Have you thought deeply about the latest discovery in genetics? DUF1220 – “DUF” stands for a (protein) domain of unknown function –presumably “junk DNA.” But this one seems to be what distinguishes us as “human” and may correspond to greater brain functionality.
In fact, we possess more than twice the amount of replications (copies) of this protein as a result of the instructions (code) of our genome than our nearest genetic relative –the chimp. It seems to be clearly related to the growth of certain parts of the brain –and presumably to more sophisticated neural networks.
According to Wikipedia:
“DUF1220 is a protein domain of unknown function that shows a striking human lineage-specific (HLS) increase in copy number and may be important to human brain evolution.[1] The copy number of DUF1220 domains increases generally as a function of a species evolutionary proximity to humans. DUF1220 copy number is highest in human (over 270, with some person-to-person variations).[2] and shows the largest HLS increase in copy number (an additional 160 copies) of any protein coding region in the human genome. DUF1220 copy number is reduced in African great apes (estimated 125 copies in chimpanzees), further reduced in orangutan (92) and Old World monkeys (35), single- or low-copy in non-primate mammals and absent in non-mammals.”
“Unknown function” may be another way of saying “junk DNA” –DNA that is unaccounted for so that current science disregards it but clearly if this is the “Software code” that distinguishes us from other primates in terms of intelligence –it is no Junk.
Wikipedia continues with this nugget:
“DUF1220 domains are approximately 65 amino acids in length and are encoded by a two-exon doublet. In the human genome DUF1220 sequences are located primarily on chromosome 1 in region 1q21.1-q21.2, with several copies also found at 1p36, 1p13.3, and 1p12. Sequences encoding DUF1220 domains show signs of positive selection, especially in primates, and are expressed in several human tissues including the brain, where their expression is restricted to neurons.”
What this seems to mean is that we have identified specific areas of our DNA code (regions of specific chromosomes) that will express growth of higher brain functions. Since we are at the threshold of being able to write our own DNA code, this has immense implications for our future as a species.
Of course the problem is that this line of inquiry has been hijacked in the recent past by philosophies that have used it to justify genocide and Eugenics. Still as this blogger says:
“But at least we are slowly stumbling upon some of the answers to our questions. As long as we do not allow our science to be perverted by a misplaced sense of political correctness, we should eventually obtain a fairly clear picture of how larger and more intelligent brains evolved.”
But there is another largely ignored aspect to this discovery.
Where & Who Did This Come From?
First, how and why did our copies of this particular “line of code” simply double at one point in our evolution? Can this be attributed to mutation or chance? And perhaps more important – this is code that no human originally wrote – not like Microsoft Word or Photoshop – which was written by human programmers. Obviously this particular bit of “software” has intention and meaning –it actually created the capacity of a brain to eventually write the code for Microsoft Word or Photoshop!
There are a number of ways to approach this.
Modern science simply says that this is the result of natural selection and evolution. But is it reasonable to think that one cell organisms over eons of time will simply create this level of functionality without an intervening intelligence?
We now know that genetic code operates as software.
And we KNOW that software we created -programs like Photoshop or Word –did not “evolve” through chance. They were the result of sessions of planning, development and conscious effort. For want of a better word, they were “designed.”
A waterfall will never become intelligent. A cloud of vapor will never become intelligent. Only a living organism that expresses Consciousness can ever become intelligent. (This is not an argument for fundamentalist Intelligent Design theory which is simply another projection of our own anthropomorphic human thought patterns).
It is simply an acknowledgment of different levels of “being.” Mind must be seen as what it is –a different “dimension” of being from matter.
Alien Intervention?
Others would have us make the leap that since there are monuments on the planet we cannot explain, a higher form of life (alien) deliberately manipulated our genome, as we are beginning to do with other life forms, and “upgraded” our intelligence in a quantum leap that took us from ape to human.
While plausible on many levels, there is no direct evidence for this at this point. And it begs the question – where and how did these “aliens” evolve? The ONLY direct evidence that exists is this –we now KNOW that something akin to the software humans now create is operational within our organic being.
The Role of Consciousness
If we “flip” the notion that consciousness is “created” by the brain, and instead become open to the possibility that our brain is a receiver of consciousness, then we can begin to fathom a completely different reality – that the entire universe (of which we know only a tiny sliver through our limited sensory capacity) is immensely intelligent.
Of course this has profound implications for our personal ego, as pointed out by thought leaders like Eckhart Tolle.
Thought itself –its origin and meaning –comes under greater scrutiny as to its relationship to a reality that is far beyond the capacity of thought itself to completely comprehend; take only the notion of Infinity –which is a word we use to describe the unfathomable but which has no real “meaning” –now the notion of infinity begins to make sense… Infinity would become connected in some way to the Source of the level of meaning and intelligence within which we find ourselves.
