The Medellin area was characterized by heavy settlement during the 19th century from northern Spain, usually by families.

adam smith certainly never included cooperation and trust in his list of necessary conditions for the flourishing of a market economy. he focused instead on the importance of creating a legal framework and property rights, which allowed people's selfish motives to be turned into a common good.  
 
most of the literature on europe's economic (and indeed creative) success has therefore rightly focused on the relative strength of the merchant classes relative to more despotic powers throughout its golden period. europe's contigent ability to resist outside invasion/occupation post 1,000 AD is probably the biggest factor. but if you were to look for genetic explanations individualism/lack of respect for authority would seem to be much more important, and this are themselves second order consequences of the geographical conditions that traditional literature has always focused on. 
 
using philathropy and patronizing the arts as examples of trust/cooperation unique to europe is also bogus. 1) they are not unique 2) the primary motive has nearly always been self-aggrandizement.

first cousin marriage was very common in China until the middle of the 20th century, especially among the upper levels of society.

growing up in "spiritual" family i realized pretty early on at a conscious level that i thought it was a load of hogwash (i was seven to be precise). however, i still occasionally found myself looking for alternative explanations, until i satisfied myself with being "interested in religion". perhaps that is how you too satisfy your religious urges razib -- make it into a subject of research.  
 
i have fought a similar battle with religious inspired guilt. it certainly helps to be in a society (china) where people write these things off as human nature. finally casting off those hang ups....

I think many asians are see-no-evil-hear-no-evil on eugenic issues. Chinese have said to me that the Japanese are barbaric for killing new born handicaped children, yet there is no doubt that this also goes on in Chinese hospitals. Indeed if you were only going to have one child then most parents would probably be in favor.

pconroy 
 
a good point worth making about China is that its domestic IT needs are so large that it does not make (economic) sense to compete for outsourcing. 
 
the recent boom in chinese tech stocks is entirely focused on companies serving the domestic market. my assistant orders everything on-line.  
 
entry level IT jobs are the well-known to be the best paid in China, and you dont hear stories of IT grads unable to find jobs (as you do with social sciences or for the matter business studies).

"Yet Fujianese appear to make up the largest proportion of poor, non-English-speaking Chinatown-dwelling immigrants in the United States." 
 
Just because they are non-English-speaking it doesn't mean they are poor. For the first generation making money always takes precedence over scholarship, but for the second generation academic achievement takes center stage.

kennteoh 
 
I've been in China for a year now. I can order in a restaurant in Chinese, but I certainly can't read the menu (my business partner speaks perfect mandarin, but also cannot read).  
 
I have argued with pconroy on the supposed north-south IQ divide. No doubt he is probably being deliberately provocative, but has also made us think. 
 
The fact is most Chinese think that southerners are smarter.  
 
If there is an IQ difference how could it be? I took a look at province-by-province university exam results and there is no glaring difference between south and the central zone (although dongbei and west are behind).  
 
Europe certainly has more variation in phenotype, yet IQ is remarkable constant over the continent. Why should the idea of conquering barbarians lowering IQs and pushing smarter populations to the peripheries apply to China and not Europe? 
 
If anything the central regions have always placed more emphasis on narrow educational achievement in the mandarin tradition than the coast. Many of the top universities are in underperforming towns like Wuhan and Nanjing.  
 
In fact for most Chinese smart has nothing to do with IQ at all and everything to do with money and it is on this measure that the sourtherners do best. Chinese always joke that the nong ming (farmer) is the boss and the PHD the employee. Or that educated people have no dan zi (balls).

No one seems to have mentioned internment as a solution for trouble-making UK citizens. There is a precedent for this in Northern Ireland and in the current environment it would be pretty easy to push through such a measure. 
 
How to identify the internment candidates would be the main problem. How about lie-detector tests on attitudes towards violent protest?