The Cosmic Serpent
9 Margulis and Sagan (1986, p. 145). Since the time of writing the French original of this book, two articles by Heald et al. (1996) and Zhang and Nicklas (1996) seem to indicate that the dance of chromosomes is orchestrated by spindle microtubules, which function even in the absence of chromosomes. This does not remove the question of intention, however. As Hyams (1996, p. 397) comments: “A great many questions about mitosis remain to be answered. To what extent do chromosomes contribute to spindle formation and to their own movement at anaphase? Do they have a role in positioning the cleavage furrow? What holds sister chromatids together, how are they ‘unglued,’ and what is the signal for this detachment? How do the checkpoints that sense a single detached chromosome or an imperfect one work?”
10 Wade (1995a) writes: “Only DNA endures. This thoroughly depressing view values only survival, which the DNA is not in a position to appreciate anyway, being just a chemical” (p. 20).
11 Trémolières (1994, p. 138) considers that “our human comprehension and intelligence reach their own limits. It seems that our brain is one of the most complex objects that we can find in the universe.” McGinn (1994, p. 67) writes: “We want to know, among other things, how our consciousness levers itself out of the body. We want, that is, to solve the mind-body problem, the deep metaphysical question about how mind and matter meet. But what if there is something about us that makes it impossible for us to solve this ancient conundrum? What if our cognitive structure lacks the resources to provide the requisite theory?”
12 Hunt (1996) writes: “Crow tool manufacture had three features new to tool use in free-living nonhumans: a high degree of standardization, distinctly discrete tool types with definite imposition of form in tool shaping, and the use of hooks. These features only first appeared in the stone and bone tool-using cultures of early humans after the Lower Paleolithic, which indicates that crows have achieved a considerable technical capability in their tool manufacture and use” (p. 249). See Huffman (1995) on chimpanzees using medicinal plants. Perry (1983) writes about ants that herd aphids: “In one species, the ants take fine earth up to the leaves and stems of plants and, using their own saliva, cement together tiny shelters, shaped like mud huts, for their aphid partners. These shelters help to protect the aphids from severe weather and to some extent from predators.... Some ants will round up local populations of aphids at the end of the day, in much the same way that a sheepdog herds sheep. The ants then take their aphids down into the nest for protection from predators. In the morning the aphids are escorted to the required plant for another day’s feeding and milking” (pp. 28-29). See also Hölldobler and Wilson (1990, pp. 522-529). Concerning mushroom-cultivating ants, see Chapela at al. (1994) and Hinkle et al. (1994). Wilson (1984, p. 17) compares an ant’s brain to a grain of sugar.
13 Monod (1971, p. 18). Wesson (1991) writes: “By what devices the genes direct the formation of patterns of neurons that constitute innate behavioral patterns is entirely enigmatic. Yet not only do animals respond appropriately to manifold needs; they often do so in ways that would seem to require something like forethought” (p. 68). He adds: “An instinct of any complexity, linking a sequence of perceptions and actions, must involve a very large number of connections within the brain or principal ganglia of the animal. If it is comparable to a computer program, it must have the equivalent of thousands of lines. In such a program, not merely would chance of improvement by accidental change be tiny at best. It is problematic how the program can be maintained without degradation over a long period despite the occurrence from time to time of errors by replication” (p. 81). On the absence of a goal, or teleology, in nature, Stocco (1994) writes that “biological evolution does not proceed in a precise direction and aims at no particular goal” (p. 185), and Mayr (1983) writes: “The one thing about which modern authors are unanimous is that adaptation is not teleological, but refers to something produced in the past by natural selection” (p. 324). According to Wesson (1991): “For a biologist to call another a teleologist is an insult” (p. 10).
14 According to several recent studies, non-coding DNA might actually play a structural role and display the characteristics of a language, the meaning of which remains to be determined. See Flam (1994), Pennisi (1994), Nowak (1994), and Moore (1996).
