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r oom perfume.  Chances are that if two rats are sporting the same
aroma, they're carrying the same genes, since the pair were raised in
the same spot--probably by the same mother and father.  Unless some
experimenter decides to muck things up.
That is exactly what one scientist did.  He removed a rat from his
nest, washed the complaining creature off, then rubbed it thoroughly
in the shavings of another nest...giving it the smell of a stranger.  Then
the experimenter put the innocent beast back in its own home, where it
should have been safe among its brothers and sisters.  Unfortunately
for the furry victim,  he'd returned home wearing the wrong cologne.
His loving family, blind to his familiar physical appearance, bared their
teeth and lunged.  When the experiment was over, the unwitting
animal was dead, killed by those who had always hugged and nuzzled
him.  Smell had told the brood that their brother was carrying the
wrong set of genes.13  In this case, the noses of the rats misled them.14
Early human groups were stuck with the same problem.  How
do you tell who's family and who's not?  How do you know who
shares your genes?  Like rats, primitive humans turned to external
signs.  But fortunately, they didn't rely on their noses.  Instead, the
inventive Homo sapiens used ideas, manners, morals and peculiarities
of clothing.
The Children of Israel were typical of the tribal nations of the
time.  To belong, you had to have the right genetic stuff.  How could an
early Hebrew tell if you were entitled to insider treatment?  Your god,
your mannerisms, and your ideas, were the outward labels of your
genetic contents.  Memes were the equivalents to the rat's perfume.
But a strange thing happened as human groups grew larger.
Memes became detached from genes.  In the days of the Old
Testament, memes seldom made the effort to leap from one gene pool
to another.  The ancient Hebrews, for example, made no effort to
convert the heathens.  It wouldn't have made sense.  Unbelievers
weren't family.  If the meme was to retain its role as a genetic marker,
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