    9

    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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