The Cosmic Serpent (32 page)

23
See Butler (1996) on the 12 million base pair genome of the yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
See Hilts (1996) on the similarities between yeast and human genes. In some cases, the contrary is also true, and genomes vary greatly between closely related species; Wade (1997b) writes about a conference on small genomes: “As work on one genome after another was described at the meeting, the scientists' mood was like that of people looking at newly-discovered treasure maps, with the treasure not yet in hand but with wonderfully tantalizing clues all about. For example, the order of genes in a genome seems to vary widely, even between closely related species of microbes, as if evolution were constantly shuffling the deck” (p. A14).

24
Langaney (1997, p. 122). Holder and McMahon (1996) write: “Remarkably, many of the genes that are important for the control of fly development are also crucial players in vertebrate, and by association human, development.... Some of the similarities are amazing: for example, mutations in both human
Pax6
gene and in
eyeless,
the
Drosophila
homologue, cause abnormal eye development. This maintenance of function occurs in spite of the overtly different manner in which
Drosophila
and human eyes develop” (p. 515). Yoon (1995) writes: “From silken-petaled roses to popping snapdragons to a willow tree's fuzzy catkins, the plant world offers a dazzling array of flowers. Yet the difference between all this blooming beauty and a plain green shoot appears to be nothing more than the flicking on of one master genetic switch, according to two new studies. Using genetically engineered plants, researchers were able to show that either of two genes, on its own, could turn on the cascade of thousands of genes that produce a flower. Researchers were able to use the genes . . . to produce blossoms where there should instead have been leafy shoots in plants as diverse as Arabidopsis, a roadside weed, tobacco and aspen trees” (p. B5). Wade (1997c) writes: “Many of the most important fruit fly genes, like those that tell the developing embryo to produce organs at certain places, have been found to have counterparts in humans. The fly and human versions of these genes are not identical but have recognizably similar DNA sequences, reflecting their descent from a common ancestral gene some 550 million years ago”; he also writes that there is “surprising and extensive overlap of the genes among all the model organisms” (p. B7). Biology's main model organisms are fruit fly, mouse, worm
C. elegans,
zebra fish, and human.

25
See Hilts (1996, p. C19) on genes “that appear to clump together in families that work on similar problems.” See Wade (1997a) on the similarities in gene clusters on mouse and human X chromosomes.

26
Pollack (1997, p. 674).

27
Luisi (1993, p. 19) and Popper (1974, pp. 168, 171). Popper (1974) writes: “I now wish to give some reasons why I regard Darwinism as metaphysical, and as a research programme. It is metaphysical because it is not testable. One might think that it is. It seems to assert that, if ever on some planet we find life which satisfies conditions (a) and (b) [heredity and variation], then (c) [natural selection] will come into play and bring about in time a rich variety of distinct forms. Darwinism, however, does not assert as much as this. For assume we find life on Mars consisting of exactly three species of bacteria with a genetic outfit similar to that of three terrestrial species. Is Darwinism refuted? By no means. We shall say that these three species were the only forms among the many mutants which were sufficiently well adjusted to survive. And we shall say the same if there is only one species (or none). Thus Darwinism does not really
predict
the evolution of variety. It therefore cannot really
explain
it. At best, it can predict the evolution of variety under ‘favourable conditions. ' But it is hardly possible to describe in general terms what favourable conditions are—except that, in their presence, a variety of forms will emerge” (p. 171, original italics). Dawkins (1986) provides a good illustration of the tautologous tendencies of Darwinism when he writes: “Even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories” (p. 287). He also tells a charming story of a beaver that undergoes a point mutation in its genetic text; this leads to a change in the beaver's brain's “wiring diagram,” which makes the beaver hold its head higher in the water while swimming with a log in its mouth; this makes it less likely that the mud washes off the log, which makes the log stickier, which makes the beaver's dam a sounder structure, which increases the size of the lake, which makes the beaver's lodge more secure against predators, which increases the number of offspring reared by the beavers. This means that beavers with the mutated gene will become more numerous in time and will eventually become the norm. He concludes: “The fact that this particular story is hypothetical, and that the details may be wrong, is irrelevant. The beaver dam evolved by natural selection, and therefore what happened cannot be very different, except in practical details, from the story I have told” (p. 136). Wilson (1992) even provides an explicitly Darwinian explanation for the worldwide phenomenon of snake veneration, thereby showing that the theory of natural selection can be used to justify more or less anything: “People are both repelled and fascinated by snakes, even when they have never seen one in nature. In most cultures the serpent is the dominant wild animal of mythical and religious symbolism. Manhattanites dream of them with the same frequency as Zulus. This response appears to be Darwinian in origin. Poisonous snakes have been an important cause of mortality almost everywhere, from Finland to Tasmania, Canada to Patagonia; an untutored alertness in their presence saves lives. We note a kindred response in many primates, including Old World monkeys and chimpanzees” (p. 335). See also Moorhead and Kaplan, eds. (1967), Chandebois (1993), and Schützenberger (1996) on the limits of Darwinism.

