|
Dangerous Ideas
In one blow, Darwin had relegated us from divinely-created beings to apes which had evolved by the impersonal mechanism of natural selection. So dangerous was this idea to the religious establishment that, in 1925, a Tennessee schoolteacher, John Scopes, was put on trial, accused of teaching Darwin’s new “Theory of Evolution”. In a famous case, the theologians of the day scored a landmark victory. Since then, Darwinian thinking has staged quite a comeback.
There is little doubt that the present-day
evolutionists, zealously led by champions such as Richard Dawkins,
are now winning the arguments. These scientists have refined
Darwin’s theory considerably, and are able to offer ever more
elaborate evidence of the process of natural selection at work.
Using examples from the animal kingdom, they have discredited the
entire Biblical account of creation.
Anthropologists have failed
miserably to produce fossil evidence of the “missing link” with the
apes, and there has been a growing recognition of the complexity of
organs such as the human brain. It is as if science has come full
circle, to a point where many feel severe discomfort with the
evolutionary theory as it applies to Homo sapiens. Here then is
another dangerous idea. If we replace a creation by God, at a
supernatural level, with a genetic enhancement by flesh-and-blood
Gods at a physical level, can the evolutionists survive a rational
debate on a purely scientific basis?
His results were as follows: gorilla 75: chimpanzee 109; orangutan 113; gibbon 116, man 312. Keith thus showed that mankind was nearly three times more distinctive than any other ape. How do we reconcile Sir Arthur Keith’s study with the scientific evidence which shows a 98 per cent genetic similarity between man and the chimpanzee?’
I would
like to turn this ratio around and ask how a 2 per cent difference
in DNA can account for the astonishing difference between man and
his primate “cousins” After all, a dog shares 98 per cent of its
genes with a fox, yet the two animals closely resemble each other.
Somehow we must explain how a mere 2 per cent genetic difference can
account for so many value added features in mankind - the brain,
language and sexuality - to name but a few.
The missing
possibility, which explains the highly focused change in human DNA,
is the unthinkable idea of genetic intervention by the Gods. But is
it really so unthinkable? Fifty years ago. before the discovery of
the genetic code. it may have been so. But in the late twentieth
century. it is a fact that we now possess the genetic capability to
act as “Gods” by creating life on another planet.
What we
will find is missing evolutionary links, a too-rapid time scale and,
finally, biological features that do not fit the known evolutionary
history on planet Earth. It is my intention that this chapter should
in fact strengthen natural selection as a general theory. For, by
relocating the evolution of Homo sapiens to the evolutionary home of
the Gods themselves, I will effectively be removing the biggest
dilemma of the Darwinists from their frame of reference.
It was almost one hundred years later, in 1953, that James Watson and Francis Crick discovered that mechanism to be DNA and genetic inheritance. Watson and Crick were the scientists who discovered the double helix structure of the DNA molecule, the chemical which encodes genetic information. Our schoolchildren now understand that every cell in the body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, onto which are fixed approximately 100,000 genes making up what is known as the human genome.
The information contained in
these genes is sometimes switched on, to be read, sometimes not,
depending on the cell and the tissue (muscle, bone or whatever)
which is required to be produced. We also now understand the rules
of genetic inheritance, the basic principle of which is that half of
the mother’ s and half of the father’s genes are recombined.
This accords with the Darwinian idea of natural selection, a continuous struggle for existence in which those organisms best fitted to their environment are the most likely to survive. By surviving, their genes are more likely, statistically, to be carried into later generations through the process of sexual reproduction. A common misconception with natural selection is that genes will directly improve in response to their environment, causing optimal adjustments of the organism.
It is now accepted that such adaptations are in fact random mutations which happened to suit the environment and thus survived. In the words of Steve Jones, “we are the products of evolution, a set of successful mistakes”. How fast is the process of evolution? The experts all agree with Darwin’s basic idea that natural selection is a very slow, continuous process.
As one of today’s great champions of evolution, Richard Dawkins, put it:
The odds are already stacked against genetic improvement,
but we must add one further factor. A favourable mutation will only
take hold if it occurs in small isolated populations. This was the
case on the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin carried out much
of his research. Elsewhere, favourable mutations will be lost and
diluted within a larger population, and scientists admit that the
process will be a lot slower.
