cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
My Sunday-morning "waiting for my Cream of Wheat to boil" theory is that humans evolved in a tribal social structure very much akin to that of baboons. Baboons have a rather stratified hierarchy with boss monkeys and their subordinates. Pleasing (or at least avoiding the wrath of) the boss monkey is built into us. This evolved, selected response (which is likely mediated by the gene in question, if it's real) short-circuits for the alpha male, who no longer answers to a boss monkey, and feels the hole in his world. Perhaps that is why despots are typically such maladjusted hosebags....so this makes me wonder (for real), why does this gene exist? What purpose does it serve? It takes a lot of punishment, this gene.
Combine this sociobiological groove/need with our proven penchant for feeling spirit-force at work in nature, and positing an Ultimate Boss Monkey, unapproachable, indomitable, is as inevitable as gravity. Once that first meme took hold, it was like a gravid spider mite finding a 40-kilowatt hydro grow. Force of nature. cn