1
Jacques Mabit, a medical doctor doing remarkable work with mestizo ayahuasqueros in Peru, notes that in the ayahuasca literature, which contains over five hundred titles, less than 10 percent of the authors have tried the substance, and none has followed the classical apprenticeship (see Mabit et al. 1992). Mabit himself is one of the rare exceptions.

2
Hill (1992), in his article on Wakuénai musical curing, writes regarding the fragmentation of Western knowledge: “Wakuénai curing rituals are simultaneously musical, cosmological, social, psychological, medical, and economic events, a multidimensionality that ‘embarrasses the categories' of Western scientific and artistic culture” (p. 208).

3
Regarding the failure of Western-style education among the indigenous people of Amazonia, see Gasché (1989-1990). Moreover, Gasché points out that intercultural education requires not only funds, but a calling into question of anthropology as a science, given that the discipline bases its existence on intercultural dialogue between Indians and non-Indians, which can only occur through a constant confrontation of these two realities; up until now, an anthropology that is truly useful to the people who are its object remains to be realized. Thus, Gasché (1993) writes: “From a strictly logical, or more precisely topological, point of view, one can envisage the orientation of anthropological discourse in the direction not of the researcher's own society, but, on the contrary, of the society which is, or was, its object of study. Such a proposition no doubt surprises, or even shocks some anthropologists, because, indeed, it has hardly been formulated and has even less led to careers. However, for anthropologists who assume the principle of cultural relativism as a presupposition founding their scientific attitude towards human societies, this proposition would logically emerge as soon as they postulate the coherence between their scientific statements and their social actions: if all societies are of equal worth, why do anthropologists keep the benefits of the product of their labor exclusively for their own society? This question is all the more urgent that it brings into play two other central notions in anthropology, namely exchange and reciprocity: the data, which are the raw material of all anthropological thought, come from the society that never benefits from the finished product. And it is the question of return, of equilibration in the relationship between the Indian society and the anthropologist, between the object and subject of the research, which many Indians are currently posing in the Peruvian Amazon” (pp. 27-28).

4
Davis (1993) writes: “The current international discussion of biodiversity prospecting and intellectual property rights fails to comprehend this sacred or spiritual quality of Indigenous plant knowledge, because it is so rooted in material considerations and the economic thinking of the West” (p. 21). Posey (1994) writes: “Intellectual property rights is a foreign concept to indigenous peoples” (p. 235).