The source of all these rivers is the genetic code which is identical in all animals, plants and bacteria that have ever been studied. The body of the organism soon dies but, through sexual reproduction, acts as a mechanism which the genes can use to travel through time. Those genes which work well with their fellow-genes. and which best assist the survival of the bodies through which they pass, will prevail over many generations. But what causes the river, or species, to divide into two branches?
To quote Richard Dawkins:
As unlikely as it may seem, statistically, for a new species to occur, the fact is that there are today approximately 30 million separate species on Earth, and it is estimated that a further 3 billion species may have previously existed and died out. One can only believe this in the context of a cataclysmic history of planet Earth - a view which is becoming increasingly common. Today, however, it is impossible to pinpoint a single example of a species which has recently (within the last half a million years) improved by mutation or divided into two species with the exception of viruses, evolution appears to be all incredibly slow process.
Daniel Dennett recently suggested that a time scale of 100,000 years for the emergence of a new animal species would be regarded as “sudden”.
The consensus is that the normal rate of evolution is somewhere in the middle. The famous biologist Thomas Huxley for example, stated that:
And yet mankind is supposed to have benefited from not one. but several macro-mutations in the course of only six million years ! In the absence of fossil evidence, we are dealing with extremely theoretical matters. Nevertheless. modern science has managed, in a number of cases, to provide feasible explanations of how a step-by-step evolutionary process can produce what appears to be a perfect organism.
The most celebrated case is a computer-simulated
evolution of the eye by Nilsson and Pelger. Starting with a simple
photocell, which was allowed to undergo random mutations, Nilsson
and Pelger’s computer generated a feasible development to full
camera eye, whereby a smooth gradient of chance occurred with an
improvement at each intermediate step.
The result is two species in equilibrium, where the weakest individuals die but both species survive. This principle was first put forward by Alfred Wallace when he stated that, “nature never over-endows a species beyond the needs of everyday existence." It is the same situation as the trees in a dense forest, which have over a very long time maximized their height in competition for the light. And so we return to the vexed question of the evolution of mankind himself, and we throw down the gauntlet to challenge Dawkins and Dennett in their own academic back yard.
For, in the remainder of this chapter, we will see astonishing
examples of how we have evolved way beyond the requirements of
everyday existence and in the complete absence of an intellectual
rival. According to the modern theories of gradiented change and
natural selection, many aspects of Homo sapiens are therefore an
evolutionary impossibility!
The search for the missing link is the search for the earliest hominid, the upright, bipedal ape who waved a long goodbye to his four-legged friends. Many scholars have had great difficulty accepting that our closest relations are the chimpanzees, which are culturally so different from us. However, recent studies have shown that one particular species of pygmy chimpanzee, known as the bonobos, is remarkably human-like in character.
Unlike other apes, the bonobos often
copulate face to face and their sex life is said to make Sodom and
Gomorrah look like a vicar’s tea party! It is thought that the
bonobos and chimpanzee species split 3 million years ago, and it
seems likely that our common ancestor with the apes may well have
behaved more like the bonobos than the chimpanzee. I will now
attempt to briefly summarize what is known about human evolution.
The first contender, discovered in the
Afar province of Ethiopia in 1974, is named Lucy, although her more
scientific name is Australopithecus Afarensis. Lucy is estimated to
have lived between 3.6-3.2 million years ago. Unfortunately her
skeleton was only 40 per cent complete and this has resulted in
controversy regarding whether she was a true biped, and whether in
fact she may even have been a he !
Anamensis, for instance, does not seem to be related to Ramidus. The inexplicable lack of fossil evidence for the preceding 10 million years has made it impossible to confirm the exact separation date of these early hominids from the four-legged apes.
It is also important to emphasize that many of these finds have skulls more like chimpanzees than men. They may be the first apes that walked, but as of 4 million years ago we are still a long way from anything that looked even remotely human. Moving forward in time, we find evidence of several types of early man, which are equally confusing. We have the 1.8 million year old, appropriately named, Robustus, the 2.5 million year old, more lightly built, Africanus, and the 1.5 to 2 million year old Advanced Australopithecus.
