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.
Well…the 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 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...read more>>>...
