The Real Decoded Genome:
3% of the DNA does the job; the rest is just ÔjunkÕ
~ A T Mann

Despite the claims of an ultimate "decoding of the human genome," a fantastic opportunity to explore human nature and biology is being wasted at the moment through the shortsightedness of science and scientists.

During the first stage of the now complete Human Genome Project, scientists focused on trying to identify the location of genes on a chromosome. Each cell of the human body, except for sperm and egg cells, contains 23 pairs of chromosomes that are ordered on a long strand of DNA wound tightly in the nucleus. If unwound, the strand would be about 6 feet long. The genes that regulate life, and that influence or cause diseases, are arranged on chromosomes. But those genes make up only about 3% of the strand of DNA.

Scientists do not understand the function, if any, of the remaining 97% of the DNA. Often referred to as "junk DNA," it most likely contains important information, but scientists do not have the ideas, desire or technology to explore it. This is ironic in the extreme because we know nature is not wasteful, and the DNA molecule and its coding is thought to be the most sophisticated development of life.

Are we to believe that this most profound, complex mechanism of life itself is 97% junk? With no purpose or meaning? I think not.

The recently completed Human Genome ProjectÕs working draft contains information on the 3% of the DNA that can currently be sequenced. Sequencing is the process of breaking genes into their most basic components: adenine, thymine, guanine and cystosine. These almost repetitive components are called bases, and they are paired together, AÕs with TÕs, CÕs with GÕs, on the double-helix structure of the DNA strand. Their structure is like a spiral staircase: the AT and CG pairs are the steps that link the two sides of the staircase.Just as molecular genetics has apparently vindicated Darwinism, it has also served to show that some aspects of evolution are much more complex than Darwin imagined.

The scientific perception is that the genomes of all complex organisms contain huge amounts of repetitive and apparently useless DNA. Some of this could be relict material (the slowly decaying hulks of once-useful but now functionless genes); but some of it may be information whose functions have yet to be discovered.

Studies at the level of the genome show a surprising amount of genetic mobility, sometimes between very remotely related species. This suggests that we have still to discover some other process of genomic evolution beyond DarwinÕs Theory of Evolution.

Could it be that this junk DNA is a repository of our collective past, like the "collective unconscious" posited by Carl Gustav Jung?

It may be that we each contain a vast, untapped reservoir of information and the mechanisms to utilize it that goes beyond our contemporary mechanist materialist view of humanity?

Since mechanist-materialist science only recognizes those genes directly connected with the development and maintenance of the physical body, what if there are genetic structures associated with emotions, mind, memory or even spirit?

It may be that we are only beginning to understand the common resources we carry within every cell, and which are available to all conscious beings.

We can only hope.

ATM Editorial comments derived from a headline and article from USA Today, May 17, 2000 and a book review of "DarwinÕs Ghost" from the Sunday NY Times April 23, 2000