Fairy Tale Romance - Neurobiology

Part 3 of 5

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This is your brain on love. From PLoS.

This was supposed to be a four-part post, but I couldn’t resist including material from Monday’s lecture.

As it turns out, there is incredible similarity between opioids (like heroin) and being in love. They act on the same regions of the brain and cause similar physiologic effects. They both reduce the perception of pain in those who took them. The more in love a person is, the greater the effect. They have similar immediate effects: feelings of euphoria, well-being. They have similar withdrawal effects: compulsive thinking, anxiety.

We talked about the four C’s of addiction. Compulsion, Continuation despite harm, lack of Control in using the drug, Cravings. Isn’t this exactly romance? Doesn’t this describe a lover’s desire for his beloved? He must see her. And when he doesn’t see her, he has cravings for her. And it not only matches the addiction profile, but also the features of dependence. What happens if there is sudden removal of the beloved (that is, a breakup)? Lovesickness. GI upset, overwhelming feelings of anxiety. Severe physiological and psychological symptoms. As it turns out, it may be that symptoms are chemically identical to heroin withdrawal.

But, like usual, neurobiology tells us what we already know (it’s Poetry’s job to tell us what we don’t). We know that we feel good when we’re in love. We know it hurts to break up. What we didn’t know (at least what I didn’t know) was that this effect could be mimicked pharmacologically.

Does this mean romantic love isn’t real? Far from it! It means that romantic love is very real, and incredibly powerful, perhaps as powerful as the most addictive substance known to man! Far from ruining the fairy tales, we now (perhaps) know one more detail about them. But an added detail doesn’t ruin the picture. Understanding the physiology of muscle contraction of the knight’s triceps as he swings his sword does nothing to diminish his slaying of the dragon; it is an interesting, if irrelevant, detail. Knowing the names of the chemicals which are giving him an overwhelming urge guarantee permanency with his beloved is yet another interesting, if irrelevant, detail. This medical hypothesis is only another bit of color in the wonderful (and terrible) picture of Romance.  

We also haven’t addressed how these feelings begin. The ancients have as realistic an explanation as we do presently: his heart is pierced with a powerful magic arrow by Cupid/Eros. Perhaps cupid uses dopamanurgic arrows. And we should take heed, lest we rely too much on this powerful magic. A relationship cannot be sustained only on this heroin-like phase. The high will diminish as tolerance builds. But this is exactly what we already knew; there is a honeymoon phase on new love. It lasts for a while, but not forever.

In the previous post, I recounted poetic descriptions from Genesis, Disney and Sex and the City, all describing some deep yearning for romance. This bit of scientific evidence simply confirms their observations. These feelings are real and deep, deeper than we can ignore. Courting customs vary from age to age; neurobiology does not. Scientists have now joined the ranks of poets in describing this same strange phenomenon. Genesis suggests that Romance was not a medieval invention. Neurobiology suggests that Romance was not a ancient invention, either. This feature has been with our race from the beginning; Fairy Tale Romance, it seems, was an invention of God.

Sleep

We 'lose' consciousness for eight hours (hopefully) every day. But our consciousness isn't lost strictly speaking. It's still present. We usually don't have control over it and we often don't remember it. But our conscious goes places and does things. With no sensory input, we (our consciousnesses) have dramatic experiences, do bold (and cowardly) deeds, and live wildly different lives from our waking selves. And we take these nightly vivid hallucinations in stride.

It seems when we don't sleep enough, our waking consciousness is diminished. I felt today, sleep deprived but forced awake chemically by caffeine, much like Bilbo. As he describes, being pulled toward the realm of shadow by the Ring, "I feel all….thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that’s been scraped over too much bread. I need a change, or something."

Why? There is certainly physical fatigue, but this is not mental. There is also mental drowsiness, but this is countered directly by caffeine; after coffee I have no more difficulty staying awake in class. Though I am not as "present," as I would be well slept and uncaffeinated with an identical level of physiologic 'drowsiness'. What is the difference? There must be some other axis of wakefulness that can only be 'charged' by leaving the physical world.

