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Awareness of this inter- and intra-species gene transfer mechanism highlights the dangers of genetic engineering, since human-altered genes can spread throughout the entire biosphere, altering organisms in ways that we cannot foresee.


the environment and from each other. In pursuing our Darwinian destiny, civilisation has contributed to a growing number of global crises, environmental challenges threatening our collective survival.


Living organisms share their genes Genome scientists have recently discovered an additional mechanism of evolutionary adaptation that reveals an amazing cooperation among species: living organisms share their genes. It had been thought that genes are passed on only to the progeny of an individual organism through reproduction. Scientists now find that genes are shared not only among individual members within a species, but also among members of different species. For example, it has already been established that, when humans digest genetically modified foods, engineered genes transfer into and alter the character of the life-sustaining beneficial bacteria in the intestine. The sharing of genetic information via gene transfer speeds up evolution since organisms can acquire learned experiences, in the form of genes, from other organisms. Given this sharing of genes, organisms can no longer be seen as disconnected entities; there is no wall between species. Sharing genetic information is not


an accident. It is Nature’s method of enhancing the collective survival of the biosphere. The recently recognised exchange of genes among individuals disperses information that influences the survival of all organisms comprising the community of life.


38 APRIL 2015


Genetic evolutionists warn that if we fail to apply the lessons of our shared genetic destiny, which should be teaching us the importance of cooperation among all species, we threaten human existence. We need to move beyond Darwinian theory that stresses the importance of individuals, to a theory that stresses the importance of the community. Toward this end, British scientist Timothy Lenton provided evidence that communal interactions among species are more important for evolution than are the contributions of individuals from within a species. Evolution selects for the survival of the fittest groups rather than the survival of the fittest individuals. Lenton suggests, “We must consider the totality of organisms and their material environment to fully understand which traits come to persist and dominate.” The awareness that organisms have coevolved and continue to coexist in an entangled web of life demands an understanding of life based upon holism, not upon individuals. In emphasising the web of life, the new


biology fully supports James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis that the physical Earth and all living beings constitute one collective organism. Tampering with the balance of the Gaian super-organism, whether it


is by destroying the rainforest, depleting the ozone layer or altering species through genetic engineering, threatens its survival and consequently our own. If we want our world to change, then what we tell ourselves about our world—our story—must change first. Fortunately, the new awareness offered by science profoundly rewrites the story of life and offers better answers to civilisation’s basal paradigmatic questions: How did we get here? Through a series


of adaptive mutations that enables us to balance the environment.


Why are we here? In the wisdom of the Native Americans, ‘We are here to tend the Garden.’


Now that we are here, how do we make the best of it? Learn to live in harmony with Nature and with each other. Basal paradigms shape the character


and fate of civilisation. As the new scientific awareness enters mainstream thought, it will release us from the constraints of scientific materialism’s old story of purposelessness, struggle and competition. The emerging new paradigm reveals that we are not here by random chance; we are here by an intention and purposeful design of Nature. As we live into the new story, humanity, like the butterfly, will soon experience the next higher level of our evolution. It’s going to be a great flight! n


There is a fuller version of this article on www.livingnow.com.au – search by title or author


© 2008 by Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D., a cellular biologist whose breakthrough research on stem cells made him a pioneer in the new


biology. He is the bestselling author of The Biology of Belief. This article is derived from The Wisdom of Your Cells: How Your Beliefs Control Your Biology, an eight CD Audio Listening Course by Sounds True © 2006.


He is presenting a one-night event in Melbourne in April, 2015.


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