The New Genetics and Natural versus Artificial Genetic Modification

• Main Author: Mae-Wan Ho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2013-11-01
• Series: Entropy
• Subjects: central dogma; fluid genome; circular causation; biosemiotics
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/11/4748

The original rationale and impetus for artificial genetic modification was the “central dogma” of molecular biology that assumed DNA carries all the instructions for making an organism, which are transmitted via RNA to protein to biological function in linear causal chains. This is contrary to the reality of the “fluid genome” that has emerged since the mid-1970s. In order to survive, the organism needs to engage in natural genetic modification in real time, an exquisitely precise molecular dance of life with RNA and DNA responding to and participating in “downstream” biological functions. Artificial genetic modification, in contrast, is crude, imprecise, and interferes with the natural process. It drives natural systems towards maximum biosemiotic entropy as the perturbations are propagated and amplified through the complex cascades of interactions between subsystems that are essential for health and longevity.