Here is the fun part. Scientists knew that as you go up the evolutionary scale, simple organisms have less DNA and when you get to the level of humans, with the complexity of our physiology and our behavior, we have a lot more DNA. They thought that primitive organisms would have maybe a few thousand genes but humans were going to have approximately 150,000 genes, which meant 150,000 new drugs. The project began in 1987 and just showed again that when humans really put their heads together they can create miracles. In only about fourteen years we actually had the results of the human genome. It also was what I call a cosmic joke.

To begin the human genome project they first studied a primitive organism, a miniature worm that is barely visible with your eye. These worms had been an experimental animal for geneticists because they reproduce very quickly and in very large numbers and thereby express traits that you can study. They found that this small animal had a genome of about 24,000 genes. Then they decided to do one more genetic model before doing the human and that was with the fruit fly because of the large amount of information already available on the genetics and behavior of fruit flies. The fruit fly genome turned out to have only about 18,000 genes. The primitive worm had 24,000 genes and this flying machine had only 18,000 genes! They didn't understand what that meant but put it on the back burner and started the work on the human genome project.

The results came in 2001 and were a major shock: in the human genome there are only about 25,000 genes; they expected nearly 150,000 genes and there were only about 25,000! It was such a shock that people actually didn't talk about it. While there was a lot of hoopla about completing the human genome project, no one talked about the 100,000 missing genes. There was complete lack of discussion in the scientific journals about it. When they realized there were not enough genes to account for human complexity, it shook the foundation of biology

Why is it so important?  If a science is based on the way life really works, that science would be good for use in medical practice. But if you base your science on wrong information, then that science could be detrimental to medical practice. It is now a recognized fact that conventional allopathic medicine, the primary medicine we use in Western civilization, is a leading cause of death in the United States. It is also responsible for one out of five deaths in Australia. In the Journal of the American Medical Association Dr. Barbara Starfield wrote an article revealing that from conservative estimates, the practice of medicine is the third leading cause of death in the United States. However, there is a more recent study by Gary Null (see Death by Medicine at: www.garynull.com). He found that rather than being the third leading cause of death, it is the first leading cause with over three-quarters of a million people dying from medical treatment each year. If medicine actually knew what it was doing, it wouldn't be that lethal.

I left the university in 1980, seven years before the human genome project was started because I already was aware that genes didn't control life. I was aware that the environment was influential but my colleagues looked at me as not just being a radical but a heretic because I was conflicting with the dogma; therefore this became a religious argument. At some point the religiosity of where I was led me to resign my position. That's when I started to advance into understanding about brain function and neuroscience. What I was really trying to find out is if it's not the DNA that controls cells, then where is the "brain" of the cell?

The Computer Within

The new biology revealed that the brain of the cell is its skin, the mem-brane, the interface of the interior of the cell and the ever-changing world we live in. It is the functional element that controls life. This is important because understanding its function reveals that we are not victims of our genes. Through the action of the cell membrane we can actually control our genes, our biology and our life and we have been doing it all along although we have been laboring under the belief that we are victims.