A Glimpse of Matt Ridley's Genome

Genome by Matt Ridley is a fascinating read explaining our twenty-three pairs of chromosome and their whats, hows, if sos and so whats. Each chapter offers an in depth look at how the human genome affects our history, fate, intelligence, self-interest, disease, stress, personality, sex, death, and so on, and so forth.  

But what I love most is Ridley's prose. He elegantly transforms complex, abstract concepts into  easy-to-understand metaphors. 

It's been years since I've read it, but Ridley's words left a powerful visual imprint on my mind. Today, I'll illustrate a few of my favorite passages: 

"Imagine that the genome is a book.

There are twenty-three chapters, called Chromosomes.

Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called Genes.

Each story is made up of paragraphs, called Exons,
which are interrupted by advertisements called Introns.

Each paragraph is made up of words, called Codons.

Each word is written in letters called Bases."

"In the beginning was the word.

The word
proselytised the sea with its message, copying itself unceasingly and forever.

The word
discovered how to rearrange chemicals

so as to capture little eddies in the stream of entropy and make them live.

"The word
transformed the land surface of the planet from a dusty hell to a verdant paradise.

The word
eventually blossomed and became sufficiently ingenious
to build a porridgy contraption called a human brain...

that could  discover and be aware of the word itself."

"My porridgy contraption boggles every time I think this thought. In four thousand million years of earth history, I am lucky enough to be alive today. In five million species, I was fortunate enough to be born a conscious human being. Among six thousand million people on the planet, I was privileged enough to be born in the country where the word was discovered.

In all of earth's history, biology and geography, I was born just five years after the moment when, and just two hundred miles from the the place where, two members of my own specifies discovered the structure of DNA...

and hence uncovered the greatest, simplest, most surprising secret in the universe."

Mlodinow on the Power of the Subliminal Mind

Last night I attended a lecture by physicist/author Leonard Mlodinow who described just how little control we actually have on our perception, behavior, memory, and social judgment.

Thanks to groundbreaking discoveries in neuroscience, scientists are learning that the human mind relies on subliminal processes.

Or in other words: we make decisions without realizing we are making them.

Think about the implications this has on our work, attitudes, and relationships!

The best part was how he structured his talk: with audience participation he ran interactive exercise after exercise showing people just how easily he could manipulate their choices by using anchoring techniques or visual imagery. He showed us how our retinas actually don't pick up all the visual details we think we see, and how our memories are not a perfect recording of the past. 

He also articulated how our sense of self is an evolutionary trait that developed to help us overcome adversity.

It was quite entertaining to hear the audience's reactions—gasps of disbelief.

We assume that human beings are born with the ability to perceive the world accurately. We have instincts like how to eat food, track visuals, and avoid danger. Then we inherit education, culture and history from our ancestors. Mash all of this together with our philosophies, stereotypes, and social constructs and...voila! You have a creature grasping at straws, trying to make sense of this glorious and mysterious thing called life.

I am so happy that in today's modern scientific and technological world, there are creative and inspired souls developing the tools we need to learn more about ourselves and each other.

As humans, we should all strive to learn more about ourselves. It's the best way to help one another and future generations.

I always like to remind myself, "I don't know what I don't know."

“These submilinal aspects of everything that happens to us may seem to play very little part in our daily lives. But they are the almost invisible roots of our conscious thoughts.” - Carl Jung

Be sure to check out his book Subliminal to learn more. 

And to get a flavor of his lecture, check out excerpts from a similar talk he gave to the Secret Science Club.