"We are not the victim of our genes" and other life changing lessons

I was brought up to believe that reality is fundamentally materialistic. Not in the acquisitive sense, of course, but in the sense that reality is a) made up only of physical matter (no matter how small the scale) and b) all matter (from planets to electrons) can be measured (if it can't it doesn't exist) and c) all matter is governed by predictable, deterministic laws of nature. In this stark view of reality, there is no room for blurred grey areas, freewill, romanticism and religion. Airy-fairy terms like 'spirit' , 'soul', 'miracles', and 'God' all make reference to things that are immaterial. To resolve this awkward affront to the materialist world order, these terms should be accorded the conceptual status of other figments of the imagination, such as 'Santa Claus'. And the ultimate mysterious ephemera that has plagued philosophers for centuries – known as 'consciousness' – should be brought down to earth and reduced to electrical signals taking place within the physical brain. Even that grand antithesis of Newtonian determinism, quantum physics, should be co-opted so that a mechanistic logic can continue to prevail unto eternity.

I'm writing this post having just finished Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief, my curiosity with immaterial reality and its place in science freshly stoked. I trace this curiosity back to the tectonic quarter-life crisis I weathered in 2012. I was an atheist until events in life catapulted me onto the fence of agnosticism. But the aftershocks of the crisis were so deep that I detached myself even further from organised religion and became a self-described 'spiritual' person for whom believing isn't just about seeing.

It was around this time that I took up yoga and qigong. Both of these ancient practices focus on unblocking a person's energy channels for the purpose of fostering inner vitality. The transformation that resulted from my new hobby was almost immediate (although it has taken some effort since to maintain it). I became calmer, yet more focussed; more flexible yet stronger; more connected with my surroundings and less self-centred. My empathic side got its place in the sun, beaming not only towards my fellow human beings but also towards nature. I realised more and more that humans are part of a greater ecosystem and that the disharmony we have created with our environment by being too brain smart and testosterone-driven is leading to our demise with a lot of collateral damage. 

So it was against this mental backdrop that I came across Lipton's book.

Just like me, Lipton was a dyed-in-the-wool materialist. But unlike me, he spent the last 35 or so years studying the behaviour of human cells and can count among his various achievements the mastery of stem cells cloning. The Biology of Belief is a science book written for the layperson and it is very well done. Lipton writes lucidly with a knack for using easy-to-understand analogies to convey the fiddly bits of how cells work at a microscopic level as well as more theoretical concepts. 

Unlike most other popular science books, the backbone of The Biology of Belief is a touching account of Lipton's personal transformation from being a scientific materialist to being someone who has probably found an answer to how science and spirituality intersects.

To save you reading the book (although I highly recommend it) I present you with 8 lessons I learned from Lipton. Together they have happy implications for preventative health care and not so happy implications for conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.

Lesson 1: Going beyond Darwin: we are not victims of our genes

Despite incredible advances in science, Newtonian mechanics still rules in biological research. This is most apparent in the reigning 'ideology' of genetic determinism: our fates are sealed by the genes we have inherited. But as Lipton says, “defective genes acting alone only account for about 2% of our total disease load”, and that the most common killers, such as heart disease and diabetes, “are not the result of a single gene, but of complex interactions among multiple genes and environmental factors”. In his mind, the biotech industry is barking up the wrong tree.

Lipton is an advocate of a new(ish) strain in biological research known as epigenetics, which hands power over to the environment in determining how well or ill you'll turn out to be. “Epigenetics [is] the study of the molecular mechanisms by which environment controls gene activity.”

The “molecular mechanisms” referred to form the crux of a Copernican Revolution in the thinking about cell biology. The conventional wisdom is that the brain of the cell is contained in its nucleus, which houses its genetic material – DNA. That's because it was assumed that the behaviour of the cell – and when writ large as an entire multicellular organism – must be determined by that genetic material. Environment has very little influence on behaviour. Lipton undercuts this thinking with a thought experiment (although there's no doubt that he's actually done this) whereby the nucleus of a cell is removed – a process known as enucleation. Would an enucleated cell survive? If the cell's nucleus is functionally equivalent to the brain, you'd think that chopping its head off in this way would kill it. But such cells do survive! An enucleated cell can survive for up to two or more months! What removing the genetic material does is destroy the cell's ability to make copies of itself and to replace bits of itself that have gone faulty through normal wear and tear. The inability to keep itself in mint condition is what eventually kills the cell rather than the lack of genes.

