Everyone is familiar with the Richard Dawkins view of life; we're products of genes and genetic determinism combined with random factors shapes life.
Anyway, here's a great analogy form Bruce Lipton's book, The Biology of Belief, which I'm reading at the moment:
If I show you my keys and say that a particular key "controls" my car, you at first might think that makes sense because you know you need that key to turn on the ignition. But does the key actually "control" the car? If it did, you couldn't leave the key in the car alone because it might just borrow your car for a joy ride when you are not paying attention.
Of course our cells need the information stored in DNA as blueprints to build their organelles but cells are making choices all the time as to what piece of information to use. In the analogy, genes are like the bunch of keys. The cell can use one key to do one thing but it needs to choose a particular gene for a particular purpose. Your bunch of keys doesn't control you life even if loosing them can cause you some problems!
Maybe not paying attention is more of a problem than the analogy suggests?
Norbu
I think the concept of genetic determinism is being overplayed by those with academic/career interests in that area. Sure, our genetic makeup is responsible for a large element of our physical being (especially in the unfortunate instances of inherited genetic illness or genes which make us more vulnerable to particular disease states) but it far from being the only factor in our physical lives.
I have worked and studied as a biological scientist for may years and all I have learned has led me to conclude that what we (as entities) 'do' to our physical bodies is of far more importance to our existence and well being than what our physical bodies (in the form of programmed genetic consequences) 'do' to us.
We cannot change our genetic legacy but we can change our internal and external environments and the reductionist/deterministic schools of scientific thought do not seem to take this into account when making their analyses (or writing their best selling books!!)
This is why I feel that the 'capital S' scientists should begin to think in more holistic terms and accept that knowledge of a particular system without context will not lead to any greater understanding of ourselves......
I have worked and studied as a biological scientist for may years and all I have learned has led me to conclude that what we (as entities) 'do' to our physical bodies is of far more importance to our existence and well being than what our physical bodies (in the form of programmed genetic consequences) 'do' to us.
We cannot change our genetic legacy but we can change our internal and external environments and the reductionist/deterministic schools of scientific thought do not seem to take this into account when making their analyses (or writing their best selling books!!) ..
Completely agree with muzone, I used to be a biologist and at the time would have considered Richard Dawkins' words to be the universal "truth", however over the last few years I have been realising that it is not as simple as it seems... Yes it's true that we cannot change our genetic makeup (genotype) but we can and do influence their expression (phenotype) by how we act, what we think, what we eat, where we live, how we choose to relate etc.. Yes, there are some parameters within which we may operate biologically, but we still do have a multitude of choices to make on day-to-day basis that determine our life, wellbeing and happiness.
Masha
We cannot change our genetic legacy...
Yes it's true that we cannot change our genetic makeup (genotype) but we can and do influence their expression (phenotype) by how we act, what we think, what we eat, where we live, how we choose to relate etc..
Hi Marsha and Muzone and all,
Guess what? The notion that genes are fixed from the moment of the start of the life of the organism till it dies is being brought into question. This is part two of a video presentation given by Bruce Lipton on the "New Biology." Bruce Lipton examines the evidence of gene modification during the life of the individual about 45mins into this second video.
[DLMURL] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6568107389365915765&hl=en [/DLMURL]
If you have a biological background you won't need me to explain significance of this information. Not only is genetic disease potentially not irreversible but orthodoxy in evolutionary theory is way off the mark; Lamark's was right!
The implications of this are not just theoretical. Not only does it change our view of a genetic base for health, it effects the whole way we look at society. Competition is out. It's not so much the survival of the fittest individual but survival of communities where mutualistic behaviour prevails.
Norbu