Oxytocin and Vasopressin

A few years ago I read Matt Ridley's book Genome and was instantly hooked on genetics and variability in our species.  Genome does a great job of covering the basics of genetics and explaining the some of the discoveries uncovered by the mapping of our 23 chromosomes in the Human Genome Project.  Genome considers the relationship of our genes to disease, intelligence, personality, and even language.  For an amateur genetic science buff like myself, this book was a real eye opener, and helped me form the structure of the evolutionary container.

During my recent vacation I took along another Matt Ridley book, The Agile Gene.  The Agile Gene departs a bit from the hard edge scientific data of Genome, and gets into the discussion of nature vs. nurture.  Ridley goes back to Darwin and William James to explain the earliest discussions of nature vs. nurture, and reminds us it wasn't that long ago that we debated whether a donkey embryo inserted into a horse for gestation would produce a horse, or a donkey.  It produces a donkey of course.