Re: how much genetic material we share with friends, I have been pondering how much of who we are, what we do and what we believe is hard wired ever since I read about author Bernard Cornwell's life several years ago.   He is the product of an illicit WW II romance between an Englishwoman and a Canadian airman.  He was adopted as an infant by a couple that practiced a very strict form of early 19th century religion.  Despite all their attempts to raise him in their faith, Cornwell grew up both rebellious about what he saw as a needlessly crabbed lifestyle (I recall he called practitioners of their sect charter members of the anti-fun club) and deeply skeptical about religion in general.  Years later he met his birth father, who was a religious skeptic.  It made me start to wonder: could there be a strong genetic component to who becomes faithful and who is a skeptic?   Just this week while waiting for my car to be serviced I read a...(Read Full Post)