And not just leaving it. Sleeping 8 hours but preventing stage IV ("REM") sleep, the phase in which we are said to dream, is not restorative of this new sleeping axis. It seems necessary for us that we go somewhere, and the only way we can is through a phase of sleep associated with dreaming. Some postulate that this is simply the random firing of neurons. But if that were true, then using hallucinogens would be as restorative as REM sleep. By all accounts, this is not the case.

More importantly, dreams are not chaotic; they are orderly. It is not a series of flashing lights and sounds. Dreams are a narrative. Certainly the 'rules' of the universe as we understand them are a bit different. Creatures exist there which we do not believe exist here. "Impossible" things like flying and laser vision occur (at least in my dreams). But they are not random in any sense. We recognize our friends, we interact with our families, we fight our enemies.

What happens when we don't sleep? Well, we do sleep. If we try to stay awake, we draw whatever place we go in dreaming to the wakeful world. When you keep someone awake for days at a time, hallucinations and all manner of craziness set in.

All these things seem to point to sleep being a non-chemical thing. But if it is non-chemical, what is it? Here is how a materialst must explain these observations:

Unknown chemicals act by unknown pathways to achieve a state (dreaming) which, though it can be imitated by chemicals (hallucinogens), cannot produce the effects of that same state. When this state is not achieved, fatigue sets in, all the effects of which can be antagonized chemically (sympathetic agonists, caffeine) save for 'wakefulness.' To put it another way, the one conscious effect which cannot be chemically countered (wakefullness) is the result lacking from the element of conscious experience which cannot be chemically induced (dreaming). This lack of any evidence for a chemical connection to this fundamental aspect of the human experience indicates it is a ripe area for research; we ought to search out which chemicals it is exactly that cause wakefullness and dreaming.

A materialist is forced by his faith (or to put it more euphemistically, his worldview) to hold to the baseless claim that all of dreaming and wakefullness is chemical. But, as with all faith, evidence (or lack thereof) does not affect the firmness of one's conviction. Nevertheless, I hope that fairminded people will have the sense to consider, perhaps, that we are not chemical robots, and that there is something higher than chemicals and deeper than Scientism.

Sweet dreams!

On the Origin of Life

I recently had a discussion on an article published in Science on the Origin of Life. While it is a little unfortunate, some of you, my readers, won't be able to read the original article unless you're signing on from a university campus. Here is the link if you can use it.

The article is very well written and very persuasive. It describes steps that are being taken in artificially creating life. Its tone is positive and hopeful, believing the breakthrough is just around the corner. The argument goes something like this: "Life as we know it is way to hard to have come about on its own. It must have worked its way up from RNA based life. And RNA is really hard to make, so it must have worked its way up from something else (lets call it 'PNA'). So, therefore, we think we're close to being able to assemble RNA. And we know that RNA can replicate itself spontaneously. And once it can do that, badaboom, we've got life." [Author's note: this is heavily satirized; please read the original article if you can].

All satire aside, I think the case for artificial life is drastically overstated.

Since there's no other acceptable theory (i.e. Theogenesis, Panspermia aren't allowed), we can pretty much speculate wildly and no one can say that it's unreasonable. We just have to be more reasonable than your totally unreasonable competition. RNA life seems likely when you compare it to existing life. And since even RNA can't be easily formed, we can entertain theories of PNA. We invent a new life form (RNA-based life), which we have never observed or have any evidence exists and then because they're so implausible, we invent a new biological molecule (PNA) which we've never observed or have any evidence exists. We've come to inventing two orders of new, unobservable things we just need to have faith in. It strikes me as ironic that this is mostly done out of a motivation to eliminate faith.

There is a computer image of what looks like a double helix assembling inside a membrane. On first glance, it's not artsy; I thought it was some sort of model. I read the caption. "Researchers at Harvard are trying to make simple life forms, shown here in a computer image." "Shown here"? You don't show molecular biology in anything but an artist's conception. But the caption and the art style makes it seem like they're showing the actual work.

There's too much bruhaa and not enough science (I'd like to read the papers they refer to). The author makes it seem like a simple 1,2,3 process, but my guess is that each step requires entirely different conditions, materials and special tinkering to make work. If it were simple, it's have been done by somebody (or discovered) sometime in the last two centuries.

