DNA & Heredity - User Manual For Humans S1 E08 - Dr Ekberg

good evening and thank you for coming I'm very excited to be here again for

our paint installment of user manual for humans and for those of you have missed

the other seven please feel free to go back and review those on YouTube and my

website today we will speak about DNA and heredity because there's that's a

topic it's a very important topic and there are tremendous misconceptions on

it so we'll try to straighten out some of that first of all I won't mention I

won't talk about it now but will mention real quickly what we're going to cover

what is DNA we want to have a clear understanding of what it is we want to

see what does DNA do and more importantly what does DNA not do because

throughout history we have ascribed lots of properties to DNA that it doesn't

have and we cover cover those so it's like to hear these are some of the

commonly accepted of viewpoints and ideas about DNA and if you read

magazines and you hear the little news briefs they throw at you or if you open

up a textbook on medical physiology even today in 2011 they still say that DNA

controls biology and a keyboard that we will talk about is control I underline

that it does DNA really control biology they also believe that DNA is the

control center of the cell they believe that DNA is the brain of the cell

we hear in the news that virtually every day that DNA causes diseases and we hear

that they found is new gene that links DNA to breast cancer to liver disease to

obesity and one of my favorites that I heard will get back to is they found a

hangover gene so now you have an excuse right but we'll come back and put that

in perspective and they say that because of all this DNA makes diseases run in

families so what's important to understand here is that what they're

talking about is associations that they have observed associations and then this

does not imply any sort of control or cause so as social associations and

assumptions is what this is based on there's never been a a proposed

mechanism or cause for how DNA would do any of this they just got so excited

that they assumed it and we will talk about this in in detail I'll have a few

quotes and here's one of my favorites buyshop an hour all truth passes through

three stages first it is ridiculed second it is violently opposed and third

it is accepted as self-evident and of course the classic example is that the

earth is flat okay everybody knew that how could you be so stupid how could you

be some blasphemy to say that it was anything but flat so it was violently

opposed and then all of a sudden when when science catches up we see that it's

that's just the way it is and now it is self-evident well a lot of basically all

truth does pass through those stages whatever we're presented with something

that doesn't fit our our belief truth we ridicule it we oppose it and it

takes generations for it to be accepted so how come we have this confused idea

about DNA well let's go back through through history little bit and the this

this trend of science that we're talking about really started around 1670 with

Isaac Newton and he discovered or he wrote or he found the equations the

physical equations that describe planetary motions and inertia and

movement and all of a sudden things went from being completely random and

superstitious to having a set that sent formulas and and principles to describe

them and now all of a sudden the planets they the the motions and and gravity and

