Announced with great fanfare in late November, 2006,
scientists have discovered that human DNA is far more variable than
previously thought. Contrary to previous beliefs, as much as 10 percent
of human genes vary wildly from one person to the next. The mainstream
press is hailing the discovery and some sort of breakthrough that
will shed light on so-called "incurable" diseases and give
researchers the ability to create more targeted medicines. (There's
always a pro-Pharma slant in the mainstream media isn't there?) In
reality, this new DNA discovery explains why most pharmaceuticals
don't work for most people.
More importantly, this discovery humbles us, and shows us that even
our top scientists know less about human DNA than they once thought.
Researching DNA is a lot like researching astronomy: the more we learn,
the less we realize we know. It's as if every newly discovered fact
unveils the existence of ten new questions we never knew existed.
The mainstream media, in its usual limited view, is
reporting this discovery as a breakthrough that will help scientists
develop new drugs to treat disease. Every "Eureka!" moment
having anything to do with the genetic code seems to lead the mainstream
media to the same advertiser-pleasing conclusion, but they haven't
even begun to realize the big story here. The real news in this discovery,
you see, has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals or even medical science.
It is larger and more profound than any of us could have possibly
imagined.
Allow me to explain...
Where are all the missing blueprints?
Until today, it was widely believed that individual genes directly
controlled physical traits in the human body (and even mental and
behavioral traits, according to some), but now it turns out that a
surprisingly large number of individuals have wild variations in their
genetic code, such as multiple copies of the same gene or even entire
genes that are missing from their DNA. And yet they're not walking
around without a kidney, for example, or missing their left eyeball.
It's all quite shocking and rather difficult to explain from a Western
point of view where scientists believe that DNA is like a computer
program containing sequential instructions for building a physical
organism. Truth is, there aren't enough genes in the human genome
to even build a human being in the first place. A human has about
30,000 genes, yet an adult human has trillions of specialized cells
governed by millions of different chemical reactions. How do 30,000
genes control all this?
Only a few years ago (2001), humans were believed to
have 100,000 genes while all simple life forms contained far fewer.
But this assumption of humans being some "advanced" life
form turned out to be utterly false. It turns out that the mustard
weed contains the same number of genes as humans, and even the common
mouse has nearly as many. From certain types of worms to common trees,
there are many organisms on the planet that have very nearly the same
number of genes as human beings (and some have more).
Even more surprising to most, human beings appear to
actually be human-bacteria hybrids. We are not all human, in other
words. At least 200 genes in our genetic code were mysteriously borrowed
from bacteria, we now know. Nobody is sure how they got there (did
early humans mate with bacteria? Odd...), but we are sure that they
exist.
Furthermore, if you look at the composition of cells
in the typical human body, and you start counting them all, you realize
that most of the cells in the typical human body are not human. Read
that again, if you need to. It's a shocking statement, but it's entirely
true. The vast majority of cells contained in the human body are bacteria
cells -- about 100 trillion of them for a typical human being.
In other words, when you walk around, most of the cells
you're carrying with you are not even you. The importance of this
is in understanding that the human organism does not exist in isolation
to the world around it. Regardless of what we believe, we are all
closer to nature than we think. In fact, we are literally living with
nature inside us, permeating our cells and accounting for more of
us than us ourselves.
Epigenetic factors
There's also no mention of epigenetics in all this news about the
human genome. As recently understood -- to the great surprise of the
hard science community, no doubt -- epigenetic factors control the
expression of genes, activating or deactivating them based on environmental
factors such as nutrition or exposure to synthetic chemicals.
Epigenetic factors are inherited, too, and passed from one generation
to the next, meaning that if one woman suffers from chronic nutritional
deficiencies when she conceives a child, the detrimental side effects
of that nutritional deficiency will be passed down through multiple
generations (at least four generations, according to Pottenger, but
perhaps as many as seven according to others).
So DNA is not the only archive of information that's
passed from mother to child. Even if we understood everything about
DNA, we would still lack the big picture unless we also understood
epigenetic factors -- and most old-school researchers and Western
scientists don't even believe in epigenetic factors, adhering to the
outdated point of view that genes alone control everything, and that
all disease is predetermined, with environmental factors having little
or no effect.