15 The twenty amino acids used by nature to build proteins vary in shape and function. Some play structural roles, such as making a hairpin turn that folds the protein back on itself. Others make sheet-like surfaces as docking sites for other molecules. Others form links between protein chains. Three amino acids contain benzene, a greasy compound that is the molecular equivalent of Velcro and that can hold certain substances and then release them without modifying its own structure. One finds these benzene-containing amino acids at exactly the right place in the “lock” of nicotinic receptors, where they bond molecules of acetylcholine or nicotine (see Smith 1994). Couturier et al. (1990) provide the exact sequence of the 479 amino acids that constitute one of the five protein chains of the nicotinic receptor. My estimate of 2,500 amino acids for the entire receptor is an extrapolation based on their work. See Lewis et al. (1987) regarding the presence of nicotinic receptors among nematodes.
16 Wesson (1991, p. 15).
17 Trémolières (1994, p. 51). He adds: “We know that more than 90% of the changes affecting a letter in a word of the genetic message lead to disastrous results; proteins are no longer synthesized correctly, the message loses its entire meaning and this leads purely and simply to the cell’s death. Given that mutations are so frequently highly unfavourable, and even deadly, how can beneficial evolution be attained?” (p. 43). Likewise, Frank-Kamenetskii (1993) writes: “It is clear, therefore, that you need a drastic refitting of the whole of your machine to make the car into a plane. The same is true for a protein. In trying to turn one enzyme into another, point mutations alone would not do the trick. What you need is a substantial change in the amino acid sequence. In this situation, rather than being helpful, selection is a major hindrance. One could think, for instance, that by consistently changing amino acids one by one, it will eventually prove possible to change the entire sequence substantially and thus the enzyme’s spatial structure. These minor changes, however, are bound to result eventually in a situation in which the enzyme has ceased to perform its previous function but it has not yet begun its ‘new duties.’ It is at this point that it will be destroyed—together with the organism carrying it” (p. 76).
18 Nash (1995, 68, 70).
19 See Wesson (1991, p. 52). He adds: “By Mayr’s calculation, in a rapidly evolving line an organ may enlarge about 1 to 10 percent per million years, but organs of the whale-in-becoming must have grown ten times more rapidly over 10 million years. Perhaps 300 generations are required for a gene substitution. Moreover, mutations need to occur many times, even with considerable advantage, in order to have a good chance of becoming fixed. Considering the length of whale generations, the rarity with which the needed mutations are likely to appear, and the multitude of mutations needed to convert a land mammal into a whale, it is easy to conclude that gradualist natural selection of random variations cannot account for this animal” (p. 52). Wesson’s book is a catalogue of biological improbabilities—from bats’ hypersophisticated echolocation system to the electric organs of fish—and of the gaping holes in the fossil record.
20 Mayr (1988, pp. 529-530). Goodwin (1994) writes: “New types of organism appear upon the evolutionary scene, persist for various periods of it, and then become extinct. So Darwin’s assumption that the tree of life is a consequence of the gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences appears to be without significant support. Some other process is responsible for the emergent properties of life, those distinctive features that separate one group of organisms from another, such as fishes and amphibians, worms and insects, horsetails and grasses. Clearly something is missing from biology” (p. x).
21 Shapiro (1996, p. 64).
22 Mycoplasma genitalium is the
smallest genome currently known, at 580,000 base pairs. Mushegian and Koonin (1996) compared it to the genome of bacterium Hemophilus influenzae, which contains 1,800,000 base pairs, and concluded that the minimal amount of genetic information necessary for life is 315,000 base paris. This is still an enormous amount of information.
23 See Butler (1996) on the 12 million base pair genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. See Hilts (1996) on the similarities between yeast and human genes. In some cases, the contrary is also true, and genomes vary greatly between closely related species; Wade (1997b) writes about a conference on small genomes: “As work on one genome after another was described at the meeting, the scientists’ mood was like that of people looking at newly-discovered treasure maps, with the treasure not yet in hand but with wonderfully tantalizing clues all about. For example, the order of genes in a genome seems to vary widely, even between closely related species of microbes, as if evolution were constantly shuffling the deck” (p. A14).