The latter, as the name
suggests, is more man-like than the others, and is sometimes
referred to as “near-man” or Homo Habilis (“handy man’). It is
generally agreed that Homo Habilis was the first truly man-like
being, which could walk efficiently and use very rough stone tools.
The fossil evidence does not reveal whether rudimentary speech had
developed at this stage.
There is little doubt, by a process of elimination, that this is the line from which Homo sapiens descended. The missing link, however, remains a mystery.
In 1995, The Sunday Times summarized the evolutionary evidence as follows:
As to the various contenders speculated as mankind’s ancestor, The Sunday Times stated:
The race to find the missing link continues. Rival anthropologists have raised millions of dollars to fund their searches. With stakes as high as this, there is no doubt that some major breakthroughs will have to be announced. And yet we should retain our sense of perspective. As one commentator has pointed out, there is no guarantee that any of these fossil discoveries actually left any descendants.
The evidence is so sparse that a few more sensational
finds will still leave the scientists clutching at straws. Mankind’s
evolutionary history will remain shrouded in mystery. Only one thing
is clear: the fossils spanning the period from 6 million to I
million years ago prove that the wheels of evolution turn very, very
slowly indeed.
The Egyptian
vulture throws stones at ostrich eggs to crack their tough shells.
The woodpecker finch in the Galapagos Islands uses twigs or cactus
spines in up to find different ways to root out wood-boring insects
from rotten trees. The sea otter on the Pacific coast of North
America uses a stone as a hammer to dislodge its favourite food, the
abalone shellfish, and uses another stone as an anvil to smash open
the shellfish.”
There, the direct heat of the Sun favoured genetic mutations which better enabled these apes to stand
up and protect their brain from the higher temperatures at ground
level. The vulnerability of these neo-hominids in the open Savanna
might then have led to the favouring of random mutations in the
brain which increased the chances of survival by stealth.
It is thought
that these changes may have somehow accelerated the evolution of
intelligence. But these changes would not have happened overnight.
It is unlikely that a group of apes suddenly became totally bipedal,
for the simple reason that to do so would have made them less agile
and more vulnerable to predators. As one wag suggested, if you put a
hungry lion, a human, a chimpanzee, a baboon and a dog in a large
cage. it is obvious that the human will get eaten first!
After all, compare the intelligence of an elephant’s 1
lb. brain with our own 3 lb. brain. Size alone misses the point that
improvements can come from better wiring. A good analogy is the
computer, which has been given vastly improved functionality,
largely from better software. Unfortunately, our “software” is the
brain tissue, and it does not hang around to be studied by paleoanthropologists!
The latter might seem logical, but natural selection involves random genetic mutation and does not always achieve its ends via the most direct route. Irrespective of the route taken, we would expect a very slow increase in brain size and thus cranial capacity. Now let us review the fossil evidence on cranial capacity. The data varies considerably and must be treated with care (since the sample sizes are limited), but the following is a rough guide.
The early hominid Afarensis had around 500cc and
Habilis/Australopithecus had around 700cc. Whilst it is by no means certain
that one evolved from the other, it is possible to see in these
figures the evolutionary effects over two million years of the
hominid’s new environment. As we move forward in time to 1.5 million
years ago, we find a sudden leap in the cranial capacity of Homo
erectus to around 900-1000cc. If we assume, as most anthropologists
do, that this was accompanied by an increase in intelligence, it
represents a most unlikely macro-mutation. Alternatively, we might
explain this anomaly by viewing erectus as a separate species whose
ancestors have not yet been found, due to the poor fossil records.
The other disconcerting discovery since 1954 is the shockingly slow evolutionary progress made by Homo erectus and his predecessors up to around 200,000 years ago. The evolutionary graph has thus changed from a nice straight line into an overnight explosion (Figure 5).