The human genome reflects
the patterns of nature
Most Western scientists currently believe the human genome is sort
of like a biological computer program; a series of instructions that
tells the cells how to construct a complete organism containing trillions
of new cells. Of course, there's no real explanation as to how a mere
30,000 genes could oversee the construction, maintenance and operation
of such a highly complex organism. As Francis Collins, director of
the National Human Genome Research Institute, said, "It's astounding
that we get by with so few protein-coding genes, but that seems to
be sufficient because here we all are." It's hard to argue with
logic like that.
Indeed, it does work. But not in the way Western scientists believe.
My own personal theory of the human genome takes special note of the
multiple copies of many genes that have now been observed across a
wide spectrum of the human population. Some people carry one, two,
three or even four copies of the same gene.
If you look around in nature, where else do you notice
copies of the same information? In harmonics, of course. A complex
sound such as a single note on a violin is not made up of a simple
square wave tone, it's made up of highly complex harmonics which give
the violin its own tone and timbre, a sort of auditory personality.
On an oscilloscope, these often appear as copies of the same underlying
waveforms.
They're also called "overtones," and they're
present throughout the human experience. Simple saying the word, "we,"
for example, involves shaping the mouth and tongue into an arrangement
that creates complex, high-frequency overtones. The "ee"
sound is the highest multi-frequency overtone sound created in human
speech, but every vowel sound has its own unique pattern of repeating
information. From low to high, it's "uuu" "ooo"
"aaah" "eh" "eee."
Physically, a human being is more like musical expression
than a set of construction blueprints. The human body has near-perfect
symmetry and economies of expression through fractal geometry that
are quite evident in the structure of the circulatory system, for
example, or the nervous system. Just look at a drawing of veins and
arteries and you'll notice the fractal patterns of geometry -- the
same patterns you'll see drawn in the underside of a leaf, by the
way.
The same is also true with human hair and skin cells.
Every police detective knows that the human fingerprint is made up
of readily identifiable patterns that are connected through a sort
of biological artistry. In any human fingerprint, you'll notice the
loops, swishes and curves that give strong clues to the underlying
fractal geometry. Fingerprints aren't built with cellular bricks,
they're built with repeating patterns that give us strong clues about
the true structure of our DNA.
(Fractal geometry
is also the dominant form of physical structure in nature, by the
way. In fact, it was the study of plant leaves and mollusk shells
that led to the discovery of fractal geometry.)
Throughout the human body, from the lining of the cells
of the stomach to the structure of the eye, you find patterns that
go way beyond mere construction blueprints. The human body is a symphony,
a grand musical masterpiece played out in billions of variations across
the planet.
And the DNA, in my view, is a holographic reflection
of the whole being. The repeating patterns of genes and the symmetry
of the double helix are all expressions of music. The human genome
is a symphony, and it is through this symphony that we play the music
of life. Combined with environmental factors and energetic factors
(such as parental love), the symphony of human DNA creates a physical
being. But it doesn't stop there. It also helps create the framework
for an emotional being, an energetic being and a spiritual being.
Some scientists see nothing but cold, hard construction
blueprints in that DNA. Others see God in the symphony, or Mother
Nature directing the orchestra. What I see is a miracle of life, created
with such masterful poetry and music that it is something to behold,
to honor and to be humbled by. It is the ultimate statement of our
connection to nature, for everywhere you look in nature, you see the
same patterns we express, carried out in a range of melodies through
the plants, animals and even the waters and skies. Looking closely
at ourselves, we cannot help but notice nature. If we are keen observers,
that is.
Western scientists refuse
to hear the music
For Western scientists to think they've figured out the Human Genome,
and that they can now use it to design new synthetic drugs that hijack
the biochemical orchestra of the human body, is the epitome of medical
arrogance. They refuse to recognize the miracle of human life, believing
instead in the superiority of Man over nature. They would destroy
a thousand symphonies to sell another million dollars worth of pharmaceuticals.
