註一 The ‘central dogma’ of modern orthodox biology is that life is controlled by genes. In The Biology of Belief, cell biologist Bruce Lipton explains how the latest research has shown genetic determinism to be fundamentally flawed, and presents a very readable account of the ‘new biology’. He says that research into the way cells receive and process information shows that a cell’s life is controlled not by its genes but by the physical and energetic environment, which, in the case of humans, includes our thoughts. He writes: ‘The belief that we are frail biochemical machines controlled by genes is giving way to an understanding that we are powerful creators of our lives and the world in which we live’ (p. 17). The ‘new’ biology is an advance on the old one but, as we will see, it still has severe limitations.
Genetic delusions
Since the cracking of the genetic code by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, DNA has assumed an all-powerful status. At first it was thought to be responsible only for our physical characteristics, but then scientists started claiming that our genes control our emotions and behaviour as well. Lipton says that genes are simply molecular blueprints used in the construction of cells, tissues, and organs. But even this goes too far: genes are blueprints for the production of proteins – how proteins assemble themselves into cells, tissues, and organs is not understood.
Prior to the Human Genome Project, scientists held that one gene was needed to provide the blueprint for each of the over 100,000 different proteins that make up our bodies. Since there are also over 20,000 regulatory genes, the human genome was expected to contain a minimum of 120,000 genes located in the 23 pairs of chromosomes. However, geneticists were shocked to discover that the human genome consists of only about 25,000 genes. More than 80% of the DNA that was thought to be required does not exist! The one-gene, one-protein concept, which was a fundamental tenet of genetic determinism, has therefore had to be consigned to the scrap heap.
There is not much difference in the total number of genes found in humans and in primitive organisms. The microscopic nematode roundworm known as Caenorhabditis elegans has a body consisting of 969 cells and a simple brain of about 302 cells, yet its genome consists of as many as 24,000 genes. This means that the human body, comprising over 50 trillion cells, contains only 1000 more genes that this lowly worm. The fruit fly has 15,000 genes – 9000 fewer than the more primitive Caenorhabditis worm. Humans have roughly the same number of genes as mice! As geneticist and Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore has said, ‘it is clear that we do not gain our undoubted complexity over worms and plants by using more genes. Understanding what does give us our complexity ... remains a challenge for the future’ (p. 64).
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