That being said, I don't discourage the research in principle (though I think that curing TB might aid humanity more). I'd like to see people try to make life. And I don't doubt we will be successful at creating an artificial cell, and that in the near future. I am very skeptical of our being able to create an artificial cell under anything like natural circumstances.

The Next Step

We have heard of the epic struggle of life, up from a single organism that struggled to survive. We have heard of the grand battle of this organism and its children to overcome the odds and live and reproduce and change. This great odyssey through the eons has become the narrative of our age, the modern story of our creation.

I often wonder about the story. What would it have been like? There were many great changes throughout the ages. Birds, for example, were one of these great changes from one category of creature to another. Did each of these first pioneers know the implications for the countless creatures that would follow? How long did the capacity to fly exist before the first proto-bird took to the sky? How many of those who could fly did?

It must have been a critical moment in the history of any species at such a point in evolution. Any creature who did not take the leap would die, out-competed and outlived by his courageous fellows who freed themselves from the shackles of gravity. His proud ancestral line of survivors, unbroken from the dawn of life to that day, was finally shattered by the great and cruel rod of selection. Perhaps his memory was not lost in the darkness of history; perhaps our knowledge of this race of creatures was informed by his inability to fly from a flood. If this is the case, we can thank him for teaching us of his failed strategy: stagnancy.

I have pondered what it would be to observe this phenomenon, and sometimes disappointed not to see it dramatically playing out in the animal kingdom. I have often wanted to see such a transition. I would have loved to see the first ambitious step onto dry land, or the first bold avian leap from a branch. It seems that we have reached something of an equilibrium, or at least it feels that way to a creature with a lifespan under a century.

But I’m not so sure that we're at equilibrium. I have a feeling that something is afoot; or rather something has been afoot. Unique amongst our fellow creatures, we are the first to begin to change our environment, rather than be changed by it. We have reached a critical point in intelligence where we have categorically become a different kind of creature: a reasoning one. One cannot study the natural history of art, religion, or morality. These all arise with humans, as if our step in intelligence was the one that crossed some sort of threshold, making us the first creature to enter the palace of reason. Like the early birds, have we finally developed some new capacity?

The twists and turns of evolution are so dramatic. Like the characters of a play, the bacteria, the plants, the fish, the land-creatures all take their places on the stage. In one scene late in the play, we can see the rise of the reptiles in an escalating battle for survival. The claws grow longer, the teeth sharper. Armor builds up on the backs of the great lizards like plating on battleships. Then, when one would predict the plot of ever thickening armor, the king to succeed the great Tyrannosaurus turns out to be the meek mammal. These small and unassuming creatures out-survive their reptilian masters, and then begin an arms-race of their own. Bigger and bigger brained creatures struggle for dominance. Then, humans enter, stage left, and we find ourselves on the stage of natural history. We are the biggest-brained of the big-brained creatures. So what’s next? Will our brains get bigger as reptilian armor got thicker? Or should we expect something unexpected?

It seems that we have already entered into the realm of reason; more brain power is not a dramatic change. And besides, our brains have produced machines which have more computing power than we could evolve in a millennium of millenniums. If we look to history, we should expect the change to be something dramatic, something new. How do we seek something new? And what hints can we look for?

If we were early birds, we could have contrasted ourselves to other creatures. We could have noticed that we were lighter than other creatures. We might have tried jumping and seeing that we could jump higher than other creatures. Then by progressive jumps, we would have learned to fly. So what is unique about humans? How could we jump?

We see the beginnings of our jumping. Though now we are not simply escaping the law of gravity, but the realm of matter. We have seen even the earliest of humans jumping to escape the rigid laws of death and decay through ceremonial burial. We see philosophers suggest the existence of forms and ideas, believing they transcend the material world. We try to read mathematicians who propose immaterial mathematical laws which they believe are foundational to the physical. We read authors and poets who write of places never seen and ideals never known. And we hear prophets who bear witness of a reality which is more real than any material thing. If these poets and prophets are not all mad, then truly we are at a critical point in the history of the cosmos: we have reached a point when we are no longer confined to the cosmos.

