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THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT

A Cosmic Joke that has the Scientists Rolling in the Aisle

There is a "thing" I refer to as Universe Humor, others may refer to it as a Cosmic Joke. There
have been times in all of our lives when we thought we knew exactly how some event or incident
was going to turn out. We could be so convinced that we "knew" what was going to happen, that
we would have bet the family farm and the kitchen sink on the outcome of the event. It is at
moments like this, when the Universe surprises us by taking a left turn instead of a right.

While in most cases such a turn of events may evoke anger, disappointment or disillusion, I
usually respond by shaking my head in profound awe of the perverse nature of Universe Humor.
Here I thought I knew exactly how things would turn out and then find myself surprised, the wind
knocked out of me. In wonder, I must rethink and reconsider the beliefs I held that led me to my
faulty conclusion.

When Universe Humor hits an individual, recognition of their astonishing lack of awareness may
provoke a profound change in their life. On an individual level, each must reconsider their own
beliefs in order to accommodate the surprising observations.

In contrast, the course of human history is radically altered when Universe Humor undermines a
"core belief" that is part of the fabric of the entire society. Consider how the course of human
history changed when the belief that the world was flat was challenged by the circumnavigation
of the globe?

In 1893, the chairman of physics at Harvard University warned students that there was no more
need for additional PhD's in the field of physics. He boasted that science had established the
fact that the universe was a matter machine, comprised of physical, indivisible atoms that fully
obeyed the laws of Newtonian Mechanics. Since all the descriptive laws of physics were
"known," the future of physics would be relegated to making finer and finer measurements.

Two years later, the Newtonian concept of a matter-only universe was toppled by the discovery
of subatomic particles, X-rays and radioactivity. Within ten years, physicists had to discard their
fundamental belief in a material universe for it was recognized that the universe was actually
made of energy whose mechanics obeyed the laws of Quantum Physics. That little piece of
Universe Humor profoundly altered the course of civilization, taking us from steam engines to
rocket ships, from telegraphs to computers.

Wellthe cosmic prankster has struck again!

As it has done a few times in the past, this expression of Universe Humor upends a foundational
basic belief held by conventional science. The joke is embodied in the results of The Human

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Genome Project. In all the hoopla over the sequencing of the human genetic code and being got
caught up in the brilliant technological feat, we have not focused on the actual "meaning" of the
results.

One of the most important and fundamental core beliefs in conventional biology is that the traits
and character of organisms are "controlled" by their genes. This belief is couched in the concept
of genetic determinacy, the conventional dogma provided in virtually every textbook and biology
course. How do genes manage to "control" life? It is based upon the concept that genes are
self-emergent, meaning that they are able to "turn themselves on and off." Self-actualizing genes
would provide for computer-like programs that would control organismal structure and function.
Accordingly, our belief in genetic determinacy implies that "complexity" (evolutionary stature) of
an organism would be proportional to the number of genes it possessed.

Before the Human genome Project was underway, scientists had estimated that human
complexity would necessitate a genome in excess of 100,000 genes. Genes are primarily
blueprints encoding the chemical structure of proteins, the molecular "parts" that comprise the
cell. It was thought that there was one gene to code for each of the 70,000 to 90,000 proteins
that make up our bodies.

In addition to protein-coding genes, the cell contains genes that determine the character of an
organism by "controlling" the activity of other genes. Genes that "program" the expression of
other genes are called regulatory genes. Regulatory genes encode information about complex
physical patterns that provide for specific anatomies, which represent the structures that
characterize each cell type (muscle versus bone) or organism (a chimp from a human). In
addition, a subset of regulatory genes is associated with the "control" of specific behavioral
patterns. Regulatory genes orchestrate the activity of a large numbers genes whose actions
collectively contribute to the expression of such traits as awareness, emotion, and intelligence. It
was estimated that there were more than 30,000 regulatory genes in the human genome.

In considering the minimal number of genes needed to make a human: we would start with a
base number of over 70,000 genes, one for each of the over 70,000 proteins found in a human.
Then we include the number of regulatory genes needed to provide for the complexity of
patterns expressed in our anatomy, physiology and behavior. Lets round-off the number of
human genes to a total of an even 100,000, by including a minimalist number of 30,000
regulatory genes.

Ready for the Cosmic Joke? The results of the Genome project reveal that there are only about
34,000 genes in the human genome. Two thirds of the anticipated genes do not exist! How can
we account for the complexity of a genetically-controlled human when there are not even
enough genes to code just for the proteins?

More humiliating to the dogma of our belief in genetic determinacy is the fact that there is not
much difference in the total number of genes found in humans and those found in primitive
organisms populating the planet. Recently, biologists completed mapping the genomes of two of
the most studied animal models in genetic research, the fruit fly and a microscopic roundworm
(Caenorhabditis elegans).

The primitive Caenorhabditis worm serves as a perfect model to study the role of genes in
development and behavior. This rapidly growing and reproducing primitive organism has a

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precisely patterned body comprised of exactly 969 cells, a simple brain of about 302 ordered
cells, it expresses a unique repertoire of behaviors, and most importantly, it is amenable to
genetic experimentation. The Caenorhabditis genome is comprised of over 18,000 genes. The
50+ trillion-celled human body has a genome with only 15,000 more genes than the lowly,
spineless, microscopic roundworm.