Our cosmology would also open immensely. With the primacy of intellect and mind now apparent, we might begin to intuit what “dimensions” actually represent – levels of mental acuity that open to us only when a certain level of being (physiologically, psychologically and chemically) is attained. This would begin to account for experiences with ESP, drugs, past lives, near death and all kinds of other mental realities which our material science cannot begin to address.
As Eckhart Tolle says, death is not the opposite of life, birth is the opposite of death. Birth and death are both part of an inconceivably intelligent reality which we experience as Life. Does this mean that we should not, as a species, follow our discoveries in this area and begin to affect our own evolution? Let’s face it –the genie is out of the bottle.
I would suggest that we have an imperative to do so –but to do so consciously with a profound reverence for higher levels of meaning and intelligence that we will ultimately encounter. This is why the ancients merged science with a sense of the Sacred –because there needs to be a profound relationship of surrender and humility in the face of this recognition. Our entire notion of a “mastery” over Life must be seen as nonsensical, along with all of the other trappings of our conceptual “understanding” of a reality that cannot be “explained” in our own human terms.
We Need To Change The Way We See
Does this mean that we stop building, growing and evolving? Not at all, that is apparently our nature. But it might mean, for starters, that we begin to observe reverently that the relationships between plants, bees, atmosphere and resources that we have tried to “master” work according to much higher principles and laws.
More important, those principles are not “personal” – if we go extinct as a species “nothing went wrong” –the universe in its infinite intelligence will continue without us. Accordingly we will need to drop the conceptual conceits, scientific and religious, which have taken us into a state of disharmony with the intelligent natural order from which we “evolved.”
Seeing our minds as a “work in progress” and not the be all and end all of evolution, we might begin to question everything –including the veracity and even the significance of our own thoughts –which to this point have been the only Mind we’ve ever known. Instead, upon more direct examination, we must comprehend that we are merely a tiny fraction of All that exists, of an Intelligence that encoded our genes, in the same way that we have encoded our intelligence into computers.
In our current level of being we cannot begin to comprehend this intelligence – that is why so many of us simply “worship” It. But just because Life is expressing a level of being and intelligence far beyond anything we can currently comprehend does not mean we should simply accept “not knowing” and surrender completely. It means that we need to study what “knowing” truly means and perhaps as T.S. Elliot said, we can return to the present and begin to truly know it for the very first time.
Well written , and interesting . On the topic of design , you’ll notice that even amongst all species the design is the same , amongst fish , reptiles , mammals , birds .
All seem to have this particular resemblance , one head , two eyes , two ears , one nose , with two nostrils , one mouth and so on .
What’s up with that ?
Symmetry seems to be the norm here on this planet and via DNA. If you Google “biomimicry” you will also see that science has recognized some of the patterns that nature has “evolved” and engineers are mimicking them. The main one is the Fibonacci sequence or what Da VInce called the Golden Mean.
From: Volkmar Weiss [mailto:Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de]
Sent: Mittwoch, 21. Januar 2015 10:59
To: ‘James.Sikela@ucdenver.edu’
Subject: DUF1120 copy number is linearly associated with IQ
Dear Professor Sikela:
Yesterday I read in Human Genetics 134 (2015) 67-75 the full text of your publication on „DUF1220 copy number is linearly associated with increased cognitive function as measured by total IQ and mathematical aptitude scores”,
see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25287832 ,
full text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZcHg4ek9nWDZGcWs/view?pli=1
As I did catch sight of your Fig. 2 on page 72 I got deeply impressed, deeply moved, deeply: A linear association between copy arrayCGH based CON2 copy ratio versus WISC IQ, extending in the IQ range between 80 and 140. This is a breakthrough, a centennial breakthrough! My congratulation to your lab and the cooperating colleagues in New Zealand!
We are aware: What you have discovered is the tip of an iceberg. But it is the tip!
Your were even clever enough to obtain a patent for the determination of IQ by this copy number variation (CPV),
see http://www.google.com/patents/WO2014028768A2?cl=en
DUF means a protein “domain of unknown function“, containing a number of genes, especially of the NBPF family, each of it highly polymorphic.
We need and this research may already under way in your lab:
1. Family studies of the inheritance of CON2 copy ratio and IQ. There all over the world thousands of families with more than one gifted in the IQ range around 130, ready to be probands.
