This week the peer-reviewed solar system science journal Icarus published a paper by two Kazakh physicists who claim that human DNA encodes a mathematical message genetically engineered by extraterrestrial beings when they “seeded the universe” with life. According to the scientists, DNA has “precision-type orderliness”: Simple arrangements of the code reveal an ensemble of arithmetical and ideographical patterns of the same symbolic language. Accurate and systematic, these underlying patterns appear as a product of precision logic and nontrivial computing rather than of stochastic processes (the null hypothesis that they are due to chance coupled with presumable evolutionary pathways is rejected with P-value < 10–13). The patterns are profound to the extent that the code mapping itself is uniquely deduced from their algebraic representation. The signal displays readily recognizable hallmarks of artificiality, among which are the symbol of zero, the privileged decimal syntax and semantical symmetries. Essentially, the scientists claim that there are non-random patterns in DNA, but their conclusion does not seem to follow logically from the observation. Writing in Discovery News, astronomy writer Ray Villard noted that even taking the claim of non-random patterns in DNA at face value, it says nothing about the existence of aliens. Such patterns could be the result of hitherto unknown biological processes (including emergent phenomena inherent in DNA), or even “intelligent design” by a supernatural entity. (Villard seems weirdly concerned about how to squeeze God into the findings, asking who designed the aliens.) However, it’s probably important to also note that the Kazakh authors did not apparently test non-human DNA to see if such patterns repeat elsewhere, an important factor.
Nor are physicists necessarily the best judges of concepts outside of physics. I just got an email today from a physicist in India who has convinced himself that all earth languages are corrupt versions of Tamil, that the Tamils founded the Maya civilization, and that the Indo-Europeans stole all of their religious ideas from the Tamils. Does it surprise you that the physicist is himself Tamil? I’d like to know what biologists think of the DNA “patterns” the Kazakh physicists found. I don’t know enough about DNA or how one would encode “the symbol of zero” into DNA to say much useful about this, but I do find it interesting how the conclusions to which the authors jump reflect a very longstanding urge among humans to seek out supernatural parentage. Looking for aliens as the authors of our DNA is a modern reflection of the ancient drive to seek out the gods as the authors of our lineage. This Friday Ancient Aliens is doing an hour on the Vikings (tying in with History’s dramatic series), and among the Vikings it was believed that various families descended from the gods. Snorri Sturluson describes in the prologue to his Edda how various families descended from the three sons of Odin: “These forefathers ruled the land which is now called Frankland, and from them is come the race that is called the Volsungs. From all of these many and great races are descended.” Among the Greeks and Romans the same held true, for the family of Caesar claimed descent from Venus, and various and sundry men spoke of the gods as their ancestors. The incorporeal form of Zeus as a golden shower impregnated the virgin Danae with the semi-divine hero Perseus, alleged progenitor of several races. Anthropologically, innumerable cultures recognize the ability of the gods to interbreed with humans and produce a race of semi-divine beings. That this belief was prevalent even among the Jews is in evidence from the famed passage in Genesis 6:4 when the “sons of God” had sex with the “daughters of men” and gave rise to a race of heroes. Although the Jews stopped considering the sons of God (literally: sons of the gods) to be a real supernatural race, the belief lingered on in the Levant outside of Israel, as the Qur’an suggests in describing the nebulously-defined mushrikun as believing God was the progenitor of a divine race of gods or angels (43:19) and, along with the Christians, believe him the father of one or more human children (18:4, 19:88, 21:26). Christians, of course, believe that the incorporeal form of God as the Holy Spirit impregnated the Virgin Mary with the divine hero Jesus (whose exact degree of divinity was subject to several centuries of debate). Although Jesus was not traditionally seen as the father of peoples, today alternative historians have made him into the semi-divine ancestor of a broad swath of Europe’s Caucasian elite. It’s also interesting to note that this impulse isn’t confined to the supernatural realm. Snorri Sturluson, for example, did not view the pagan gods as divine but rather as heroic men whose lineage was possessed of great power and bravery, descended from the heroic men of Troy, who therefore seeded the wild men of the North with the civilization of the Mediterranean. (The Romans also thought that an infusion of Trojan blood gave their race a special claim to power.) This is the same idea behind Thomas Sinclair’s claim centuries later that Native Americans were racially inferior to the point that only an infusion of superior European blood, in the form of sex with Henry Sinclair, could raise them up from savagery to barbarism. Ignatius Donnelly, too, in his books on Atlantis, saw the (white) Atlanteans as a heroic race who seeded the world with their superior blood, a concept we find anew in the work of Graham Hancock. In adapting both the “sons of God” and the “superior bloodline” themes, ancient astronaut theorists like Erich von Däniken developed what has been dismissed as the “horny alien” hypothesis, whereby extraterrestrial beings physically mated with early humans. (And apparently still do: One British psychic recently said that she receives intense orgasms at night from the aliens.) By the infusion of their alien genes, they raised up primitive humans into the glory of full consciousness. Ancient Aliens modified this to become genetic engineering (to overcome the challenges posed by cross-species breeding), but the sexual idea lingers on in the UFO movement, where “abductees” claim that aliens sexually abuse and impregnate them in order to create “hybrid” creatures, seen as the next (often spiritual) phase in human evolution. In all cases, though, control over human reproduction is ascribed to extraterrestrial beings, and the infusion of superior non-human genes is thought to lead to an improvement in human adaptive fitness. In this, there is really no difference between the idea that aliens are sexing up the ladies and earlier claims that the gods fathered heroes among human women. There’s probably something interesting to say about the fact that in the Western tradition male aliens and gods take a sexual interest in human females, resulting in the fathering of powerful races of heroic males (regardless of the fate of the irrelevant female sex object—Zeus would sometimes blast them to dust or turn them to animals), while the rare instance where a female alien or goddess takes up with a human male results in terror and/or death. Compare the “anal probing” of male abductees to the castration of Attis for love of Cybele, the goring of Adonis for love of Aphrodite, the violent dismemberment of Dumuzi (Tammuz) for love of Inanna, etc. Since Caesar claimed descent from Venus, it isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it seems that there was something of a double standard between gods and goddesses, and that seems to carry over into modern UFO myths, with men expressing sexual anxiety about penetration and violation while women express anxiety about parturition.