Lesson 2: It's the membrane, stupid

So where is the cell's brain? Lipton says it's the cell membrane (mem-brain, get it?), which is essentially the cell's skin. If you were to remove it, the cell wouldn't last a day. The membrane is what allows the cell to communicate with its surroundings, and therefore to come up with ways to survive in an ever changing environment. Similarly, us humans communicate with our surroundings via receptors in our skin, in our eyes, on our tongues, inside our ears etc. A person who is blind, deaf, has aguesia (the inability to taste) and can't detect when his hand is submerged in burning coals won't survive for very long.

So it is the function of the cell membrane that gives the cell intelligence. Intelligence, widely understood, is an organism's ability to interact with its environment in a way that leads it to survive (and hopefully reproduce). The stimulus-response mechanism that's implicated here is the most basic unit of information exchange. The cell membrane is therefore the frontier of intelligence! According to Lipton, it is the molecular mechanisms happening at the cell membrane that governs cell behaviour. It is at the membrane that the cell is able to detect and respond to certain environmental stimuli, chemical (e.g. nutrients, hormones) or electromagnetic. And it is at this critical juncture that the environmental stimuli are able to switch genes on and off.

Lesson 3: It's the environment, stupid

“Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress and emotions, can modify those genes without changing their basic blueprint” (Lipton, p.37)

This is one of the tenets of epigenetics. To begin to even understand it, we have to go back to Biology 101. I'll let Lipton do the teaching with his 'sleeve' analogy:

“In the chromosome, the DNA forms the core, and the [regulatory] proteins cover the DNA like a sleeve. When the genes are covered, their information cannot be “read”. Imagine your bare arm as a piece of DNA representing the gene that codes for blue eyes. In the [cell] nucleus, this stretch of DNA is covered by bound regulatory proteins, which cover your blue-eye gene like a shirtsleeve, making it impossible to be read. How do you get that sleeve off? You need an environmental signal to spur the “sleeve” protein to change shape, i.e., detach from the DNA's double helix, allowing the gene to be read. Once the DNA is uncovered, the cell makes a copy of the exposed gene. As a result, the activity of the gene is “controlled” by the presence or absence of the ensleeving proteins, which are in turn controlled by environmental signals.” (Lipton, p.37-38)

So this picture of how things work at a cellular level completely overturns the conventional Primacy of DNA doctrine whereby “DNA is implicated as a “source” that controls the character of the cell's proteins” and therefore the structure and behaviour of the cell (Lipton, p.33).

As mentioned above, the cell membrane is where all the intelligent action is happening. The membrane is embedded with tens of thousands of what Lipton calls “perception switches” or protein receptors. Each of these are “tuned” to or activated by a very specific environmental stimulus. For instance, histamine receptors are activated by histamine (us allergic types will have many times experienced the work of histamine) while estrogen receptors are activated by estrogen. Different nerve cells in the central nervous system are activated by chemical secretions known as neurotransmitters, enzymes and so on.

It's the simultaneous reading by these reflexive perception switches of the cell's environment which gives rise to the cell's complex behaviour.

According to Lipton, the bottom line is that we are designed by nature to fit a certain environment. “In fact, every functional protein in our body is made as a complementary “image” of an environment signal.” (Lipton, p.159)

Interesting thought: If humans are made in the image of God, then the environment is God.

Unfortunately, we have so radically changed our environment that our genetic makeup is no longer complementary to it. In other words, the rate of cultural evolution has so overtaken the rate of biological evolution that it has led to what the evolutionary biologist and author Daniel Lieberman calls “mismatches”. This mismatch is most evident in health. In his book The Story of the Human Body (2013)  he argues that diseases including certain cancers, heart disease, Type II diabetes, osteoporosis and even myopia (short-sightedness) are all consequences of our body's evolutionary adaptations being out of synch with our modern lifestyles and environment. After all, our bodies were built to move (a lot) and not to sit in chairs all day snacking away at sugary and processed foods.

In other words, certain environments can literally bring out the best and worst in people.

Lesson 4: Could Lamarckism be back in fashion?