Anthropologists have continually attempted to demonstrate a gradiented evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, albeit with sharp upward steps. However. their attempts to force the data to meet their preconceptions has been repeatedly exposed by new data. For example, it was originally believed that anatomically modern Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon man) appeared only 331,000 years ago, and had thus descended from Neanderthal who had died out at the same time.
At that time, one of the most dramatic events in human history appears to have occurred. Cro-Magnon man suddenly arrived in Europe building shelters, organizing himself in clans, wearing skins for clothing, and designing special tools and weapons using wood and bones. It is to this phase of Homo sapiens that we attribute the magnificent cave art such as that at Lascaux, France, dated to 27,000 years ago.
But it is now accepted that, despite the behavioural differences, the European Cro-Magnon’s were no different anatomically from the Homo sapiens found in the middle East 100,000 years ago. Both would be virtually indistinguishable from the population today if dressed in modern clothes. It is also clear that Homo sapiens did not descend from Neanderthal as was previously thought.
Several recent discoveries in Israel have confirmed beyond any doubt that Homo sapiens coexisted with Neanderthal between 100-90,000 years ago. What then is our relationship to Neanderthal? We are used to seeing artists’ impressions based on his known characteristics of clumsy limbs and crude features, but everything else, such as the liberal body hair, is pure supposition, designed to give us the impression of an evolutionary continuum.
Recent discoveries have led to a major
reappraisal of Neanderthal. In particular, a 60,000 year old
Neanderthals remains were found at Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel in
Israel, with an intact hyoid bone, virtually identical to our
present-day hyoid. Since this bone makes human speech possible, the
scientists were forced to conclude that Neanderthal had the
capability to speak. And many scientists regard speech as the key to
mankind’s great leap forward.
Such disorders are quickly spread in small, isolated populations due to the effects of inbreeding.? As a result of the conclusive dating of contemporary Neanderthal and Homo sapiens remains, a new theory has emerged suggesting that both must have stemmed from an earlier “archaic” Homo sapiens. Several fossils have been found of this so-called archaic species, which combine different aspects of primitive erectus and modern human anatomy.
It is commonly cited, in the popular press, that these archaics emerged around 300,000 years ago, but once again this is pure supposition, based on a small sample size, preconceptions and guesswork. What are the real facts? In 1989, an advanced seminar was held on The Origins of Modern Human Adaptations, dealing specifically with the archaic-modern interface.
Summarizing the results of the discussions, Erik Trinkhaus reported that:
Erik Trinkhaus stated that the primary issue of the seminar was the distinction between late archaic and early modern humans, but on the timing of the transformation he had this to say:
A further seminar in 1992 also focussed on the question of the transition from archaic to modern. One of the papers presented included the following comment:
The various papers presented at the seminar were published by
Aitken
Stringer and Mellars in 1993, and focussed particularly on improved
chronological dating methods. Significant progress was reported in a
diverse range of new dating technologies - uranium-series dating,
luminescence dating (thermal or optical) and electron spin resonance
(ESR)
- but each suffered various limitations in different circumstances.
Nevertheless, many reliable datings, based on these methods (rather
than radiocarbon, C14) were presented. Significantly, it was
reported that all of the fossils of the archaics were poorly dated
and could not be touched by any of the new technologies.
There is no proof that an archaic Homo sapiens existed 300,000 years ago, and no proof that Neanderthal dates back to 230,000 years ago.’- The fact of the matter is that Homo sapiens fossils suddenly appear within the last 200,000 years, without any clear record of their origins. The Atlas of Ancient Archaeology sums up the situation as follows:
Meanwhile, Roger Lewin, writing in 1984, stated:
The appearance of Homo sapiens is more than a baffling puzzle - it is statistically close to impossible! After millions of years of negligible progress with stone tools, Homo sapiens suddenly emerged c. 200,000 years ago with a 50 per cent larger cranial capacity, together with the capability for speech and a fairly modern anatomy. For unexplained reasons, he then continued to live primitively, using stone tools for another 160,000 years.
Then, 40,000 years ago,
he appeared to undergo what we might call a transition to modern behaviour. Having swept northwards, he expanded through most of the
globe by 13,000 years ago. After another 1,000 years he discovered
agriculture, 6,000 years later he formed great civilizations with
advanced astronomical knowledge (see chapters 5 and 6), and here we
are after another 6,000 years probing the depths of the Solar
System!