5
Luna and Amaringo (1991, p. 72). Regarding the multicultural past of Pablo Amaringo, see p. 21 of the same book.

6
See Taussig (1987, p. 179).

7
Chaumeil (1992) writes: “We know about the fascination that the forest and its inhabitants exert in matters of shamanism on Andean and urban society. Urban and Andean shamans generally attribute great powers to their indigenous colleagues, whom they visit frequently, setting up vast shamanic exchange networks in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In Brazil, many
mestizo
shamans adopt indigenous methods and live temporarily in Indian villages to learn the shamanic arts. Indeed, most claim to have had at least one indigenous instructor, or recognize the indigenous origin of their knowledge” (p. 93). Chaumeil goes on to explain that this exchange works both ways and that there is “an increasing flux of young indigenous people into towns where they go to learn the shamanic arts with
mestizo
instructors, who develop the opposite tendency” (p. 99).

8
Rosaldo (1980) writes: “Doing oral history involves telling stories about stories people tell about themselves. Method in this discipline should therefore attend to ‘our' stories, ‘their' stories, and the connections between them” (p. 89). Rosaldo (1989) writes: “Such terms as
objecivity, neutrality,
and
impartiality
refer to subject positions once endowed with great institutional authority, but they are arguably neither more nor less valid than those of more engaged, yet equally perceptive, knowledgeable social actors” (p. 21, original italics). He adds: “Because researchers are necessarily both somewhat impartial and somewhat partisan, somewhat innocent and somewhat complicit, their readers should be as informed as possible about what the observer was in a position to know and not know” (p. 69).

9
”Learned analysis” often escapes the understanding not only of those who are its object, but of many Western individuals. Anthropologists have written so many unreadable texts that the literary critic Pratt (1986) writes: “For the lay person, such as myself, the main evidence of a problem is the simple fact that ethnographic writing tends to be surprisingly boring. How, one asks constantly, could such interesting people doing such interesting things produce such dull books? What did they have to do to themselves?” (p. 33).

10
For a detailed discussion of the role of intuition, dreaming, imagination, and illumination in the history of scientific discoveries, see Beveridge (1950). Watson (1968) writes: “Afterwards, in the cold, almost unheated train compartment, I sketched on the blank edge of my newspaper what I remembered of the B pattern. Then as the train jerked towards Cambridge, I tried to decide between two- and three-chain models. As far as I could tell, the reason the King's group did not like two chains was not foolproof. It depended upon the water content of the DNA samples, a value they admitted might be in great error. Thus by the time I had cycled back to college and climbed over the back gate, I had decided to build two-chain models. Francis would have to agree. Even though he was a physicist, he knew that important biological objects come in pairs” (p. 166). The “B structure” mentioned by Watson refers to an X-ray photograph of DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin, whose work was thus central to Watson and Crick's discovery, but who received no mention when the Nobel Prize was awarded. That she was a woman, and that things should have occurred this way, was surely no coincidence.

11
Beveridge (1950, p. 72). He adds: “The most important prerequisite is prolonged contemplation of the problem and the data until the mind is saturated with it. There must be a great interest in it and desire for its solution. The mind must work consciously on the problem for days in order to get the subconscious mind working on it.... An important condition is freedom from other problems or interests competing for attention, especially worry over private affairs.... Another favourable condition is freedom from interruption or even fear of interruption or any diverting influence such as interesting conversation within earshot or sudden and excessively loud noises.... Most people find intuitions are more likely to come during a period of apparent idleness and temporary abandonment of the problem following periods of intensive work. Light occupations requiring no mental effort, such as walking in the country, bathing, shaving, travelling to and from work, are said by some to be when intuitions most often appear. . . . Others find lying in bed most favourable and some people deliberately go over the problem before going to sleep and others before rising in the morning. Some find that music has a helpful influence but it is notable that only very few consider that they get any assistance from tobacco, coffee or alcohol” (p. 76). Mullis (1994) discusses in his Nobel lecture how he conceived the polymerase chain reaction while driving along a moonlit mountain road with his driving companion asleep next to him. The polymerase chain reaction allows one to amplify DNA from a few cells to vat fulls of cells in a few hours; it spawned the genetic engineering revolution.