These men were those who jumped and glided. None of them ever said he could break out of the physical. But then there came one of us who claimed he could fly; he claimed that in himself, the visible and the invisible met. Moreover, he came with the message that we all could fly, and he showed us how. In so doing, he made sense out of our humanity. As the inexplicable and inconvenient feathers of the early birds finally made sense in flight, so too did this man make sense of humanity’s otherwise incomprehensible yearnings and graspings for invisible things.

Anyone who looked at his life would have believed that he made sense of humanity; he was the ideal human being. Every virtue to which we all aspire was fulfilled in him. The strange conflict between “ought” and “is” was resolved in his life. He was courageous and strong in fighting proud oppressors; he was kind in healing those who were hurting. His life provoked many to jealousy; but even they could say nothing against him. He was humble and did not glorify himself, but was in truth, born a king. He was deft at debate, and passionate in prayer. He loved others to the point of death. And then, to prove that he was no longer bound by death, he resurrected from the dead.

The first bird to spread its wings and fly was the greatest among the birds; it expressed the full essence of the species through flight. But soon, all birds became what they were destined to be: flying creatures. And now we can follow that first man who constructed a bridge between the visible with the invisible we all yearn for.

As eyeless creatures gained the ability to detect physical light, he suggested that the next step for our race is to use our new eyes and detect spiritual light (“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light” ). As the first men rose above animal instinct, he teaches that we now must rise above human instinct to divine nature (“He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature” ). As animals developed teeth for eating newer and more nutritious foods, so he calls us to eat a new kind of food altogether (“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” ). As the first organism transitioned from non-life to biological life, he promises us that by following him we could transition from biological life to spiritual life (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” ). As humans developed socially complex society, repenting of our tribalism, he urges the New Men to rise above complex societies to a heavenly kingdom (“Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ). This man is calling us to evolve to something more than human. Or rather, he is calling us to express the fullness of our humanity.

Will you not follow this man to the sky? Will you ignore the glimpses your young spiritual eyes have seen when the light is brightest, in the power of the thunderstorm, the grandeur of the mountaintop, or in the passion of a kiss? Will you watch as your fellow creatures reap the rewards of this new kind of existence while you debate within yourself whether wings can work? Will you remain a flightless bird?

Take flight! Take the leap into the air and fly! Or if you’re more hesitant, jump a little first and see how high you get. But for heaven’s sake, at least try! Try to open your spiritual eyes and see what of heaven is visible, or open your mouth to taste spiritual food. See what comforts and joys are to be experienced in this new Kingdom. One of those New Men who had new eyes saw this image of our race: “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Let us take the next step. Let us fly into eternity after Jesus Christ!

The Body and Cell Biology of Christ

1Cr 12:12 “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also [is] Christ.”

The Body of Christ is an analogy which may be far deeper than I originally gave it credit for. I have now studied basic cell biology a second time and have realized that this metaphor could be extended a bit. There is a hint here of something deeper. In this entry I'll describe a bit about biology in simple terms and show that there may be far more behind the body of Christ than Paul had time to write about in 1 Corinthians.

We know that all parts of the body come from a single fertilized egg, one set of DNA. Every cell in your body has a complete and almost perfect copy of the original DNA of the original fertilized egg. As the body grows, different parts of the genome are expressed or ‘turned on.’ As the body has need, the cells differentiate and become different kinds of cells. Early on, these cells become precursors. One precursor may become a skin cell or a hair cell, but does not become a nerve cell. Parts of the DNA are turned on or off to make a skin precursor different from a nerve precursor. Much of this switch-flipping is due to context; the environment of a precursor cell helps determine what it will become. More steps occur and more switches are turned in the DNA until the cells finally become a normal body cell like a skin cell or nerve cell. All cells have different roles and characteristics. Some are rapidly dividing like skin, others are slow like parts of the eye. Some are very strong like muscles, others are soft like ears. Even within a single tissue (the intestine), there is a wide variety of cells. There are some to lubricate, some to digest, some to secrete, some to fight infection. The incredible thing we have recently discovered is that under the proper conditions, the skin cell has all the information to become a nerve cell.