Every day, they pad their fragile egos with "heroic" surgical
procedures and organ transplants that grind the orchestra to a halt.
They are the music stoppers, the nature deniers... the rationalists.
They believe all things are compartmentalized and separated. There
is no connection between living things, according to the rationalists,
and living creatures are nothing more than players in some cruel game
called survival of the fittest.
But I say we are all unique, creative expressions of
the same universal tune. Even our very blueprint -- our DNA -- is
a symphony of expression that will never be understood until researchers
start to think holographically rather than sequentially. DNA is a
wonderful mystery, as is any good symphony, or novel, or collection
of poetry. And just as a novel is more than the sum of its words,
a human being is more than the accounting of her DNA. Let me give
you a simple example to make this all more apparent.
In the paragraph below, each word represents a gene.
What is this paragraph trying to say?
a, a, a, above, air, all, almost, alone, and, and, and,
anywhere, as, breadth, brought, by, cluster, color, combining, crate,
crooked, dropped, evening, fine, first-water, follow, freedom, from,
glossy, greater, hair, hazy, i, i, image, in, in, in, in, it, it,
it, it, it, i've, i've, i've, jewel, later, little, luster, might,
moon, moon, new, of, of, of, of, on, one, one, or, ornament, over,
please, pulled, put, run, seen, shining, shining, slowly, some, sorts,
start, the, the, the, the, the, the, tilted, tree-and-farmhouse, trees,
tried, tried, try, walking, wallow, water, with, with, wonder, you,
your.
Presented as such, it seems to be nonsense, right? This
is the Western view of the human genome, where each "word"
(or gene) stands on its own, existing in some isolated way for the
purpose of governing the construction of some correlated physical
structure. Western scientists even use the term, "words"
to describe genes, and they describe the variation in the protein
sequences as different "spellings" of those words. Yet they
completely miss the grammar of those words: the music, the poetry,
the linguistics.
So let's take those same words (genes) and rearrange
them to create music. Or poetry, as itwere, thanks to Robert Frost:
The Freedom of the Moon
I've tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I've tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.
I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I've pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.
Do you see the difference? They are the same words as
the nonsense paragraph shown earlier, but now suddenly the words create
something far more complex and intelligent than the sum of their parts.
Through the arrangement of the words, or the symphony of words, Robert
Frost takes us on a journey that touches on the human experience,
our relationship with nature and the meaning of life itself. All this
has been brought forth by a set of words that seemed meaningless when
read in isolated, absent the context of their interrelationships (or
holographic relationships).
DNA is poetry, you see. And as long as Western scientists
continue to look at genes in isolation, they will only see a scramble
of isolated words whose meaning remains forever elusive. But genuine,
curious scientists who are true enough to their own hearts to take
a leap of faith at believing in the symphony of nature will find something
far different in human DNA. They will find poetry, symmetry, harmonics...
and a song of life that, if truly understood, would humble even the
most brilliant among us.
You see, this year's discovery of widespread variability
in the genetic code -- and gene copies, and missing genes -- is not
something to be viewed as a way to sell more drugs. That view is childish.
It is insulting to nature herself. This discovery is far more profound.
It gives us an important clue that can help humankind remember where
it came from. It reminds us that we are part of nature, not its conquerors
or masters. We are, in fact, an expression of the very phenomena we
are attempting to understand, and if we read the poetry of DNA correctly,
we will realize that life itself is not about the accumulation of
wealth, or stuff, or power over others, but rather the discovery of
self.
And "self" does not exist in isolation. We
are, in every way imaginable, intertwined. We are all made of the
same stuff, wrought from the same patterns of nature, and in fact,
formulated from the same musical notes played out in five billion
unique but compatible tunes. With this discovery, Western science
has concluded we are all more different from each other than previously
thought, but I believe it is evidence that we are all just unique
verses of the same universal poem.
By the way, if you enjoyed this article, you may also
enjoy a free report I've authored entitled, How to End Cruelty to
Animals, People and Nature.
Mike