Lipton is now one of many scientists who is resuscitating Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's evolutionary theory, which was superceded by, and therefore a victim of, Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' theory. Lamarck focussed a great deal on the interaction between an organism and its environment, as well as on how the cooperation between organisms and species allows entire ecosystems to evolve and thrive. In other words, it presented the antithesis of Darwin's theory which focusses on individual survival in a cut-throat world where every man is for himself. But despite the supremacy of Darwinianism in biology (and, more worryingly, in politics, economics and sociology), biologists have long recognised the phenomenon of symbiosis or the interdependence of organisms for collective survival. To understand symbiosis, look no further than your own gut, which supports a vast society of microbes. Without these microbes, you would have trouble digesting your food and fighting unwelcome pathogens. Equally, without your need to digest food and fight unwelcome pathogens, there would be no need for these microbes.

Yet it appears that a systems theory of biology as advocated by Lipton still remains at the fringes of biological research.

What's most interesting for the purposes of this exploration is that the aspect of Lamarckism that was laughed into its grave by Darwinians is now being given a second chance. This is the thesis that organisms can pass on novel adaptations or traits acquired during their lifetimes, to their offspring. The German biologist August Weismann famously conducted an experiment to test the validity of Lamarckism by chopping off the tails of rats and seeing whether their offspring would be similarly tail-less. Of course they weren't. So much for Lamarckism then.

Now fast forward a century to studies that show that epigenetic modifications to genetic activity can be passed on to younger generations. Recall that environmental stimuli can modify gene activity without changing the DNA sequence of a gene. This can be done by modifying the 'sleeve' of regulatory proteins that has bound to the gene, thereby switching it on or off.

Lipton says: “[T]hose modifications, epigeneticists have discovered, can be passed on to future generations as surely as DNA blueprints are passed on via the double helix.”

But the story doesn't end there. This sharing of epigenetic modifications doesn't just happen between generations. Genetic information can be transferred among members of different species through a mechanism duly known as genetic transfer. Understanding this illuminates the dangers of tinkering with nature artificially, not least by genetic engineering. Lipton cites a 2004 study (p.14) that showed that people who eat GM food are susceptible to altering the character of the beneficial bacteria in their intestines. Implication: “There is no wall between species”.

Lesson 5: Quantum physics gets to the heart of life

Having been a materialist for much of his professional career, Lipton ignored quantum physics for as long as he possibly could. Quantum physics had no place in the Newtonian mechanistic understanding of biology in which all players can be measured in mass and weight (atoms and molecules) and events happen in a linear fashion à la Newtonian mechanics (A causes B causes C...). When Lipton finally woke up to the power of quantum physics, the effect on his thinking was transformative. He recognised the importance in biology of the fundamental principle that an atom can both act like a particle and energy (waves) and that, ultimately, mass and energy are inextricably intertwined as in Einstein's famous E = MC2.

“Each atom is unique because the distribution of its negative and positive charges, coupled with its spin rate, generates a specific vibration or frequency pattern.” (Lipton, p.87)

For the first time, Lipton could see the revolutionary potential this 'new' physics has on our understanding of health and disease. It was 1982 when he had this epiphany. Alas, biological research remains stuck in the 'dark age' of the reductionist and linear approach of Newtonian mechanics in which cells are merely cogs within the body's assembly line.

“The reductionist model suggests that if there is a problem in the system, evident as a disease or dysfunction, the source of the problem can be attributed to a malfunction in one of the steps along the chemical assembly line.” (Lipton, p.72)

This approach has filled the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry, which is intent on discovering and selling 'magic bullet' drugs to alleviate single sources of malfunction.

This blithely approach ignores the fact that “the flow of information in the quantum universe is holistic.”

“Cellular constituents are woven into a complex web of crosstalk, feedback, and feedforward communication loops. A biological dysfunction may arise from a miscommunication along any of the routes of information flow.”(Lipton, p.72)

An informational minefield

It is therefore crucial that biologists take on a systems approach. Such an approach clarifies why many prescription drugs, which target a certain malfunction in the body, often have side effects, some of them fatal. For instance, it has been shown that synthetic hormone replacement therapy can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Lesson 6: The primacy of energy

To recap: the epigenetic thesis states that it is the environment that governs the behaviour of everything from single cells to multicellular organisms like humans by controlling the 'reading' of genetic material. The environment includes not only physical stimuli like nutrients, neurotransmitters and hormones but also 'invisible' stuff like electromagnetic radiation i.e. energy.