attraction all of those things could be explained and everybody got so excited

to say this is wonderful we can explain the universe finally we can understand

it and explain it and predict it and then they did a leap of faith is that

well if the planets if the universe if apples and all these things are

predictable I bet everything is everything made of matter should be

predictable so they made this leap of faith and they defined the world as a

huge gigantic mechanical that some parts are bigger some parts

are smaller but it's all based on mechanical interaction and that's the

belief that they started then and to this day that belief has not changed

very much at all it is still the founding principle for virtually all

science that we have if you can't touch it it's not real so between 1670 and

1953 1953 is when they finally discovered the shape the configuration

of the DNA molecule but that didn't really change that the perception of

matter but between those years the goal of science and especially medical

science was to learn to manipulate the parts of the machine and along with this

idea came three principles once called materialism that's the belief that

matter physical matter is the most real thing there is and anything else is

really a byproduct reductionism that means that the machine is only the sum

of its parts so if we have a huge machine if we have a huge complicated

arrangement and if we just dissect it down to the minutest detail and we

understand all the components then we understand the whole and determinism

means that if we understand the whole then we can start manipulating those

tiny little particles and we can control all of creation so this is what science

has been working on for the last several hundred years one of my favorite

analogies about reductionism is well if you take something apart and try to

understand the whole that it sort of becomes like taking a radio apart to

find the music and the problem is the music isn't in

the radio it is a signal playing through the radio and that's the crucial part

that they're missing with this materialistic model that they believe

that all of the signals and everything that the electricity and the magnetism

of the body is in an epiphenomenon it's its secondary phenomenon of the physical

body rather than the other way around and we have more and more evidence today

that we can pretty much proved that it's that it's the other way around back to

DNA continued history so then around 1900 over a hundred years ago there were

some really bright cutting-edge physicists by the name of Einstein Bohr

and Heisenberg and they found a different kind of physics they said that

you know Newtonian physics explains a lot of this stuff but there are huge

gaps it doesn't explain what happens at the very very many levels so they

defined and and discover something called quantum physics and what they

found is this was really the true physics that this was it didn't

necessarily negate quantum physics but it was a more complete form it was a

description at a higher level that suit preceded the the mechanical physics and

what they found is the universe is not primarily a mechanical physical machine

it is primarily a field of information and signals that is the the highest

level of reality of the entire universe is information and signals and it is a

field of energy and Einstein even came up with a quote he said the field is the

sole governing the particle meaning when you're talking

about physical matter consisting of particles that the only thing that

controls that is the energy of the field okay that's pretty profound but even

though they discover this and even though computers and cell phones and

radios and all of our electronics are based on quantum physics our entire

world would fall apart if we didn't understand and utilize quantum physics

for some reason very little or virtually none of this way of thinking has made

its way into what we call the scientific methodology and especially in in medical

science then in 1953 to discover the structure of DNA and now they knew

exactly what the DNA molecule looked like but because they had the mindset of

materialism of the matter being the most real as soon as they found the molecule

and what it looked like they said hip hooray Eureka we have found it we need

to look no further everything is explained and they said this DNA

molecule is the thing that does it all and they didn't really stop and ask well

what is it that makes it do what it does they just said well somehow it doesn't

and they just didn't question it any further because their mindset was so

entrained in the materialistic philosophy and then in 2003 they

completed the Human Genome Project they had listed and defined the structure of

every single gene mangino every GNA trait of the human and

we won't go into detail but do do some reading on that because that was pretty

interesting they thought they would find a hundred thousand genes and they found

that we only had about 20,000 and all of a sudden it was very confusing because

now they didn't explain anything it opened up Pandora's box of questions

because they said what we thought every gene would code for one protein and now

we know it doesn't so it really didn't solve anything but even all of that they

still kept looking at the physical properties of the molecule so if you go

to the webpage for the Human Genome Project they now have restated it a

little bit they say DNA is a blueprint and they say that it does code for

proteins but they say the control mechanism is not in the DNA but even

though they that's or the cutting edge and they admit that at the cutting edge

it still hasn't changed anything about how the mainstream of medical science

views the properties of DNA and there's still little or no focus beyond the

physical they're still looking for more molecules and more chemicals to interact

and determine what what havior is so the mainstream view is

still the DNA controls biology and diseases so that's sort of where we

stand today and that will move on and talk about a little bit what how another

way of looking at this and one of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain what

gets us in trouble is not what we don't know it's what we know for sure that

just ain't so so for 300 years we have known that physical matter is the real

thing and then it turns out with quantum physics that the physical matter is not

the real thing the invisible field is the real thing but we're just real slow

to catch on so it's like number eight this is the the current model of the DNA

and this is as it is presented in in media as it's practiced in medical

research DNA is the molecule that somehow it has the ability to make a

copy of itself and it has an ability to make a carbon copy called RNA and RNA is

just like a mirror image stamp DNA so DNA can split up it can make an RNA copy

and the RNA goes out into the cell and combines with proteins with amino acids

and forms proteins so you can read up on all of that that's not what we're

questioning we're trying to figure out here today that's very well established

but DNA man makes RNA and RNA makes protein and

protein is the only pro is the only substance in the body that can perform

work that can contract and that basically is responsible for all the

properties of hormones and enzymes and contraction and so forth so therefore

they say well protein is responsible for behavior and protein is responsible for

disease and since DNA makes protein DNA is responsible for behavior and disease

so they've linked that created that link but they never questioned whether that

link was complete and that's what we're that's what we're going to try to figure

out here so once like number 9 what is DNA the first three points here is what

everyone agrees on there's absolutely no doubt what DNA is it is a blueprint what