This is like the Church. The original seed was Christ; the DNA was the Word. That original message has been faithfully passed down to each and every member (cell) of His body. Throughout the growth of the Church, different teachers (precursor cells) have led different types of churches (normal body cells). The churches Paul planted were probably very different from the ones Peter planted in nature and character, though unified by the message (DNA), as nerves are different from skin. The kind of Christian that is produced by any local church is highly dependent on the environment. A Christian who comes to faith in a persecuted church may be far stronger than one from suburbia, as muscles are stronger than earlobes and become what they are by the context of their developing cells. The churches themselves have variety as the tissues do; an American church is not an African church as a patch of skin is not an intestine. Also the individual members of a church have vastly different talents and interests; some do accounting and some do preaching, as some cells do secreting and some do absorbing. The main point is that every single Christian is unified in the central message of the faith: the Gospel. In a similar way, every cell in a body is unified in that it has basically the exact same copy as every other cell; they, like Christians, are unified in the central message.

Normally cells behave very altruistically and will sacrifice themselves or will limit their individual growth for the good of the whole body. If the original DNA message is perverted, a cell may change its behavior. If it doesn’t sacrifice itself for the body, or if it grows faster than it ought to, it begins to grow. It becomes a tumor and drains away nutrients from the body. If it remains in its proper place, it is only an annoyance; if the perverted message spreads (if the cancer metastasizes) it may affect other parts of the body and lead to death.

This is like pride. A single man (or angel) may grow prideful and believe his role is more important than it is. As he waxes great, he may draw away others with him. He is annoying if he stays in his place, but if he leaves his place and his doctrine spread, it endangers the entire church and not just the man's neighborhood.

Maintaining the faithfulness of the original DNA message is critical to the survival of a person. There is a great amount of energy spent to keep the original message true. When it is copied, the machine that copies the DNA proofreads. After it has been copied, other machines come along and check for errors. Some even check to see if there is evidence of tampering or damage and will cause the entire cell to destroy itself with its DNA to prevent it from being copied again. Like the copying of the Bible and keeping true doctrine is essential for the success of the Church, the fidelity of the DNA is essential to the proper functioning of the body.

The same is true of the Word. Historically at least, Hebrew scholars checked and rechecked their work. When errors were suspected, they would burn the entire parchment. Reformers and apologists starting in the first century fought for pure doctrine (Rev 2:2) and opposed any changes to the original message. The maintenance of the Gospel and the Bible has been an incredible miracle and the reason why we still have a healthy Church today.

The Demise of Junk DNA and Implications for Medicine

[Personal Note: I'm trying to avoid schoolwork on Sundays (Mark 2:27), so I came back to my room to decide what to do. I remembered having a conversation with a few people on a few occasions this weekend about junk DNA. I said things which I believed but couldn't confirm (e.g. about the history of the term "junk DNA"). I figured I'd do that for a bit and then decide what to do, but then 5 hours went by. And I had written this. I like to write, but usually don't have the time, and don't know if I will ever again.

I've tried to make this accessible, so I'll need double forgiveness. My medical school readers, pardon me for explaining what DNA does... again. I know you're paying attention in MoBio. For my non-med school readers, I apologize for all the jargon I don't know is jargon. If anything is unclear, please tell me so I can remember how normal humans talk outside of the kingdom of Medschoolandia.

I know it's long, but comments would be much appreciated.]

Introduction

As you probably know DNA is our code. We used to think that DNA only coded for protein. Proteins are the machines in our cells which do everything from contract our muscles to filtering our blood and everything in between. We have about 25,000 proteins encoded in our body to do every conceivable function. The strange part is that these protein coding sequences are only a few percent of the total genome. The mystery thirty years ago was: why do we have a 3 billion-letter code when we only need 60 million for proteins?

History Lesson

The initial answer came from the theory of evolutionary. If we evolved by random and accidental processes, it is reasonable to believe that seemingly useless codes are actually useless, vestigial organs or genetic fossils. If there were no designer concerned about the elegance and efficiency of his code, then one ought not expect elegance.

This was formally postulated in the early years of DNA sequencing. This view was first offered by Susuma Ohno who wrote in a 1972 article titled So Much ‘Junk DNA’ in our Genome, “Our view is that [junk DNA segments] are the remains of nature’s experiments which failed. The earth is strewn with fossil remains of extinct species; is it a wonder that our genome too is filled with the remains of extinct genes?”