Whilst many of the human brain’s secrets remain
shrouded in mystery, enough has been revealed for National
Geographic to boldly describe it as “the most complex object in the
known universe.”
The birth canal is thus the limiting factor to man’s cranial capacity. If we cast our minds back several hundred thousand years, before hospitals and midwives existed, it is not difficult to imagine that a large number of infants were stillborn or their mothers killed in childbirth. It therefore seems extremely doubtful that natural selection would favour a gene for large brain size, with its potential harmful consequences to both mother and child.
Simply put, such a gene would
not have successfully spread. It seems much more likely that natural
selection would have deselected the large brain and would have
stumbled instead upon a better neural networking system, or
alternatively a means to switch skull growth from pre-birth to
post-birth. The fact that it did not, and the fact that the wiring
of the brain also seems highly efficient in design, strongly
indicates two essential evolutionary requirements. First, an
incredibly long period, and secondly a pressing need to develop its
optimum potential. Neither of these requirements are met by the
established evolutionary circumstances.
It is worth quoting Dawkins in full, for we will turn this argument back against him:
Here then is the evolutionary crunch. As efficient as the brain is, the average human being does not use it to anywhere near its full capacity. How then can Dawkins explain the massive over-engineering of the human brain? What useful survival skills did music and mathematical ability give to our hunter ancestors?
The evolutionists would argue that the algorithms of the brain did not evolve for music and mathematics, but were “adapted” from developments for other purposes. No-one, however, can suggest what these other purposes might have been, that led to such a highly evolved mental capabilities. Charles Darwin’s partner, Alfred Wallace, clearly recognized the contradiction when he wrote:
If we go back one million years to a time when man was fighting for survival, how can Richard Dawkins explain how evolution seems to have favoured non-essential abilities in art, music and mathematics? Why did the brain, which must have been at least partly evolved already, not benefit from any types of useful survival skills such as enhanced smell, infra-red vision, improved hearing and so on?
The theory of evolution is supposed to explain everything, but it clearly does not explain the human brain. It is for this reason that some highly esteemed modern scientists have begun to search for a different mechanism to natural selection. Alfred Wallace was the first to open this debate when he aired his suspicion that another factor, “some unknown spiritual element”, was needed to account for man’s unusual artistic and scientific abilities.
The final nail in the evolutionists’ coffin is this:
Could inter-species competition be the explanation? In modern times our most significant achievements, space travel and nuclear weapons for example, have come from superpower competition. Did primitive men split into competitive, rival groups? Could Neanderthal have been a competitive threat to his fellow Homo sapiens? On the contrary, the evidence suggests that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon peacefully co-existed.
Discoveries at the cave of St. Cesaire in
France indicate that they lived in close proximity for thousands of
years without fighting. Furthermore, early hominids continued to use
simple stone tools for millions of years up to about 200,000 years
ago. There is no sign of any escalation in tool use caused by an
inter-species conflict. In the absence of an intellectual rival that
fits the time frame, the evolutionary scenario for the human brain
remains completely implausible.
The origin of human language capability remains a controversial subject, and raises more questions than answers. Daniel Dennett sums up the state of confusion:
Most scientists now believe that Homo sapiens had speech from their very beginning. Studies of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggest that, since speech is widespread today, it must have developed from a genetic mutation in ‘’mitochondrial Eve” (mtDNA Eve), 200,000 years ago (see chapter 11). The pioneering work of Noam Chomsky has shown that new-born babies genetically inherit an innate and highly advanced language structure.
According to Chomsky’s recently-developed and widely-acclaimed theory of universal grammar, the child is able to subconsciously flick a few simple switches in order to comprehend and speak the language of its parents, wherever in the world it happens to be born. It is highly significant that Chomsky, the leading world expert in the science of linguistics, cannot see how the human language acquisition system could have possibly evolved by natural selection.