is a blueprint blueprint for a house it contains instructions on how to build

house a cookbook is sort of a blueprint for making meals what does it contain it

contains information on how to put ingredients together to make a meal and

the same thing holds true with DNA DNA is a blueprint it contains information

on how to do something how to combine amino acids into proteins that's what a

blueprint is more so we know that DNA nucleic acids are very very stable it's

a molecule that they have found fossils they have found frozen mammoths they

have found dinosaur pieces with DNA intact fifty hundred thousand years

later that is so stable that you can pull it out

and you can use it to code for protein that's why Nature has chosen DNA because

it's so remarkably stable and we know that this stable shape sort of makes up

letters that each little shape their different nucleic acids and they each

represent letters so to speak there's four letters and with these letters you

can write it's just like a four-letter alphabet you can start writing code and

instructions so far that's what DNA is and everyone agrees on that so in the

creation process down below what do you need to recreation we need a blueprint

information on how to put something together but we also need building

blocks and we need someone to read the blueprint and take the building blocks

and put them together according to the blueprint then we have completed the

creation process so often times you hear that someone

says well the gene turned on is the gene turned on or is the gene turned off can

a blueprints be on or off no a blueprint is a blueprint what matters is do you

read the blueprint or don't you read the blueprint but it can't be on or off

because it just is so that's that's a little problem with with nomenclature

but it gives us the idea that that the DNA molecule does something that it

can't do so let's do a few more examples here if you are going to build a house

and you start with a blueprint for a house what would be the next thing that

you need for a house any ideas materials building materials exactly you need two

by fours you need screws and nails lumber and sheetrock and all those good

things and now you can have the blueprint and you have a pile of bricks

is that going to make a house no you need someone to do something so who does

that

builder builder exactly a builder a contractor a buyer all those people

initiate the process and then you have workers and contractors and laborers to

to put the pieces together so that completes the creation process for a

house but the blueprint didn't build a house it can't do that same thing with a

meal we want to end up with a meal where do we start start with a cookbook and

then we read the cookbook we see what sort of ingredients we need those are

the building blocks and then we need a cook to put it all together to make a

meal does anyone believe that the cookbook cooked the meal right it's

laughable and yet when it comes to biology they discovered the DNA and all

of a sudden hey oh the DNA is the creator it's just a molecule it's just a

blueprint okay so on the fine line here you want to make a human you need DNA

you need building blocks and then is the big question mark what is it that tells

the DNA how when and what gene and how to combine

everything okay that's what we're going to spend a little more time on here but

there's some sort of activity there's some initiator that tells the DNA wanted

to do then obviously the building blocks does proper food and it's not food if

not artificial food it's not artificial sweeteners artificial color it's not

processed food from a bisque own craft its food from nature that has the

building blocks that we need so there's a little more to it and the current

mainstream mainstream view is Lily incomplete and we've said the DNA

doesn't make decision so what does make decisions will introduce a few more

pieces here we'll look at the cell the cell membrane the receptors and

regulatory proteins what are those so the cell first of all you look at slide

11 here very simplistic view it is basically a bag that has a cell membrane

around it it's like celluloid all the way plastic wrap all the way around it

and then there's fluid and then there's protein filaments all the way through to

keep the plastic bag sturdy and keep its shape then in the middle is the nucleus

and that's a smaller plastic bag inside and that contains all the chromosomes

and inside the chromosomes are the DNA that's where all the genetic code is so

we'll take a small portion of the outside cell membrane and we'll blow it

up and we'll move to slide number 12 and the cell membrane is probably the most

underrated structure in biology ever because while they say while generally

DNA is is considered to be the brain the control center the hub the big deal

the membrane is actually where all the action is the membrane is truly the

brain of the body of the cell the membrane is a two layer by lipid layer

it has an outside with fat and inside with fat and then there's an in-between

with little low tails on it the reason it looks like this is that the fat

rejects water so when you have two layers rejecting water that creates a

separation and because of that membrane you create a difference between inside

the cell and outside the cell so now any function in the body has to do with what

