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With the sequencing and analysis of the human genome, the view became widespread that DNA possessed tremendous power and that genes played an enormous role in determining who we really are. Almost every day, newspapers featured articles suggesting that we are under the control of our own genes: "Scientists Target Genius Gene," "Kennedy Tragedies Put Down to Risk Taking Gene," "Scientists Say Research on Male Siblings Proves the Existence of a 'Homosexual Gene.'" Reports about genes controlling everything from schizophrenia to jealousy, from alcoholism to television watching habits, appeared in scientific and non-scientific journals.
People reading all these headlines thought that all kinds of attributes, from intelligence to character, from success to failure, were encoded in the human genome; and some people began believing, erroneously, that our lives could be boiled down to a formula.
Research into the human genome is exceedingly valuable, and studies on human genetic structure have yielded important information about a number of diseases. However, as those running the Human Genome Project and scientists involved in the field have clearly stated, this in no way justifies loading unrealistic functions onto the genes. Research reveals that human genes play so small a role in character, behavior and thinking as to be insignificant. In an article titled, "The Human Genome Map: The Death of Genetic Determinism and Beyond," Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute of Science in Society, says the following:
The number of genes is far less than needed to support the extravagant claims throughout the past decade that individual genes not only determine how our bodies are constructed, what diseases we suffer from, but also our patterns of behaviour, our intellectual ability, sexual preference and criminality.188
Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, makes it clear that genes are not what makes human beings human. In an article titled "Heredity and Humanity:Have No Fear. Genes Aren't Everything," Collins says:
Fortunately, ten years of intensive study of the human genome have provided ample evidence that these fears of genetic determinism are unwarranted. It has shown us definitively that we human beings are far more than the sum of our genetic parts. Needless to say, our genes play a major, formative role in human development—and in many of the processes of human disease; but high-tech molecular studies as well as low-tech (but still eminently useful) studies of identical and fraternal twins make it perfectly evident that our genes are not all-determining factors in the human experience.189
In the same article, Collins states that genes have no major effect on human behavior. He explains how looking at a criminal's genes to see if this person has a genetic predisposition to crime and determining a punishment in that light could lead to unjust outcomes:
But what about non-disease-related traits, such as intelligence and violent behavior? ... The discovery of a prevalent gene variant strongly correlated with violence could have a profound effect upon our millennia-old understanding of free will, and weigh down the scales of justice in two equally dangerous ways. If someone who commits a violent crime has the gene variant, his lawyer could use a DNA defense ("If it's in the gene, the man is clean!"), and the defendant could well be seen by a judge and jury as not responsible for his actions. Yet it is also possible to imagine a scenario in which someone who has never even contemplated a violent act is found to have the gene variant and then subjected to the presumption of guilt (or even sent away to a postmodern-day leper colony) for the rest of his life.
If genes truly controlled behavior, our justice system and its guiding principle of equal protection would not be the only casualties. How would our concept of equal opportunity survive? What about the idea of merit? Just think of the frightening "genetocracy" depicted in the movie Gattaca (and note the letters that make up its name), a world in which children are assigned to castes at birth, based on an assessment of their intellectual capacity and professional potential as inscribed in their DNA.190
In his article, Collins describes the illogicality of claiming that behavior is encoded in the genes with a quotation from the biologist Johnjoe McFadden:
To build on a metaphor offered by the biologist Johnjoe McFadden, looking for genes that encode our unique behaviors and the other products of our minds is like analyzing the strings of a violin or the keys of a piano in the hope of finding the Emperor Concerto. Indeed, the human genome can be thought of as the grandest of orchestras, with each of our approximately thirty thousand genes representing a unique instrument playing in the wondrous and massive concert that is molecular biology. Each instrument is essential, and each must be in tune to produce the proper (and highly sophisticated) musical sound. Likewise, genes are essential to the development of the brain, and must be "in tune" to produce functioning neurons and neurotransmitters. But this emphatically does not imply that genes make minds any more than a viola or a piccolo makes a sonata.191
Collins devotes the end of his article to illuminating another reason why human attributes cannot stem from their DNA, and draws attention to God's superior creation:
For many of us, there is still another powerful reason, wholly apart from the mechanics of science, to reject the notion that DNA is the core substance of our humanity. It is the belief [in] a higher power... Of course, some scientists and writers dismiss this spiritual notion as pure superstition. [This is certainly a great error of theirs!] Thus Richard Dawkins has observed that "we are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make copies of the same DNA... It is every living object's sole reason for living." Really? Is there nothing about being human that is different from being a bacterium or a slug?
Can the study of genetics and molecular biology really account for the universal intrinsic knowledge of right and wrong common to all human cultures in all eras...? Can it account for the unselfish form of love that the Greeks called agape? Can it account for the experience of feeling called to sacrifice for others even when our own DNA may be placed at risk? While evolutionary biologists proffer various explanations for human behaviors that undermine the efficient propagation of our genes, there is something about those claims that rings hollow to us.
The notion that science alone holds all the secrets of our existence has become a religion of its own… Science is the proper way to understand the natural, of course; but science gives us no reason to deny that there are aspects of human identity that fall outside the sphere of nature, and hence outside the sphere of science.192
As Collins noted, chains of molecules consisting of carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen-oxygen compounds cannot possibly endow a person with such feelings as love, devotion, taking pleasure from art, rejoicing, maternal emotions, desire or self-sacrifice. If the soul is discounted, a human being is nothing more than flesh and bone. The genes, which are themselves material entities, do not permit this assembly of flesh and bone to think, make mathematical calculations, enjoy the food it consumes, miss a friend it has not seen for a long time, or take pleasure in something beautiful. A human being is an entity created by God, very different and separate from the body, its brain and cells and genes. It is revealed in the Qur'an that a human being is an entity with a soul given by God:
He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay; then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid; then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Surat as- Sajda, 7-9)
The human soul is breathed into man by God. Evolutionist materialists, unwilling to accept the existence of God and that human beings possess metaphysical characteristics, seek to keep spreading the lie that everything is encoded in the genes—which obviously cannot create the human soul, though evolutionists blindly ignore this.
Actually, this distorted belief is by no means new. Throughout history, it has been known under the name of paganism. In the same way that the ancients made idols out of wood and then claimed that these were their deities, the theory of evolution maintains that genes are the purpose and creator of everything. (Surely God is beyond that!) This primitive and dogmatic point of view, which was hoped to provide a basis for the theory of evolution, has been invalidated by scientific findings. Even Collins, who led the historic research into genes, openly states that genes actually have no power, and that human beings are metaphysical entities.
Paganism, ascribing divine status to material entities with no power of their own, is a tradition that has persisted down the ages and, in the present day, is maintained by the evolutionist mindset. In the Qur'an, God reveals this about those who ascribe divine status to entities devoid of any power:
But they have adopted deities apart from Him which do not create anything but are themselves created. They have no power to harm or help themselves. They have no power over death or life or resurrection. (Surat al-Furqan, 3)
In another verse, God reveals the following regarding this belief's perverted nature:
Say: "Call on those you make claims for apart from Him. They possess no power to remove any harm from you or to change anything." (Surat al-Isra', 56)
God's commandment to anyone of reason is this:
Do not call on something besides God which can neither help nor harm you. If you do, you will then be wrongdoers. (Surah Yunus, 106)
References
- Mae-Wan Ho, "The Human Genome Map, the Death of Genetic Determinism and Beyond," ISIS Report, February 14, 2001; http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HumangenTWN-pr.php ↩
- Francis S. Collins, Lowell Weiss ve Kathy Hudson, "Have no fear. Genes Aren't Everything," The New Republic, 06/25/2001. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