One of the foremost evolutionists, Stephen Jay Gould, acknowledges the difficulties with the evolution of language by effectively admitting that it was a freak or chance development:
Why did man acquire such a sophisticated language capability? According to Darwinian theory, a few simple grunts would have sufficed for everyday existence, and yet here we are with more than 26 alphabet sounds and an average vocabulary of 25,000 words. Moreover, speech capability was not such an easy or obvious target for natural selection. The human ability to talk resides in both the shape and structure of the mouth and throat, as well as in the brain.
In adult humans the larynx (voicebox) is situated much lower than in other mammals, and the epiglottis (the flap of cartilage at the root of the tongue) is incapable of reaching the top of the roof of the mouth. Thus we cannot breathe and swallow at the same time, and are uniquely at risk from choking! This unique combination of features can have only one purpose -to make human speech possible. In all other respects it is an evolutionary disadvantage.
Apart from the risk of choking, it causes
our teeth to become crowded, so that, prior to the advent of
antibiotics. septic impacted molars would often have proved fatal.
Just as it is difficult to reverse-engineer the development of the
brain and its language acquisition capability, so it is also
difficult to reverse engineer the development of speech capability.
In the words of Arthur Koestler:
And here is the biggest mystery of all. We are not supposed to have
become intelligent overnight, and evolution is supposed to be very
slow. Therefore, if we go back one or two million years we should
find a semi-intelligent being, using his newly-found abilities to
experiment with primitive writing, basic art, and simple
multiplication. But there is nothing. Without exception, all of the
evidence shows that man continued to use the most basic stone tools
for 6 million years, despite his increasing cranial capacity. This
is very strange and highly contradictory. We deserve a better
explanation.
Desmond Morris contrasted Homo sapiens with 4,237 species of mammals, the vast majority of which were hairy or partly haired. The only non-hairy species were those which lived underground (and thus kept warm without hair), species which were aquatic (and benefited from streamlining), and armoured species such as the armadillo (where hair would clearly be superfluous).
Morris commented:
Darwinism has yet to produce a satisfactory answer as to how and why man lost his hair. Many imaginative theories have been suggested, but so far no-one has come up with a really acceptable explanation. The one conclusion that can perhaps be drawn, based on the principle of gradiented change, is that man spent a long time evolving, either in water or in a very hot environment.
Another unique feature of mankind may provide us with a clue to the loss of body hair. That feature is sexuality. The subject was covered in juicy detail by Desmond Morris, who highlighted unique human features such as extended foreplay, extended copulation and the orgasm. One particular anomaly is that the human female is always “in heat”, yet she can only conceive for a few days each month.
As Jared Diamond has pointed out, this is an evolutionary enigma that cannot be explained by natural selection:
Many scientists have also commented on the anomaly of the male penis, which is by far the largest erect penis of any living primate. The geneticist Steve Jones has noted it as a mystery which is “unanswered" by science, a point which is echoed by Jared Diamond:
Desmond Morris described man as “the sexiest primate alive”, but why did evolution grant us such a bountiful gift? The whole human body seems to be perfectly designed for sexual excitement and pair bonding. Morris saw elements of this plan in the enlarged breasts of the female, the sensitive ear lobes and lips, and a vaginal angle that encouraged intimate face to face copulation.
He also highlighted our abundance of scent-producing glands, our unique facial mobility and our unique ability to produce copious tears - all features which strengthen the exclusive emotional pair-bonding between male and female. This grand design could not be imagined unless humans also lost their shaggy coat of hair, and so it might seem that the mystery of the missing hair is solved. Unfortunately, it is not that simple, for evolution does not set about achieving grand designs!
The Darwinists are strangely silent on what
incremental steps were involved, but however it happened, it should
have taken a long, long time.
The first is the appalling ineptitude of the human skin to repair itself. In the context of a move to the open Savanna where bipedal man became a vulnerable target, and in the context of a gradual loss of protective hair, it seems inconceivable that the human skin should have become so fragile relative to our primate cousins.
The second anomaly is the unique lack of penis bone in the male. This is in complete contrast to other mammals, which use the penis bone to copulate at short notice. The de-selection of this vital bone would have jeopardized the existence of the human species unless it took place against the background of a long and peaceful environment.
