Welcome to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television. Today we will continue our lively discussion with British molecular biochemist Dr. Johnjoe McFadden regarding his genetic perspective on biological development.

Dr. McFadden studies human genetic and infectious diseases. Since 2001 he has been teaching molecular genetics at the University of Surrey in England. Over the years he has researched the genetics of a wide range of microbes and has done computer modeling of evolution. In his international bestselling book, “Quantum Evolution: How Physics’ Weirdest Theory Explains Life's Biggest Mystery,” Dr. McFadden explores the role of quantum mechanics in life, evolution and consciousness.

Last week, we discussed the E. coli bacteria, which have a peculiar preference to mutations that can feed themselves with glucose if it is available in their environment. The behavior of the E. coli contradicts Darwin’s theory of evolution, which assumes random mutations with regards to natural selection or the idea that organisms naturally produce individuals that are increasingly better adapted to their environment over time.

Dr. McFadden hypothesized this behavior could result from quantum measurement that the environment performs on DNA chromosomes responsible for encoding bacteria mutations.

We asked Dr. McFadden if this non-local, or distant, quantum interaction could be an underlying mechanism of biological adaption to the natural environment.

It depends on a rather peculiar situation, here with the single cell, that the environment has to be able to measure a single cell. Now normally that doesn't happen. In our situation, the environment has to make a difference. Normally our gametes, our sperms and our eggs, the environment of them, doesn't make a difference to the eventual intelligence of a person. That may depend on their genes; it doesn't make any difference to the gametes.

So the environment doesn't have the possibility of reaching down into the DNA of the gametes normally because our gametes are kind of separated from the body and protected from the environment. But for single-celled organisms then it does make a difference. The environments actually are reaching down into the DNA of those organisms. It may make a difference in some situations.

Now the situation where it may make a difference even in our bodies is the situation of cancer. In cancer, one of our cells learns to replicate faster and that's a bad thing. It could be that maybe quantum mechanical effects may be responsible for that, particularly as with some cancers, it seems to require lots of different mutations to occur. The frequency of those mutations should be very low. But still we have cancers because they have multiple mutations, and it could be that maybe quantum mechanical effects may help to explain why all those…

Speeds faster.

Yes, exactly.

It's a bit like the situation that I described in E. coli. The non-cancer cells are sitting there not able to grow because the rest of the body essentially is telling them that, “No, don't grow.” But if a mutation occurs, that will allow the cell to escape. Then it allows natural selection within the body, to allow that cell to grow. And at the moment, understanding how all those mutations occur within a single cell is problematic. So it could be that quantum mechanics may allow that kind of process to take place within our body, to cause cancer cells to start to divide.

Is vaccination another example of that? That the bacteria become immune to the vaccination?

No. Become immune to antibiotics, that could be another example. In an organism I work on, the TB (tuberculosis) bacillus, some strains of the TB bacillus are resistant to 15 different antibiotics. Now it's hard to explain how the organism can have so many different mutations. And it could be, again it's speculation, that this kind of effect may be responsible for the frequency of drug resistance, particularly multiple drug resistance occurring in some strains of bacteria.

Is this something that biologists cannot accept?

Biologists don’t really like this explanation. They’ve been trained as classical chemists, mostly bio-chemists. So when you say to a biologist that a particle can be in two places at once, they tend to say “not in my cell, it can’t.”

But recently there has been stronger evidence for quantum mechanical systems or quantum mechanical effects being important, in crucially important biological phenomena such as photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis may depend on quantum coherence taking place within the particles inside photosynthetic cells. Also certain enzymes seem to work by promoting quantum mechanical effects, bringing particles together so close that quantum tunneling takes place between those particles. Enzymes are the crucial operators inside cells and it could be that a crucial part of how they work is dependent on quantum mechanics.

Please stay with us as we will resume our discussion with Dr. Johnjoe McFadden right after these brief messages. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality. We are speaking with British molecular biochemist Dr. Johnjoe McFadden on the genetic aspects of the evolution of biological organisms. Theories from quantum mechanics have not been accepted by biologists thus far in relation to the evolution of life at the cell and DNA level. Dr. Mc Fadden discusses what it would take for this acceptance to occur.