Apparently there have been “hundreds upon hundreds of scientific studies” that have shown the epigenetic effect that energy has on regulating “DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis...” (Lipton, p.81).

“The behaviour of energy waves is important for biomedicine because vibrational frequencies can alter the physical and chemical properties of an atom as surely as physical signals like histamine and estrogen.” (Lipton, p.86)

We now know that a cell can only survive if it is able to receive and interpret environmental signals. Crucially, its survival depends on the speed and efficiency in which it is able to do this.

Back in 1974, an Oxford University biophysicist named CWF McClare revealed that:

“Energetic signalling mechanisms such as electromagnetic frequencies are a hundred times more efficient in relaying environmental information than physical signals such as hormones, neurotransmitters, growth factors etc.” (Lipton, p.81)

and,

“Energy signals are 100 times more efficient and infinitely faster than physical chemical signalling. What kind of signalling would your trillion-celled community prefer? Do the math!” (Lipton, p.82)

Despite a respectable body of research, the role of energy in biological mechanisms does not feature in biomedical science curriculums in the US (at least). If the life sciences are to progress, there needs to be an interdisciplinary field that encompasses biology with quantum physics, electrical engineering and chemistry.

Perhaps then scientists and those practising 'allopathic' medicine (i.e. the conventional medical practice of using drugs and surgery to fight disease) will take more seriously the power of alternative therapies (e.g. qigong, yoga, reiki, acupuncture etc) that use energy to heal.

Ironically, despite its contempt for alternative therapies, science implicitly acknowledges that every single one of us is a varying energy field. This is why conventional medicine uses such technologies as fMRI, PET and CAT scans to detect abnormalities in a person's energy field.

A person can therefore quite literally have 'good vibes' or 'bad vibes'. Good vibes is a way to describe what is essentially the 'constructive interference' or 'harmonic resonance' of frequencies while bad vibes is a way to describe what is essentially the 'destructive interference' of frequencies. A well-known example of constructive interference is when an opera singer shatters glass because the frequency of her bellowing matches and then heightens that of the frequency of the glass. On a more ephemeral level, an example of constructive interference is the chemistry one feels with another who is on the 'same wavelength'.

It's fascinating how language contains so much implicit wisdom!

Not only this, but the very foundation of an organism's communication with its surroundings is it reading energy fields. If someone with bad vibes walks into a room, it takes an incredibly insensitive person not to notice that person. And yet this kind of insensitivity is abound.

“Because humans are so dependent on spoken and written language, we have neglected our energy sensing communication system. As with any biological function, a lack of use leads to atrophy.” (Lipton, p.90)

Energy healers or people who work to unblock energy channels aim to promote constructive interference in our minds and bodies.

But we can also do this – with our thoughts.

Lesson 7: Mind over Body

After hundreds of years under the rule of Cartesian dualism, the science world has finally reached the stage that it is able to recognise that there is no fundamental difference between mind and body. Even single cells have a mind in that they are aware of their surroundings enough to be able to respond to it.

Furthermore, if mind is simply energy, then, as we saw earlier in the section on quantum physics, mind is entangled with body (matter). Mind and body influence each other.

“Thoughts, the mind's energy, directly influence how the physical brain controls the body's physiology. Thought “energy” can activate or inhibit the cell's function-producing proteins via the mechanics of constructive and destructive interference.” (Lipton, p.95)

This paves the way for our understanding the healing power of positive thinking (constructive interference) and explains a whole lot of mind-over-body phenomena: from why we lose our appetite when we are under great stress, to the placebo effect, to how qigong masters are able to balance their throats on sharp spears, to why yogis are able to walk on scorching hot coals. Lipton also talks about the so-called 'nocebo' effect or the power of negative thinking. He cites a famous 1970s case in America in which a man who was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus died – but not from having cancer. An autopsy revealed that he only had a few cancerous specks on his liver and one on his lung – certainly nothing fatal.

“Troublesome nocebo cases suggest that physicians, parents, and teachers can remove hope by programming you to believe you are powerless.” (Lipton, p.113)

Again this all comes back to the epigenetic thesis that it is the environment (in this case thoughts) that controls the behaviour of an organism.