happens inside and outside the cells brain cells signal by allowing different

ions inside and outside your every function of the cell depends on what is

inside and outside and in a way that's like making decisions the membrane

decides what stays outside and what comes inside and making decisions that

this membrane is really very much like a computer chip the computer chip is

decides ones and zeros demand the cell membrane decides inside and outside and

how does it do that well if you look at all these strange little attachments on

we're still a number 12 if you look at all these strange attachments those are

receptors and receptors are kind of like antenna they pick up signals and we have

receptors that pick up signals from hormones they their receptors that

connect to hormones their receptors that connect to to thyroid hormone and to

insulin and growth hormone and all those things then there are

receptors that respond to electricity and there are other receptors that

respond to electromagnetic vibration so they truly are like a little antennas

and what does a receptor do a receptor takes one kind of stimulus and converts

it into another so the way the brain gets is information is you have

receptors that detect your environment and convert it into electricity that it

sends up to the brain so the brain can be aware of your environment well on the

cellular level these little receptors takes all the information outside the

cell and makes it and converts it into another signal that can travel inside

the cell then that inside inside the cell this signal can travel in two to

the chromosome to the DNA and if it's the specific kind of signal it will tell

the DNA what to do so that is where the instructions to the DNA come from but

there's one more step we want to cover so if i have if i have my sleep roll

down here and let's say that I wrote the DNA code on my arm I wrote the code the

genetic instructions and then I covered it up so you couldn't see the code and

there would be no way for you to know which part of the code to read and

that's what regulatory proteins do regulatory proteins cover up the DNA in

the chromosome there's about fifty percent protein in the chromosome so the

way that we determine which part of the DNA to replicate which gene to express

at any given time is we send a specific signal that rolls up the sleeve that

uncovers a specific regulatory protein to expose a specific part of DNA

and now that DNA can get into action so that is the that's the sequence of

events that leads to the expression of the gene you have a signal from the

environment whether it's outside of us or a signal outside the cell that signal

the cell membrane determines if it's an appropriate signal that signal travels

in and stimulates the regulatory protein it opens up a sequence of DNA and now

that part of the DNA is red okay so we'll get get more into what the huge

gigantic significance of this is but it's not the DNA that does anything hope

we've would clarify that part so now number 14 we have a slightly revised

model of how DNA works it's not that the the Tres the the traditional model was

wrong it was just in complete nobody asked well who tells DNA what to do so

now we see that is the environment the signals or the stress that triggers the

DNA to get into action and then the DNA makes RNA and protein and so forth but

the DNA is just a passive part of this larger picture

but now that we introduced the environment now we need to understand a

little bit more about how the environment works what is the

environment and what is something called perception so the brain gets all its

information via receptors the cell gets all its information via receptors and

receptors are something that translates the environment the site the sound the

touch the temperature taste smell touch all of those senses it converts those

into electrical signals and so in a sense the receptor whether it's on the

skin or on the surface of the cell it's a unit of perception that's what it is

it's the smallest unit of perception and the sum total of your perception as a

human is the sum total of all your receptors because they all send a little

message is in to the decision-makers cell membrane and the brain cells and

they take this big picture and create your perception now we have to

understand this is where he is really exciting because perception is not

typically what we think it is they've done they've done experiments and they

take cats they take newborn kitties and if you don't know this kitties are blind

and birth so site is not something that you that they're born with it's it's a

sense that has to be entrained so they take these little kitties and they put

one group of kitties in an environment with all vertical stripes and they take

another one another group and put them in an environment with all horizontal

stripes and then they have them lived there for two weeks and then they take

out and two weeks is how long it takes for a cat or a few weeks I don't

remember the number how long it takes to develop the synapses the brain cell

connections to develop the pattern of perception so this is a learned behavior

now the kiddies that were raised in horizontal it with vertical lines they

cannot see anything horizontal if you put a bar they'll run straight into it

they have no ability to see it and vice versa the kitties that were raised in a

with horizontal bars stripes they cannot see chair legs they cannot see table

legs they run straight into them because they haven't developed the neuronal

connections the receptor apparatus the synapses they're just not there and it

gets better when they train elephants in India they take the little baby elephant