24 Langaney (1997, p. 122). Holder and McMahon (1996) write: “Remarkably, many of the genes that are important for the control of fly development are also crucial players in vertebrate, and by association human, development.... Some of the similarities are amazing: for example, mutations in both human Pax6 gene and in eyeless, the Drosophila homologue, cause abnormal eye development. This maintenance of function occurs in spite of the overtly different manner in which Drosophila and human eyes develop” (p. 515). Yoon (1995) writes: “From silken-petaled roses to popping snapdragons to a willow tree’s fuzzy catkins, the plant world offers a dazzling array of flowers. Yet the difference between all this blooming beauty and a plain green shoot appears to be nothing more than the flicking on of one master genetic switch, according to two new studies. Using genetically engineered plants, researchers were able to show that either of two genes, on its own, could turn on the cascade of thousands of genes that produce a flower. Researchers were able to use the genes . . . to produce blossoms where there should instead have been leafy shoots in plants as diverse as Arabidopsis, a roadside weed, tobacco and aspen trees” (p. B5). Wade (1997c) writes: “Many of the most important fruit fly genes, like those that tell the developing embryo to produce organs at certain places, have been found to have counterparts in humans. The fly and human versions of these genes are not identical but have recognizably similar DNA sequences, reflecting their descent from a common ancestral gene some 550 million years ago”; he also writes that there is “surprising and extensive overlap of the genes among all the model organisms” (p. B7). Biology’s main model organisms are fruit fly, mouse, worm C. elegans, zebra fish, and human.
25 See Hilts (1996, p. C19) on genes “that appear to clump together in families that work on similar problems.” See Wade (1997a) on the similarities in gene clusters on mouse and human X chromosomes.
26 Pollack (1997, p. 674).
27 Luisi (1993, p. 19) and Popper (1974, pp. 168, 171). Popper (1974) writes: “I now wish to give some reasons why I regard Darwinism as metaphysical, and as a research programme. It is metaphysical because it is not testable. One might think that it is. It seems to assert that, if ever on some planet we find life which satisfies conditions (a) and (b) [heredity and variation], then (c) [natural selection] will come into play and bring about in time a rich variety of distinct forms. Darwinism, however, does not assert as much as this. For assume we find life on Mars consisting of exactly three species of bacteria with a genetic outfit similar to that of three terrestrial species. Is Darwinism refuted? By no means. We shall say that these three species were the only forms among the many mutants which were sufficiently well adjusted to survive. And we shall say the same if there is only one species (or none). Thus Darwinism does not really predict the evolution of variety. It therefore cannot really explain it. At best, it can predict the evolution of variety under ‘favourable conditions. ’ But it is hardly possible to describe in general terms what favourable conditions are—except that, in their presence, a variety of forms will emerge” (p. 171, original italics). Dawkins (1986) provides a good illustration of the tautologous tendencies of Darwinism when he writes: “Even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories” (p. 287). He also tells a charming story of a beaver that undergoes a point mutation in its genetic text; this leads to a change in the beaver’s brain’s “wiring diagram,” which makes the beaver hold its head higher in the water while swimming with a log in its mouth; this makes it less likely that the mud washes off the log, which makes the log stickier, which makes the beaver’s dam a sounder structure, which increases the size of the lake, which makes the beaver’s lodge more secure against predators, which increases the number of offspring reared by the beavers. This means that beavers with the mutated gene will become more numerous in time and will eventually become the norm. He concludes: “The fact that this particular story is hypothetical, and that the details may be wrong, is irrelevant. The beaver dam evolved by natural selection, and therefore what happened cannot be very different, except in practical details, from the story I have told” (p. 136). Wilson (1992) even provides an explicitly Darwinian explanation for the worldwide phenomenon of snake veneration, thereby showing that the theory of natural selection can be used to justify more or less anything: “People are both repelled and fascinated by snakes, even when they have never seen one in nature. In most cultures the serpent is the dominant wild animal of mythical and religious symbolism. Manhattanites dream of them with the same frequency as Zulus. This response appears to be Darwinian in origin. Poisonous snakes have been an important cause of mortality almost everywhere, from Finland to Tasmania, Canada to Patagonia; an untutored alertness in their presence saves lives. We note a kindred response in many primates, including Old World monkeys and chimpanzees” (p. 335). See also Moorhead and Kaplan, eds. (1967), Chandebois (1993), and Schützenberger (1996) on the limits of Darwinism.