It all bodes ill for the pharmaceutical industry. As we've seen: thoughts can propel behaviour more efficiently than physical molecules (e.g. drugs).

Lesson 8: Conscious Parenting and the Subconscious Mind

Does epigenetics have implications for parenting? Lipton cites pioneering research by the likes of Thomas Verney (1981), David Chambers (1998) and Peter W. Nathanielsz (1999) as well as more recent studies that illuminate the unmistakable effect both parents have on the wellbeing of their child while it's still in the womb. The findings extend well beyond congenital disorders such as fetal alcohol syndrome to encompass how parental attitudes and beliefs at the prenatal stage can have a significant effect on the child's eventual physical and mental wellbeing. A child that was conceived with love and the support of friends and family will likely be better off than a child who was unwanted or whose parents were undergoing high levels of stress (emotional, financial etc.) during pregnancy.

Through the principle of epigenetics, parents are unwitting “genetic engineers” of their child's mental and physical wellbeing. So both parents have a duty to their child to maintain a happy and healthy prenatal womb environment.

“In the final stages of egg and sperm maturation, a process called genomic imprinting adjusts the activity of specific groups of genes that will shape the character of the child yet to be conceived.” (Lipton, p.142)

Of course we all know that the environment continues to have an effect on child development after birth.

Lipton talks at length about the formative role of parents, teachers and peers in programming a child's subconscious mind, which, in evolutionary terms, is the oldest chunk of our intelligence that's one above our mammalian instincts.

The conscious mind is the seat of freewill, creativity and self-awareness, and therefore it's no surprise that we are led to believe that it is the conscious mind that controls the levers of our behaviour. Yet, only about 5 per cent of what we call 'the mind' is conscious.

And so it is the other 95 per cent – our subconscious mind – that holds the levels of control. The subconscious mind is a fast, efficient information processor that reads environmental signals both outside and within us and then, in response, it automatically taps into a memory bank of innate instincts, learned behaviours and perceptions. It is the subconscious mind that evaluates moment to moment the signals coming from a changing environment and then determines which learned behaviours and perceptions are most appropriate for that moment. This background humming of activity frees up the conscious mind to daydream about plans and visions for the future or rue over past events. If the subconscious mind is the quiet task master that gets on with it, the conscious mind is the wayward visionary that, for some of us, doesn't get much done!

How does parenting come into all this? The subconscious mind of a young person is like a blank slate. It readily absorbs the attitudes and beliefs and behavioural patterns of parents, caregivers, teachers and friends without discrimination. These attitudes, beliefs and behavioural patterns of other people become 'hardwired' in the subconscious which then shape that person's own attitudes and beliefs about the world. Why do you think it's common for a person to think or act like Mum or Dad? So while the conscious mind gives us a sense of “self”, the subconscious is really a mash-up of thoughts and behaviours coming from outside.

Inheritance, then, is not restricted to the transfer of genes from parent to child.

Sadly, the aims of the conscious mind often clash with those of the subconscious mind. To repeat, the subconscious mind is the quiet task master while the conscious mind is the wayward visionary. And in the business of behavioural control, it is the hardworking subconscious mind that is almost always guaranteed the upper hand. For instance, if you were brought up to believe that life should be about securing a well-paid job in a large corporation, no matter how dull the job, you may find yourself stuck in that job for longer than you'd wished because your conscious mind – the receptacle of your dreams and creativity – is losing the battle with your subconscious mind. Or if you are gay and were raised in a society that believes that homosexuality is a sin against God, then you're likely to face some troubling existential struggles.

In my case, recall at the start of this overly long post that I was programmed to believe that reality is absolute and material. Despite my turn towards a more holistic belief system, I still detect 'tension' within me whenever I read about spirituality and energy healing. The hold of a materialistic worldview is just that strong.

That's why much of modern psychology is geared towards re-programming a person's subconscious, to undo thought patterns that may not be healthy for the individual in a changing environment.

So to end (!) – contrary to the doctrine of genetic determinism, “no matter how “good” one's genes may be, if an individual's nurture experiences are fraught with abuse, neglect, or misperceptions, the realization of the genes' potentials will be sabotaged.” (Lipton, p.146)

In other words, the responsibility for our wellbeing and that of the ones we care for lies with us.