* Peter Hendra wrote, On 4/28/2007 10:16 PM:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 01:07:51 +0000, Larry wrote:

Peter Hendra wrote in
:

My wife's people (Maori's) in New Zealand
Wow...lucky guy! Maori women are a truly beautiful set of genes...(c;

Larry
Correction Larry,
Gene carriers - remember your Dawkins or do you wish chapter and
verse. I'd have to look it up.

If you like Dawkins (personally I think he is a pompous English prigg
- but he may act differently to Americans. In Australia he was rather
patronisingly superior to the colonials but it could also have been
nervousness), you should like Gerard Diamond. The first book of his I
read was "The Third Chimpanzee".

I've enjoyed his books also. (Its Jared Diamond)

Perhaps it is because my formal
education was in Zoology that I find him interesting but I admit to
being disappointed that he made no mention that North Americans have
only descended from the trees more recently than the population in the
Antipodes.

??? Are you claiming that Aborigines are an earlier branch of
primates and not the same species as Homo Sapiens? (I'm sure you're
joking here.)

IIRC, he does go to some lengths to explain how the Antipodes were
populated long before other parts of the world, and then isolated.

I was hoping to find a scientific rationale for the
American failure to appreciate really good coffee - straight black and
strong (Hello Vic Smith)

A century ago people throughout the US home roasted and thus drank
quality coffee. Then the large companies started "improving" it,
first with pre-ground, then percolators, and as the final insult,
instant coffee. Instant was developed for the soldiers in WWII, where
anything warm was appreciated. It unfortunately created a generation
of Americans for whom percolator coffee is a step up. Then we
suffered through a wave of flavored "gourmet" coffee, and now
over-roasted, over-priced, milk based concoctions are in vogue.

However, that said, there has been for the last 30 years a small but
growing cadre of true coffee lovers in the US. In every area of the
country there is a high quality roaster, producing coffee that is the
equal of any in the world. Every city has several cafes that serve
high quality coffee and European style espresso.

Here's a roaster local to me:

http://www.terroircoffee.com/

George Howell was the founder of Coffee Connection years ago, and more
recently created the Cup of Excellence program, where small farmers
are encouraged to produce the highest quality beans with country wide
competitions and small lot auctions based on the results.


Seriously though, he provides some thought provoking concepts that I
know you will enjoy. From memory, he talks about conditioning for mate
selection - pink painted mother rat's nipples causing the male
offspring to prefer mating with females with similar painted nipples
and a hoist of other thought provoking concepts. I know that you will
enjoy it. If you cannot find a copy let me know and I shall send you
one as a small payment for your valuable help.I have kept my copy and
have bought copies for other people as I don't want to lend mine.

Most of Jared Diamond's works are still in print and available at
Amazon, etc. I found "The Third Chimp..." interesting, but a warmup
from "Guns, Germs, and Steel" which goes into great detail in the
question of why Western civilization evolved on a different track from
Native American, and ultimately dominated.