos picking fruits and vegetables and selling them by the roadside. Clearly they wouldn't be selling them by the roadside if there weren't people buying them. At the same time, I'm old that these overweight Latino migrants are "food insecure." WTF?! 
 
It also puzzles me when I hear about poor "food insecure" people drinking lots of soda. There's a perfectly healthy, inexpensive alternative to soda that can fully satisfy your fluid needs known as "water." Am I supposed to believe that poor Americans don't have access to cheap water, and that they're forced to resort to soda? Please!

"in 1992 a Census demographer, Gibson Campbell, calculated that 49% of the population of the United States in 1990 was descended from those whose ancestors were resident withi nthe United States in in 1790 in "The Contribution of Immigration to the Growth and Ethnic Diversity of the American Population" (inclusive of blacks and whites). 51% were descended from those who arrived after 1790." 
 
I'm confused about how these groups are sorted. What about people who are descended from BOTH ppl who were here before 1790 and those after 1790, such as yours truly? I would think that we're a pretty big percentage of the population.

"(And the 53%, if the data were good, would include a significant proportion of black Americans.)" 
 
The 53 percent only includes white Americans. I do not know if that includes all self-identified whites or just non-Latino whites.  
 
I'm just curious how much British/colonial you must have to be included in the figure. Only a minority of my ancestors were British colonists, but they still comprise a significant chunk of my ancestry (likely over a quarter).  
 
This reminds me of a dilemma I had when I registered for the NHS as a visiting student in the UK. There were basically four choices for whites on the race/ethnicity section: British (or mixed British), Irish, and other European. Technically I could be considered "mixed British," or Irish if you really wanted to stretch things (I'm only like 1/16 Irish), but I ended up putting down "other European" because that probably includes most of my ancestry.

I do not agree that Republicans are risking their future by being pro-life. I think that Republicans are risking their future much more by opposing gay rights. There will be a substantial pro-life voting demographic for many years to come, but the anti-gay demographic is rapidly shrinking. I'm saying this as someone who is both pro-choice and pro-gay rights.  
 
I think it would be interesting to check to see if there is a correlation between the number of children a woman has and her opinion on abortion. On that note, could it be that women in congress have fewer children than men in congress? If so, could that play a role on their abortion position?

I would agree that the typewriter analogy is bad, but that's not really my point.  
 
I'm kinda getting the impression that pro and anti ID just don't get each other. Whenever I read pro and and anti ID exchanges it just sounds like ppl operating under fundamentally different philosophical outlooks on life using scientific assumptions that they're more confident about than they should be. It reminds me a biology professor of mine saying how the stubbornness of ppl defending their pet hypothesis is inversely proportional to the evidence to support the hypothesis.  
 
On another note, I think it's interesting how intelligent design is presented as if it's in opposition to evolution. I would argue that it isn't. It challenges the mechanism behind evolution, but not evolution itself. ID is NOT the same as young earth creationism, which does indeed contradict evolution.

I guess what bothers me about some of the responses to ID are that they are based on what COULD happen in theory and not on what is likely to happen. This is related to what Gorge was saying. It is certainly possible that monkeys could write Shakespeare given billions of years, but it still isn't likely. Likewise, while scientists have provided possible explanations for the mechanisms behind the evolution of complicated features, I'm not aware of of any good model for evaluating the likelihood that such an occurrence (or series of occurrences) did happen. Since we can't observe macroevolution in practice, we're stuck. This doesn't mean that ID is right, but it does explain why so many people aren't exactly compelled by the anti-id responses.

This doesn't look at seafood, right? Otherwise I can't image how the Scandinavian countries other than Denmark could be so low.

I think there may be an "American Christianity" that all religions in the USA may gravitate towards, but I'm not sure it's meaningful to call it "Protestant." The term "Protestant" is basically used to refer to all Christian movements that aren't Catholic (or Orthodox, for that matter), even if they have little to do with each other. Sometimes Catholics and mainline Protestants agree with each other against more "Evangelical" Christians/Protestants in the USA. Apocalypse-related beliefs, e.g. pre-millennialism, are very popular among American Christians, but don't have much of a place in either the Catholic Church or mainline Protestant Churches. Martin Luther was skeptical that Revelation even belonged in the Bible, hardly something one would guess by examining American evangelicals today. Furthermore, predestination was a cornerstone of early Protestant movements but is hardly emphasized among American Christians today. In fact, it seems like predestination is more ridiculed than otherwise. There are other examples I could give, but my overall point is that saying "we're all Protestants" is extremely misleading because it doesn't do justice to the differences between American Christianity and original Protestantism.

Let me just apologize and say that I didn't mean to post both of my last two messages ---- I posted the first message, and that didn't show up, so I then wrote a second, abbreviated one --- when I tried to post that, the first post showed up instead. Then my second post showed up.  
 
Anyway, 
 
"i suspect that a 'silver bullet' model where *one* parameter is going to explain all of life expec. variation is confusing in a lot of ways. but the way public policy works, you need some simple models which can be solved via simple policies." 
 
I would agree with this. However, I would argue that we are not even at the stage where we even have a much in the way of a simple model to work with. I think "longevity science" is still a very young field. 
 
"Indians do have lower life expectancy, and that does seem to explain the counties that don't fit into the other three geographical regions, but there are other relatively Indian-dense counties (e.g., those in the Dakotas) that still have high life expectancies." 
 
My understanding is that Native American life expectancy is extreme low in the Dakotas, even as low as the 50s for males. See: 
 
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-09-11-life-expectancy_x.htm

"There is a huge gap in life expectancy between group 1 (Asians) and group 3 (most affluent white subgroup, "middle America"). See figures 1 and 3 in the paper. This despite the fact that per capita income is *lower* in the group 1 than in group 3." 
 
Yes, and Latinos in the USA have a higher life expectancy than non-Hispanic whites. Razib, I believe you touched on this in your latest post about regionalism and life expectancy. This seems to contradict the notion that income, overweight/obesity prevalence, or availability of health insurance are the driving forces behind life expectancy. See: 
 
http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/pr040609.htm

One fact that I think needs to be highlighted --- and Razib, you briefly touched on this in your latest post about regionalism and life expectancy --- is that Hispanics have a higher life expectancy than non-Hispanic whites. See: http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/pr040609.htm 
 
This is completely unexpected, as Hispanics are also more likely to be obese, poor, and uninsured than non-Hispanic whites. I think understanding the so-called "Hispanic Paradox" (or "Latino Paradox") is crucial to making sense of the factors behind life expectancy in the USA.  
 
There was also an attempt made by researchers to only gauge natural life expectancy, namely life expectancy without taking into account accidental/violent deaths (homicide, car accidents, etc.). The analysis found that the USA life expectancy was dragged down drastically by such accidental/violent deaths, much more so than most other 1st-word countries. See: http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/09/natural-life-expectancy-in-united.html 
 
I don't know much about the methodology of this particular study, but investigating the "natural" life expectancy as opposed to the unadjusted life expectancy seems like an intriguing idea, at the very least. I would like to see more data on the "natural" life expectancy of individual states.