11: “WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?”
1 Jacques Mabit, a medical doctor doing remarkable work with mestizo ayahuasqueros in Peru, notes that in the ayahuasca literature, which contains over five hundred titles, less than 10 percent of the authors have tried the substance, and none has followed the classical apprenticeship (see Mabit et al. 1992). Mabit himself is one of the rare exceptions.
2 Hill (1992), in his article on Wakuénai musical curing, writes regarding the fragmentation of Western knowledge: “Wakuénai curing rituals are simultaneously musical, cosmological, social, psychological, medical, and economic events, a multidimensionality that ‘embarrasses the categories’ of Western scientific and artistic culture” (p. 208).
3 Regarding the failure of Western-style education among the indigenous people of Amazonia, see Gasché (1989-1990). Moreover, Gasché points out that intercultural education requires not only funds, but a calling into question of anthropology as a science, given that the discipline bases its existence on intercultural dialogue between Indians and non-Indians, which can only occur through a constant confrontation of these two realities; up until now, an anthropology that is truly useful to the people who are its object remains to be realized. Thus, Gasché (1993) writes: “From a strictly logical, or more precisely topological, point of view, one can envisage the orientation of anthropological discourse in the direction not of the researcher’s own society, but, on the contrary, of the society which is, or was, its object of study. Such a proposition no doubt surprises, or even shocks some anthropologists, because, indeed, it has hardly been formulated and has even less led to careers. However, for anthropologists who assume the principle of cultural relativism as a presupposition founding their scientific attitude towards human societies, this proposition would logically emerge as soon as they postulate the coherence between their scientific statements and their social actions: if all societies are of equal worth, why do anthropologists keep the benefits of the product of their labor exclusively for their own society? This questio
n is all the more urgent that it brings into play two other central notions in anthropology, namely exchange and reciprocity: the data, which are the raw material of all anthropological thought, come from the society that never benefits from the finished product. And it is the question of return, of equilibration in the relationship between the Indian society and the anthropologist, between the object and subject of the research, which many Indians are currently posing in the Peruvian Amazon” (pp. 27-28).
4 Davis (1993) writes: “The current international discussion of biodiversity prospecting and intellectual property rights fails to comprehend this sacred or spiritual quality of Indigenous plant knowledge, because it is so rooted in material considerations and the economic thinking of the West” (p. 21). Posey (1994) writes: “Intellectual property rights is a foreign concept to indigenous peoples” (p. 235).
5 Luna and Amaringo (1991, p. 72). Regarding the multicultural past of Pablo Amaringo, see p. 21 of the same book.
6 See Taussig (1987, p. 179).
7 Chaumeil (1992) writes: “We know about the fascination that the forest and its inhabitants exert in matters of shamanism on Andean and urban society. Urban and Andean shamans generally attribute great powers to their indigenous colleagues, whom they visit frequently, setting up vast shamanic exchange networks in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In Brazil, many mestizo shamans adopt indigenous methods and live temporarily in Indian villages to learn the shamanic arts. Indeed, most claim to have had at least one indigenous instructor, or recognize the indigenous origin of their knowledge” (p. 93). Chaumeil goes on to explain that this exchange works both ways and that there is “an increasing flux of young indigenous people into towns where they go to learn the shamanic arts with mestizo instructors, who develop the opposite tendency” (p. 99).