The third anomaly is
our eating habits. Whereas most animals will swallow their food
instantaneously, we take the luxury of six whole seconds to
transport our food from mouth to stomach. This again suggests a long
period of peaceful evolution. The question which arises is where
this long and peaceful evolution is supposed to have taken place,
because it certainly does not fit the scenario currently being
presented for Homo sapiens.
As for the first “Adam”, the evidence suggests that he was a hybrid mixture of God and Homo erectus. If this seems too unbelievable, let us stop for a moment, and reflect upon the science of genetics. It is an area which will crop up again and again in later chapters. The gene is essentially a packet of chemical information consisting of DNA. It is now understood that the characteristics of a species are determined by the 4 letter DNA alphabet or “bases” of A, G, C and T, arranged in words of 3 letters, giving 64 possible words.
These words mostly encode amino acids,
which join together to form proteins, the building blocks of the
body. In recent years, scientists have begun to “read” these
“letters” and “words” of the genetic code thus isolating many genes
and identifying their specific instructions.
Since
Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA in 1953, discoveries in the
field of genetics have flown thick and fast. Two major breakthroughs
occurred in 1980, and were rewarded with the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry. Waiter Gilbert of Harvard and Frederick Sanger of
Cambridge University jointly developed rapid methods for reading
large segments of DNA, whilst Paul Berg of Stanford University
pioneered the process of gene splicing.
The process would work by first removing the single set of 23 chromosomes from the female ovum. The ovum could then be implanted with the complete set of 46 chromosomes from any human cell. This would lead to the conception and birth of a predetermined individual, an exact replica of the source of the unsplit set of chromosomes. An alternative to the removal of the female chromosomes is to deactivate the nucleus of the ovum either chemically or by radiation.
Gene splicing, also known as recombinant DNA technology, can take the form of inserting a new gene in, or removing an undesirable gene from, a DNA strand. The process involves the use of enzymes to allow DNA strands to be cut in the desired places, and then to either remove a “sentence” that makes up a gene, or to insert a “foreign” gene; afterwards the DNA is recombined.
An
example of gene splicing is the ‘Mighty Mouse’ created by
researchers at the universities of Washington and Pennsylvania in
1982 by inserting the growth gene from a rat into a mouse: the mouse
then grew to twice its normal size. Many “improved” plant species
have been designed in this way to resist disease, including the
infamous example of the uncontrollable tomato. More recently we have
seen the “Super Salmon” from Swedish scientists, whilst future
developments may even include the self-shearing sheep!
For example, in 1983 scientists combined a sheep and a goat (which cannot naturally mate), creating a geep with a woolly coat and goat’s horns. So far, it has not proved possible to predetermine the result of fusion. so the outcome of these experiments is an unpredictable chimera. In 1989, the Human Genome Project was officially launched in the USA to co-ordinate international research at a cost of $3 billion.
The aim of this international project is to track down, analyze and record the 3 billion chemical letters” of the human genome. and to map our 100,000 genes to specific regions on our chromosomes. In December 1993. a “physical map of the human genome” was published by the Centre d’Etude du Polymorphisme Humain (Ceph) in Paris, representing a major landmark in this research. By making its map available internationally on the Internet, Ceph believe that it will enable gene hunters to move ten times faster in future, with a real prospect of deciphering all 3 billion chemical letters of the human genetic code early in the 21st century.
Dr Daniel Cohen, director of Ceph, stated:
When this research has been completed, mankind may have the power to create in his own image, in his Own likeness. At that time, if we were to find a species on another planet which happened to have a similar DNA to ourselves, we could cross-breed with them, and select whatever traits we wanted to include, or indeed exclude. That species might well call us "Gods”.
One hundred years ago, it would have been science fiction to suggest that mankind could have been genetically engineered as a hybrid being and then cloned. It would also have been scandalous to suggest that the Biblical Elohim had actually resorted to such physical means. Today, such suggestions are scientifically valid and perfectly plausible.
The question is,
are we simply rediscovering a technology that was used 200.000 years
ago?
|