This was the dogma for almost three decades. Searching the literature (ISI Web of Knowledge; a database of most of the peer-reviewed science writing) for the phrase “Junk DNA,” one finds it used initially in 1972, then used throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Scientists built their theories on it and operated under the assumption that the ‘junk’ was useless.

One group even made a computer simulation to prove that evolution predicts junk DNA. In an article in the journal Science (one of the two superpowers in the scientific world) “Computer Genome'' Is Full of Junk DNA the author writes, “The simulation clearly shows that eukaryotic genomes…will evolve to a large size most of which sequences are vestigial in some way” (everything more advanced than a yeast cell is ‘eukaryotic,’ including humans). He continues to say that, “Most of the DNA in eukaryotic genomes…did nothing at all.” Then he waxes poetic to conclude, “Molecular maps … of DNA are characterized by islands of transcribed sequences [proteins code] in a sea of silent DNA.” This captures the mood of the era.

As an aside, there is something you should know about biologists: they, like most scientists, are loathed to challenge dogma (It surprised me to find that they actually admit to this diction in scientific papers and say things like “…consistent with the postulate of the ‘central dogma,’” and “…without infringing Crick's central doctrine…”). There were very early, weak suggestions that junk DNA might have some purpose (when you screw it up, it screws up the animal), but nothing to speak of until the 90’s.

The first explicit attack on the Junk DNA notion wasn’t from a biologist (who, above all else, seemed terrified of boat-rocking), but a cryptographer named Simon Shepherd. He figured, “nature would not go to all that trouble [to copy junk DNA] without reason.” In 1993, he used signal analysis to guess at a purpose for junk DNA. His conclusion, with absolutely no background in biology and analyzing only sections of the genome (the human genome project wasn’t finished yet), was that the non-coding sections between genes was an error correcting code making sure that proteins came out properly (The cryptographer who took a crack at 'junk' DNA. New Scientist, 26 June 1993; it turns out that he correctly guessed one of the purposes of it). Though significant historically speaking, the journal he published in doesn’t have much say in where science goes.

Quiet support for the theory of useful junk built up in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but no one openly and seriously challenged the term ‘junk DNA,’ at least not in the scientific literature. Then finally in 1994 a pair of articles in Science challenged, for the first time in the mainstream scientific literature, the notion of Junk DNA (“Mining Treasure from ‘Junk DNA,’” Vol. 263, No. 5147 pp. 608-610 published in February and “Hints of a Language in Junk DNA,” Vol. 266. no. 5189, p. 1320 published in November). In the earlier article, several possible functions of non-coding DNA were suggested by reputable researchers, (who published their work without using the term ‘junk DNA’). The article concludes with this: “Enough gems have already been uncovered in the genetic midden to show that what was once thought to be waste is definitely being transmuted into scientific gold.” The latter article concludes with a quotation from the Harvard biologist Walter Gilbert, “I think what we call ‘junk DNA’ will have a number of uses.”

1994 was the year the dam broke. Once there was mainstream support for “Junk DNA,” biologists jumped right on the bandwagon. Once Science said it was OK to say that Junk DNA had a purpose, many articles were published to that effect. Throughout the 90’s and into the new millennium, people began to find role after role for junk DNA. Everyone was bashing Junk DNA starting 1994 and lasting a decade. Here is a brief history of article titles throughout the years:

1972 - “So Much ‘Junk DNA’ in our Genome,” Brookhaven Symposium on BioLOGY

1986 - “’Computer Genome’ Is Full of Junk DNA,” SCIENCE

1994 - “Hints of a Language in Junk DNA” SCIENCE,

1998 - “Should scientists scrap the notion of junk DNA?,” J. NAT’L CANCER INSTITUTE

2006 - “Regulatory RNAs and the demise of 'junk' DNA,” GENOME BIOLOGY

In 2006, it seemed that people finally realized that the junk DNA horse was actually dead, and whipping it was no longer nearly as much fun as had been in the late 90’s. Unfortunately the term ‘junk DNA’ proved too sticky and did not un-stick, even to this day (people call it ‘junk DNA’ believing it has a purpose… that’s the trouble with catchy nicknames). It is interesting to notice the time gap between 1994 and 2006. In a little over a decade we went from ‘A hint of language’ to the ‘demise of junk DNA.’