2. Representative population data.
Until now it was assumed by the majority that IQ differences are caused by thousands of genetic polymorphisms each of it making a small contribution of plus or minus 1, 2 or even3 IQ points. Therefore the environment must play an important or decisive role. Since decades, whoever hinted that this thousand-genes-theory did not agree with the data of segregation of IQ within families, see for example http://www.v-weiss.de/majgenes.html , was seen as an obstinate crank. However, in 1972, already in my dissertation I wrote that the hypothetical major gene locus of general intelligence could turn out to be a series of alleles. And in 1992: “Of course, the allele M2 could also be understood as an abstraction and be in reality a series of n alleles with small differences; but with a large difference to the M1 allele or an allele-1 series.”
The difference between the means of the hypothetical M1M1 and M2M2 is about 30 IQ points. This is the range, what you found! The other hundreds of polygenes which, of course, influence mental power under certain circumstances may add up to IQ differences of 20 points in extreme and rare cases, but because the minor genes are segregating independently of each other, their effects as a sum are normally distributed making only a plus or minus of about 5 IQ-points in the general population.
As we know, in the search for major effects on IQ all genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were a failure. Therefore, the conclusion had to be drawn that the explanation had to be found in previously unexplored regions of the genome.
Therefore, since some years I suggest to look for copy number variations and the application of homozygosity array mapping within families of the highly gifted. See my monograph “Die Intelligenz und ihre Feinde” (Intelligence and its Enemies). Graz 2012, page 236 to CPV: „Da es sehr gut vorstellbar ist, daß diese Art der genetischen Variabilität auch in der Genetik des normalen IQ eine wichtige Rolle spielt, konzentrieren sich die Hoffnungen gegenwärtig auf weitere Erforschung dieser ‚Copy number variations‘ (CPV).“
You and your lab had the knowledge. You did it. My congratulation.
I wish you the possibility, the freedom and the courage to extend your findings. You will need it.
(I will forward this email to colleagues all over the world. I am sure, they will forward this message further. What is urgently needed is deepening of your findings, before the enemies of freedom become aware of the importance of your discovery and are threatening and hampering .)
Sincerely yours
Volkmar Weiss
http://www.v-weiss.de
Interesting
For Merleau-Ponty, speech accomplishes thought, which is currently also part of my understanding of thought. Bearing that in mind, it could be said that thought is an aural impression of a verbal expression.
However, it could also be said that memory and or imagination are thought, or at least types of thought, or manners of thinking.
Likewise, whereas speech accomplishes thought, memory accomplishes imagination; try imagining a colour or a face that you’ve never seen before–an impossible feat. In other words, the imagination is constructed from memory.
Memory and imagination are indistinguishable from one another in spite of the fact that memory is familiar while imagination is less familiar or even unfamiliar, just as speech accomplishes thought and the two are therefore also inseparable.
A bit irrelevant to your article as a whole, but you mentioned thought and its origin.
Wow – someone mentions Merleau-Ponty, a thinker I studied way back in college! The Phenomenologists certainly anticipated much of what we now call “nondualism.” My professor in college who became a Buddhist when he was denied tenure translated “Eye and Mind” from the original french into English.
I have long “thought” that having just one word for “thought” or “mind” is a huge problem because there are such subtle refinements and gradations, as your comment suggests.
Habitual thought for example, which Tolle dismisses as useless is far beneath the analytic thought that allows us to probe deeper and discover that the thinker may not be a “thing” at all. Or even exist as we commonly consider that term.
Thank you for reminding me of MP. How did you happen to connect with his work?
I came across a book that is basically a composite of scholarly essays in regard to Alfred Korzybski and his own academic work; that book, which is entitled ‘Korzybski And…’, was edited by Corey Anton and Lance Strate. Merleau-Ponty was mentioned in Chapter 4, which was an essay that had been written by a fellow named Isaac E. Catt, entitled ‘Korzybski and Charles Sanders Peirce’. The book is available online at websites like Amazon. The essay itself might be available online for free, but I’m not entirely sure.
Actually, for some time I have been pondering language–its qualities, its function(s) or purpose(s), its sign-ificance–because at least from my perspective language and or communication, or the failures thereof, are the bedrock of many if not all of the most pressing issues that confront humanity on every social scale, from the individual to the familial, ultimately to the global order. It is my conviction that, if one were to take an honest look at the world and all of its most pressing issues–physiological, emotional, and psychological disorders, ongoing war, perpetual famine, et cetera–and our apparent incapacity to deal with such issues once and for all or more effectively, one would naturally reach the conclusion that communication with or relation to oneself and the other is the real issue; hence the ineffable significance of languages–tactual, verbal, gestural, et cetera–and my inspiration to contemplate that which has been, in my opinion, taken for granted by far too many people for far too long. I believe that we are entirely capable of better maximizing the utility of language so that we can better manage and possess greater control over relations amongst ourselves and perceptual phenomena in general.
Its redundancy, abstract and transient quality, use and misuse, are specific aspects that intrigue, captivate, mesmerise, and befuddle me on a regular basis.