that's just a tiny little thing it's walking around unsteady it's not it's

big for a baby but it's not huge or very strong they tie it with a regular rope

around the leg and this rope for a baby elephant is strong enough that it can't

escape so it makes the neuronal connections it makes it creates a belief

system and knowing that a rope is something you can't escape from so they

tie up the elephant every night with a little rope then over time the elephant

grows big and large and they put it to work and now you can tie a big chain

around the leg of the elephant and you can tie it to a tree and the health and

one will walk off with a tree and then at night you tie it back up with a

flimsy little rope and it can't escape and this is a knowing it's a belief

system that is part of the neuronal connections that is so strong they

cannot escape it and what we have to understand is our perception is

developed the same way the way that we start believing things is that we learn

how to believe we learn what to believe in right third example this is the best

one they took some mice and they had them smell kafir kafir is a strong

smelling substance and camphor is not supposed to have any effect on mice so

it didn't have no effect the hours and hours and have no effect then what they

did is they had them smell camphor and they gave them a little shot of

something called poly I see and this is something that normally stimulates the

immune system so they did this a few times they had them smell camphor they

gave them a shot and their amount of killer t-cells went up that's the number

one defense against cancer so they did that a few times and then they just have

them smell camphor and what do you know their t-cell count well without the shot

of poly I see because they had taught the the nervous system of the mice to

expect a boost of immune system they had expected that the shot and the shot

wasn't necessary it was enough with the smell of camphor okay it's a it's a

classic Pavlovian conditioning okay but it's important to understand that it's

not the purpose of conditioning is not to get some dog to salivate the purpose

is that there is the conditioning is how the nervous system works

and then they had another group of mice they did this parallel and did the same

thing that had them smell canford there was no effect then they had them smell

camphor and they followed up with a neurotoxin that destroyed the immune

system and they did that a few times then they had them smell camphor alone

without the neurotoxin and same thing happened they destroyed the immune

system so now you have two groups of mice and they're going about their merry

ways and you have one of them smell camphor and you have the other one smell

camphor and in one group of mice there's a belief system that camphor increases

your immune system and the other group has the belief system at the cellular

level that camphor destroys your immune system and that's exactly what happens

because it's been conditioned it's been ingrained in their cellular belief

through connections and synapses and receptors and then you take both of

these groups of mice you expose them to the smell of camphor and you give them a

carcinogen so now one group of my life mice will boost their immune system and

survive the carcinogen and act as nothing happen and the other group

they'll their immune system and they'll die of

cancer the developed cancer died so one group is perfectly healthy the other

group dies of cancer what's the difference they have a difference in how

they interpret the smell of camphor the difference between life and death is

what they believe a smell means and this is how profound this this receptor and

and conditioning business is if we understand it we can use it to benefit

and or or if we don't it can it can destroy us so a few conclusions here on

perception that the vast majority of perception is learned beliefs are

nothing more than habituated patterns of perception beliefs are nothing more than

thoughts we keep repeating it is nothing more than things that we have seen over

and over until if they become an expectation the immune systems in the

mice happened via DNA because it was the DNA that made the killer t-cells okay so

when we're talking about DNA we need to understand where we're in the chain this

this takes place the DNA of the mice didn't change but the expression changed

it was the the DNA that they had was expressed differently to either make

more T cells or less t cells and again the stimulus the trigger was a belief

system that was conditioned we've said this already difference between health

and disease and even life and death is a perception one of my favorite quotes by

Shakespeare for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so so

all the things that we perceive that affect the body that

a stressful or not so stressful effect on the body our perceptions and it's

what you think about them that determine their meaning so now we can move to a

virtually completed model of DNA where we see that at the top of the chain is

the perception of the environment that is the ultimate determinant of the

expressed DNA it doesn't matter what DNA you have as much and it matters how it

is expressed and how it is expressed depends on your perception your belief

system okay if you believe something is good where you believe something is bad

next is my favorite cartoonist glass Bergen he's got this psychoanalyst and

he's confessing or work getting therapy said I was happy once but then myself

started to divide and I acquired a heartbeat so obviously he's talking

about the moment of conception that before that you're happy and then it

goes downhill and it's not it's sort of funny but it's not so far off the mark

unfortunately can DNA cause disease well there are genetic diseases so yes it can