Now it is believed that non-coding sequences may even be more important than the actual ‘coding’ regions. We have seen non-coding DNA control how proteins are expressed. In other words, non-coding DNA tells the cell how much protein to make. If the coding DNA is like the blueprint for a car, the non-coding DNA is the factory foreman telling deciding to make 1000 cars instead of 10). The non-coding DNA that does this is sometimes immediately around a code, sometimes interspersed between the code, and sometimes even tens of thousands of letters away (like a boss in New York ordering the Detroit factory to slow down production). We’ve seen RNAs which don’t ever turn into proteins further regulating things and doing things we thought only proteins could do. The “Crick Doctrine” and every other dogma we held about DNA have been overturned. Having overcome the arrogant assumption that what we don’t understand isn’t important, we have discovered a whole new world which we are just now beginning to explore.

Lessons Learned?

So what did we learn from this little history lesson? Firstly, that science makes mistakes. BIG mistakes. Going from 3% useful DNA to over 30% useful DNA (and climbing) is a BIG mistake (a tenfold error). Secondly, that science can correct itself, and it can do so relatively quickly. Making a 180 like that in a matter of a decade is laudable. Not that this is a good thing overall. I mean that we should praise a science as we praise a child when he apologizes for hitting his sister. It is a shameful thing that happened, but better than if the apology never came.

And that is the story on Junk DNA. So let us continue our discussion by looking at what got us into this mess to begin with: a bad theory. The bad theory was that we arose by a sloppily process. We theorized that the mechanism by which we came about was a messy one with a lot of errors and inefficiencies. It has turned out that this, at least when it comes to DNA, was simply and clearly wrong.

May I humbly suggest another theory? I propose we think of the life as arising from an elegant process instead of a sloppy one. We ought to form a better theory, one that conforms to our data: that whatever formed life as we know it behaves as if it was an artist, an engineer and a designer.

When we see a genetic code, let’s not dismiss the 97% of the code as ‘junk’ when we don’t understand it. When we see a new protein, we ought to first assume it is part of an elegant system, not a useless piece of trash left over by an idiotic process. When we see an organ that we don’t understand, instead of first assuming a useless piece of flesh handed down by a process too stupid to take it out, let us be agnostic on its purpose and encourage ambitious scientists to try to figure it out. We have asserted our assumption when there is no data. We’ve pointed at the poor little organ and, for a century, shouted at it, “Useless!” I wouldn’t work under those conditions either.

It’s a good thing Duke researchers are leading the way by rejecting the old theory, or at least behaving like they did. Last year, they showed that the appendix has a useful role in repopulating good bacteria in the intestines and may be important in surviving intestinal diseases like Cholera (Hampton, T. A Use for the Appendix? JAMA. 2007; 298(21):2474).

You may think that all this talk about theories is simply an academic point, that we can agree to disagree, and that you can believe your way and I mine. But this is truly a life-and-death issue.

There was a huge reluctance to spend time or money studying non-coding DNA because of the assumption that it was junk. It turns out now that many diseases are actually caused by mutations in non-coding DNA. We can now do genetic counseling preventing transmission and are beginning to develop treatments. But this has only happened very recently because, until about a decade ago, we were still comfortable in our assumption that non-coding DNA was useless. The same goes for the appendix; 321,000 Americans were hospitalized in 2005 because of the appendix. How many lives may have been saved if we tried to figure out how the organ worked fifty years ago instead of dismissing it as another mistake by our sloppy friend evolution? How many people have died because of our stubbornness in clinging to a bad scientific theory?

Even if we were to assume atheistic evolution, I'm only suggesting that maybe we don't know who evolution really is, deep down. Maybe it is a process misunderstood. We may look at a man's desk and say he is sloppy and stupid, but that man may turn out to be a genius whose brilliance is hidden under a messy desk. Maybe, just maybe, evolution is that genius. We should, upon seeing the brilliance of evolution, reject the notion of it being stupid and embrace and even expect its genius.

Evolution of Christianity

While in class, we learned about the mechanisms of evolution of life. There are four ways that life develops. Anyways, I got the idea that maybe the same mechanisms apply to ideas. I will describe each mechanism, how it applies to life, and the analogy to ideas using Christianity as a particular example of an idea.