As a physicist I can say there’s not any single doubt in my mind that DNA has, and this proton mutation is, a quantum mechanic phenomena. But how can you prove that the environment does the measurement, interferes with this single proton and drives it to the right mutation?

Yes, it's difficult.

Essentially there are a number of things that need to be done. One of the things that needs to be done, which goes to all the other kind of experiments, is to demonstrate that biological molecules can behave as quantum mechanical systems. And if that is accepted, then at least it gives some platform for people to believe that this can happen.

And then if you take, say, the adaptive mutations phenomenon, where the environment can seem to increase the frequency of mutation, what you have to do is to disprove all the other possible explanations, so that the only one left is the quantum mechanical one. It is a hard one to prove directly. Within these biological systems, there are too many other ways you can explain things. And only if all of the other mechanisms are excluded can you really say the quantum mechanical one is the only one left.

Once you have given that kind of mechanics, I guess the entire evolution can be explained this way. In other words, this idea of random mutations doesn't have to be actually so random.

Well, to a certain extent, but remember that in most situations that have been studied, mutations are random. When people have measured them, they are random to the direction of selection. So it's only in certain situations where there is a problem with that explanation. Then there is a rationale for bringing in this quantum evolution explanation.

Otherwise, in most situations, mutations do appear to be random with regards to the selection. So mostly, Darwinian natural selection is sufficient. So we are only talking about situations where Darwinian natural selection is insufficient to describe the data. Like in this adaptive mutation scenario, like the origin of life, Darwinian natural selection can't explain that.

We asked Dr. McFadden about the DNA information in a cell and whether it is complete.

Let’s say that we have the same cells in the arm and leg and the DNA is identical. Nevertheless, the shape of biological form is completely different. So what is missing?

We know the explanation for that. That’s because although every cell has the same genes, maybe about 20,000, 30,000 genes, only a small fraction of those genes are active in each cell. So a nerve cell will have one set of genes active, a muscle cell will have a different set of genes active, a skin cell will have a different set of genes active.

You can turn one cell into another as shown by stem cells. Stem cells can turn into a muscle cell, a nerve cell, or whatever other kind of cell. And that’s caused by differences in gene expression. So although each cell has the same genes, those genes aren’t necessarily active.

So is it the environment switches them off and on?

Yes, well, that’s then the process of development. Initially in the egg cell, when it’s fertilized, it’s only one cell. And as the cell divides, and become two, four, eight and more cells, then the environment starts to change the cells. One end of the cell may experience a higher concentration of a chemical than other end of the cell. And that may cause it to differentiate. Gradually, the differentiated cells then secrete chemicals that make other cells differentiate because they form a gradient of chemicals.

So, your position is that basically everything is encoded in DNA.

Well, yes, we know, for instance, that although this can’t be done in higher animals, if you take a bacterial cell, take out its DNA, put in another DNA molecule, then that bacterium will grow like that other DNA molecule, the cell that that came out of.

And it doesn’t seem to be anything that isn’t encoded in DNA that determines the characteristics of a cell. It seems to be that there are some things… the cytoplasm may have an effect, and we know from certain situations when a cell divides it not only inherits the DNA, it inherits the cytoplasm, the stuff around the DNA, and that may affect daughter cells. In fact, we know it does affect daughter cells.

Some effects that aren’t in DNA, are transmitted through the cytoplasm. And this is something that is being understood. It’s part of what is sometimes called epi-genetics, genetics outside of, or on top of, the DNA.

We commend Dr Mc Fadden for his open-minded research, showing the possible quantum interaction between the environment and single-cell bacteria DNA encoding, which goes beyond the traditional view based on Darwinian’s theory of evolution. We would like to sincerely thank him for the time taken to speak with us and wish him the very best for his future research in this area.

Thank you, inquisitive viewers, for your company today on Science and Spirituality. Join us next Sunday for another edition, here on Supreme Master Television. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. With Heaven’s grace, may the entire world soon be unified and in harmony.

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