Obviously, the complexity of organisms is not reflected in the complexity of its genes. For
example the fruit fly genome was recently defined to consist of 13,000 genes. The eye of the
fruit fly is comprised of more cells than are found in the entire Caenorhabditis worm. Profoundly
more complex in structure and behavior than the microscopic roundworm, the fruit fly has 5000
fewer genes!!

The Human Genome Project was a global effort dedicated to deciphering the human genetic
code. It was thought the completed human blueprint would provide science with all the
necessary information to "cure" all of mankind's ills. It was further assumed that an awareness of
the human genetic code mechanism would enable scientists to create a Mozart or another
Einstein.

The "failure" of the genome results to conform to our expectations reveals that our expectations
of how biology "works" are clearly based upon incorrect assumptions or information. Our "belief"
in the concept of genetic determinism is fundamentallyflawed! We can not truly attribute the
character of our lives to be the consequence of genetic "programming." The genome results
force us to reconsider the question: "From whence do we acquire our biological complexity?"

In a commentary on the surprising results of the Human Genome study, David Baltimore, one of
the world's most prominent geneticists and Nobel prize winner, addressed this issue of
complexity:

"But unless the human genome contains a lot of genes that are opaque to our computers, 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-our enormous behavioral repertoire,
ability to produce conscious action, remarkable physical coordination, precisely tuned
alterations in response to external variations of the environment, learning, memoryneed I go
on?-remains a challenge for the future." (Nature 409:816, 2001)

Scientists have continuously touted that our biological fates are written in our genes. In the face
of that belief, the Universe humors us with a cosmic joke: The "control" of life is not in the genes.
Of course the most interesting consequence of the project's results is that we must now face that
"challenge for the future" Baltimore alluded to. What does "control" our biology, if not the genes?

Over the last number of years, science and the press' emphasis on the "power" of genes has
overshadowed the brilliant work of many biologists that reveal a radically different understanding
concerning organismal expression. Emerging at the cutting edge of cell science is the
recognition that the environment, and more specifically, our perception of the environment,
directly controls our behavior and gene activity.

The molecular mechanisms by which animals, from single cells to humans, respond to

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environmental stimuli and activate appropriate physiological and behavioral responses have
recently been identified. Cells utilize these mechanisms in order to dynamically "adapt" their
structure and function to accommodate ever-changing environmental demands. The process of
adaptation is mediated by the cell membrane (the skin of the cell), which serves as the
equivalent of the cell's "brain." Cell membranes recognize environmental "signals" through the
activity of receptor proteins. Receptors recognize both physical (e.g., chemicals, ions) and
energetic (e.g., electromagnetic, scalar forces) signals.

Environmental signals "activate" receptor proteins causing them to bind with complementary
effector proteins. Effector proteins are "switches" that control the cell's behavior.
Receptor-effector proteins provide the cell with awareness through physical sensation. By strict
definition, these membrane protein complexes represent molecular units of perception. These
membrane perception molecules also control gene transcription (the turning on and off of gene
programs) and have recently been linked to adaptive mutations (genetic alterations that rewrite
the DNA code in response to stress).

The cell membrane is a structural and functional homologue (equivalent) of a computer chip,
while the nucleus represents a read-write hard disk loaded with genetic programs. Organismal
evolution, resulting from increasing the number of membrane perception units, would be
modeled using fractal geometry. Reiterated fractal patterns enable a cross-referencing of
structure and function among three levels of biological organization: the cell, the multicellular
organism and societal evolution. Through fractal mathematics we are provided with valuable
insight into the past and future of evolution.

The environment, through the act of perception, controls behavior, gene activity and even the
rewriting of the genetic code. Cells "learn" (evolve) by creating new perception proteins in
response to novel environmental experiences. "Learned" perceptions, especially those derived
from indirect experiences (e.g., parental, peer and academic education), may be based upon
incorrect information or faulty interpretations. Since they may or may not be "true," perceptions
are in reality-beliefs!

Our new scientific knowledge is returning to an ancient awareness of the power of belief. Beliefs
are indeed powerfulwhether they are true or false. While we have always heard of the "power of
positive thinking," the problem is negative thinking is just as powerful, though in the "opposite"
direction. Problems encountered in health and in the unfolding of our lives are generally
connected to the "misperceptions" acquired in our learning experiences. The wonderful part of
the story is that perceptions can be relearned! We can reshape our lives in retraining our
consciousness. This is a reflection of the ageless wisdom that has been passed down to us and
is now being recognized in cellular biology.

An understanding of the newly described cell-control mechanisms will cause as profound a shift
in biological belief as the quantum revolution caused in physics. The strength of the emerging
new biological model is that it unifies the basic philosophies of conventional medicine,
complementary medicine and spiritual healing.

Site : BruceLipton.com Article : Copyright 2006-2007 Bruce Lipton Ph.D.