Natural Selection
Natural selection is generally what you think of when you hear "survival of the fittest." The main idea is that the fit organisms reproduce, passing their genes to the next generation while the others don't. In the case of a finch, those with the stoutest beaks on an island of hard nuts wouldn't starve as often and so have more stout-beaked finches. Also, a fit animal must produce offspring that can themselves reproduce. An animal that has sterile offspring has no fitness.

"Fitness" then is defined generally by the ability to pass on genes. Actual survival value is not always necessary. For example, peacocks are very poor fliers because of their huge tails; but those with big tails mate better, so flight is sacrificed for appearance.

For ideas, 'fit' ideas are those which are passed on. The Gospel, for example, has excellent fitness, as it has been passed on from a single individual to now around 2 billion. Gnosticism went extinct because of the superior fitness of Christianity. The "fitness" of a Christian, then, is his or her ability to transmit that faith to others. Also, if these converts do not themselves convert others (are 'sterile'), then the Christian is not fit.

Truth is like survival value; truth increases believer's ability to live fulfilled lives (e.g. people who believe in loving their neighbor as themsleves lead more fulfilled lives than those who don't). Like survival value, it is not necessary for a fit idea to be true; like exaggerated tail feathers, false ideas that look good may transmit despite the detriment to the believer.

Genetic Drift
Genetic drift is the natural variations in the expected based on chance. It's like how a blue eyed woman and a brown eyed man may have four blue-eyed children. It's most likely they would have two blue-eyed and two brown-eyed children, but it just didn't turn out that way. In a population, the incidence of blue eyed individuals may be like this family and go up simply due to chance. This is genetic drift.

The effects of genetic drift are increased when populations are small. In the case of the family (initial population size of 2), the brown-eye gene was completely eliminated in the next generation simply by chance. This is much less likely with large populations; the population's genetics don't drift as far when the population is large.

Ideas can also vary greatly from any initial starting point. Christianity has strayed, greatly at times, from the original teachings of Jesus. It could be said that the idea of justification by faith completely disappeared in the Western European population of Christians in the early middle ages.

This effect is pronounced when populations are small. Cults form when too few people isolate themselves from the rest of the population. Early in the church when the population was tiny, heresy abounded in the Gnostics and Judiazers.

Gene Flow
Gene flow is transfer of genetic material between populations. It's like a brown eyed person moving to Holland to get married. A brown-eye gene will be transferred to the Dutch population which doesn't have very much of it. Gene flow works to limit genetic drift. In other words, it makes populations seem bigger (genetically) than they are. There are more genes available, so drift is lessened.

Like genes, humans can exchange information through writing. With ideas, collaboration keeps ideas from drifting. Paul's letters allowed isolated and small populations of believers in Ephesus to limit their tendency to drift towards heresy. Likewise with science, the Literature and the peer-review process prevents the flow of ideas from drifting.

Mutation
Here is the fun one. Mutation is a random change in the genes of an organism. It may be caused by a mutagen (like in Ninja Turtles), or even something as simple as sunlight (UV is particularly nasty to DNA). This process eventually leads to the creation of new genetic material and thus new adaptations which, if they increase the fitness of an organism, would be maintained in the population. Mutations, however, are almost always detrimental and usually are eliminated in the first generation. Mutation is the only mechanism that can actually create new genetic information; all other processes only manage or modify existing information.

In ideas, mutation seems to correlate with revelation or epiphany. Most of human interaction is exchanging old ideas (gene flow). It is very rare that anyone thinks of anything novel. Rather, it is rare that a novel idea is actually fit (people pass it on) or true. There are many, many new ideas that are wrong and stupid that people have but no one repeats.

Focusing again on Christianity, Jesus was the first to introduce this new idea to the world; it turned out to be very fit and very true so survived and was passed on. It can be said that people like Paul, Aquinas and Luther may have all added information and ideas to Christianity that were truly novel and passable. In Luther's case, he caused an insertion of information that had been lost due to the "genetic drift" of the Catholic church during the Middle Ages.


Anyways, it was a fun thing to think about. I have not thought out the implications or further applications of this idea as yet.