In other words, LTP arises from a combination of the presynaptic

axon terminal yelling “glutamate” more loudly and the postsynaptic

dendritic spine listening more attentively.

As I said, additional mechanisms underlie LTP, and neuroscientists

debate which is most important (the one they study, naturally) in neurons

in organisms when they are actually learning. In general, the debate has

been whether pre- or the postsynaptic changes are more crucial.

The small effect sizes reflect a limitation in the candidate gene

approach; in scientific lingo, the problem is that one is only looking

where the light is. The cliché harks back to a joke: You discover

someone at night, searching the ground under a street lamp. “What’s

wrong?” “I dropped my ring; I’m looking for it.” Trying to be helpful,

you ask, “Were you standing on this side or that side of the lamp when

you dropped it?” “Oh, no, I was over by those trees when I dropped it.”

“Then why are you searching here?” “This is where the light is.” With

candidate gene approaches, you look only where the light is, examine

only genes that you already know are involved. And with twenty

thousand or so genes, it’s pretty safe to assume there are still some

interesting genes that you don’t know about yet. The challenge is to find

them.

Perhaps even more than superiority, feelings about Us center on

shared obligations, on willingness and expectation of mutuality.

12 The

essence of an Us mind-set is nonrandom clustering producing higher-

than-expected frequencies of positive interactions. As we saw in chapter

10, the logical strategy in one-round Prisoner’s Dilemma is to defect.

Cooperation flourishes when games have an uncertain number of rounds,

and with the capacity for our reputations to precede us. Groups, by

definition, have multiple-round games and the means to spread news of

someone being a jerk.