Genetics is important to me personally, because I have immediate members of my family who are afflicted with genetic diseases and disorders. Long have I said to them that someday, the cure for their afflictions will lie in genetic research true also for tens of millions of others.
According to the Washington Times, Peter Bruns a geneticist and vice president at Bethesda's Howard Hughes Medical Institute, said Monday: “I think we'll see the scientific findings put into some practical uses very quickly. Not years. Days.”
That's exciting; it could mean that the coming century will eventually be known as the “Medical Revolution,” much as the last century was known for rapid technological advances and the “Industrial Revolution.”
But there were some significant findings discovered by scientists when analyzing the human genome that I believe have not yet been fully appreciated or even recognized. Maybe that's because our society is much too secular these days.
Consider these findings first:
• The analysis showed that instead of 100,000 genes being necessary for the creation of life as scientists used to believe only 30,000 are needed.
• Humans have only twice as many genes as a fruit fly and only about 10,000 more than certain worms.
• Bruns said these findings refute earlier theories that more complex animals (and, obviously, humans) have more genes, and that greater multitudes of genes account for an animal's greater capacities and functioning.
And here's something really puzzling. Another researcher, J. Craig Venter, head of the Celera Genomics Corp., a financier of all this genetic research, said: “All the glorious differences among individuals in our species that can be attributed to genes falls in a mere 0.1 percent of the sequence” (my emphasis).
A “mere 0.1 percent.”
In a world with over 6.1 billion souls, these findings are nothing short of incredible.
As Bruns pointed out and as was reported by the Times “It is now clear something else accounts for the greater sophistication and development of humans.”
Whatever could that be?
God, perhaps?
Scientists most anyway would never admit this. Most would simply be amazed that they “cracked” the genetic code and can now use this information to cure a host of ailments, diseases and medical horrors that have plagued all of us for centuries.
True, such a breakthrough is cause for excitement and amazement throughout the medical science community, but it misses the point that this analysis proves beyond doubt or should prove to those who “believe:” There is enough evidence to suggest that Man is distinct among similar animals because he was “meant” to be.
According to the Times, “In one of the more startling observations, the scientists found that the human genome is remarkably similar to that of other, strikingly different animals. Celera reports that there are just 300 human genes that don't have counterparts in mice.”
What, other than divine creation, could produce such narrow composite differences but such vivid physical differences?
Could this extraordinary development have occurred as a matter of natural human “evolution,” supposedly over billions of years, which says we began as pond scum but that all humans and animals eventually “evolved” into these narrow, sophisticated classes of beings with, generally speaking, only minor genetic differences?
I don't think so. People can believe that if they wish to and, in our secular world, most will but as for me, I find these discoveries not only divinely inspired (we were meant to figure this out now) but divinely astounding.
Think of it. Billions of people and creatures inhabit this earth, each with their own fingerprints, cellular structure, freckles, hair patterns, facial features and physical identities. Human beings are only separated by 0.1 percent of the genetic code.
“The scientists also found that individual humans are almost identical in their gene makeup,” save for this miniscule amount of difference, the Times reported.
“Freak of nature”? Coincidence? Come on. The origin of man, I'm convinced, was, is, and continues to be, a divine creation.
The human race has been given an incredible gift by God in this genetic code discovery and analysis. If we cannot recognize the implications and, more importantly, the origins of this wondrous gift, I say we don't deserve to have it.
Also, I believe if we abuse this gift by working more towards the creation of “artificial” human beings, cloning, et al, instead of using it to advance medical science in the cure of disease, we will be punished immeasurably.
(This article can also be found on WorldNetDaily.com.)