but it's not the kind of diseases that we that were concerned with that we talk

about because everything that kills people the diabetes and the arthritis

and the cancer and all those things they are not genetic diseases the genetic

diseases or things like they're less than five percent of the population has

any genetic defect and those are things like Down syndrome Huntington's disease

Huntington's Korea tay-sachs it's a metabolic disease sickle cell anemia

that sells don't form properly so you can

has blood clots and then klinefelter syndrome it's it's a sexual formation

abnormality what what what signifies a genetic disease is that if you have the

genetic abnormality you will always get the disease a million times out of a

million not seven percent not three percent not most of the time always

because it's a genetic disease there's no other way to express that gene it

just doesn't know how to do it that's a genetic disease the other thing that

they have in common goes back to the cartoon I was happy once but then my

cell started to divide most genetic diseases happen before the cells start

to divide it's at the moment of conception the problem is already there

those are genetic diseases everything else that they talk about with with

cancer and heart disease and diabetes those are not busy not those are not

genetic diseases so what what are they well we said this if it if a gene caused

cancer then everyone with that gene would get the cancer not seven percent

not three out of five everyone so the way it really works is your DNA there

are different qualities of DNA some people are a little bit luckier than

others so some people can get away with more stuff than others they have a

stronger defense of what your genetic code can do for you is if you're lucky

they can they can get you a little bit more

distance to disease but that said it doesn't mean that you have to express

the gene if you have it you still don't have to express that this brings me back

to my favorite gene the Hanover gene you see even if you have a hangover gene or

if you even if you have to you still have to drink alcohol to get a hangover

okay it doesn't matter if you have the gene you have to do something to trigger

it and that's the environment and that's the perception ok so does DNA manner yes

does it matter very much not nearly as much as we believe it does and I'll

finish up with with another perspective on that too so what about family history

well everything on the previous slide applies what we have to realize with

family history is families have a lot in common and having a gene doesn't mean

that you have to express it like we said it's about lifestyle so what families

have in common are they have genes quite a few genes are our Commons are similar

for family members but what you also get from your family is you learn how to

think that's a perception you learn how to eat you learn what to believe you

learn how to react and you learn how to stress okay and those are the

determinants of which genes you express so does DNA matter yes this perception

man yes probably much much more so and now

we get back to the classic I'm going to wrap this up we get back to the classic

dilemma of nature versus nurture which one is more important they always have

this argument is does it matter more who your parents are or doesn't matter more

which environment you grow up in and both both matter but here's my take on

this they're both right to a point but what really matters more is what do you

choose to believe about it because here's what it says if you believe in

the classic model of DNA that DNA is responsible for behavior and disease

then you are believing that your fate was sealed at the moment of conception

that in that moment everything about you was determined and you have very little

say in it so don't worry just go about your business and wait for the disease

wait for whatever supposed to happen to you to happen to you and the second part

that it says is because your disease is predetermined and you can't do anything

about it the only ones that can do something about it are these really

clever medical doctors who can invent a magic bullet for you so if you fly in

and that's what we've done as a society we bought into that model they tell us

you have nothing to do with it it's all in your genes your fate was determined

your disease a predetermined look at your family

history it's all in there and don't worry about it just pay your insurance

premiums and we'll take care of it we'll find a magic bullet and if you're

unlucky then you'll perish before we find a cure and if you're lucky then

we'll find a cure for you but that's your only hope that's what the model

says however if you buy into a little bit more the environment model the

perception model now you can stop being a victim you become the Creator because

now it doesn't really matter which model is right but it gives you some control

it allows you to choose your thoughts it allows you to choose your environment

and with that you choose how you express your DNA so it doesn't matter if you

live in a family that has a ninety-nine percent risk of cancer you decide if

you're the one percent and you do something about it so that pretty much

concludes what we have to say about DNA and heredity I thank you for coming very

much enjoy this topic this as you can tell it's one of my favorites and please

please feel free to come back for for the rest of our series again look at the

other videos on YouTube and if you feel that you got something out of this

please tell somebody so that they can learn something so that they don't have

to buy into the victim models they don't have to get on drugs and do things that

that will destroy their lives thank you very much