52 Comments
Matt Mc
4/11/2013 07:19:05 am
I find it interesting that maybe that there is a theory of diffusionism that the peoples of the North are descended from the people of Troy. Great information.
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The Other J.
4/11/2013 09:24:03 am
Think about that for a second; it suggests that the whole of Western Civilization was fostered by absentee baby daddies.
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Robin Swope
4/11/2013 08:05:18 am
Isn't this hypothesis (DNA is encoded with a 'message' from a superior alien race responsible for panspermia) is the same as the main plot for the Star Trek:TNG episode "The Chase" (Season 6 episode 20)?
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4/11/2013 08:10:24 am
Not to mention Ridley Scott's von Daniken-inspired Prometheus.
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4/11/2013 09:56:41 am
Between the ST:TNG episode and Prometheus, I think we know which was the better.
Mila
4/11/2013 10:38:06 am
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The Other J.
4/11/2013 09:12:04 am
Jason, are you familiar with Thor Heyerdahl's final project, the work he was doing in Azerbaijan when he died? I came across it years ago, and the work was never completed because Heyerdahl passed, but it's related to Sturluson's account of where the Scandinavian people came from (and isn't all that paranormal or alientastic).
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4/11/2013 01:09:09 pm
It's an interesting idea, I guess, in that it's not entirely impossible. After all, (a) the Vikings were in Russia, so it's not too much of a stretch, and (b) Norse mythology was Indo-European, so other Indo-European analogues were likely present in the region from ancient times, accounting for some of the similarities and possibly for transmission, depending on where one hypothesizes the IE homeland was. The problem, of course, is that Heyerdahl pretty much ignored these two points and focused on proving that his version of Snorri's rationalized Roman-Norse Christian-pagan conflation was literally true.
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4/11/2013 03:28:42 pm
The Azeri are a Turkic people who didn't arrive in the Caucasus until about two thousand years after the Trojan War. It the words Azeri and Aesir have any relation, it moved the other direction.
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Tara Jordan
4/11/2013 11:25:25 pm
It is not surprising that Americans are using Thor Heyerdahl`s theories to promote wacky ethno-archeology & rewrite history. Thor Heyerdahl was a diffusionist, a semi intellectual quack with no serious academic & (or) scientific training.The man was a cultural sponge,a precursor in loony alternative history,a David Hatcher Childress predecessor. I`m half Brit Half Swede & I find the idea that Viking (Scandinavians) came from Azerbaijan, utterly preposterous.Scandinavians already lived in the region during the Stone Age.The Search for Odin -Oden in Azerbaijan might be undertaken in Japan as well,since Japanese also have the word "Oden" (おでん) in their vocabulary.Thor Heyerdahl linguistic correlations are as bad as Jordan Maxwell etymological "studies".
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The Other J.
4/12/2013 01:58:54 pm
No matter how wack the theory (and everybody first arrived from someplace else), it's probably important to point out that it was Azerbaijan's project to begin with, and they brought in Heyerdahl to examine what they had, not the other way around.
Tara Jordan
4/12/2013 07:26:51 pm
Of course we all come from "somewhere" but speculation for the sake of speculation doesn't bring anything to a cultural & historical heritage.It may in fact have very negative impacts,leading to ethnocentrism,chauvinism,extreme nationalism & outright xenophobia.This is my main issue with " alternative historians",most of their theories have racist undertones (most of non Western civilizational achievements are in fact the direct byproduct of Western (white) diffusionism. But Nubians were already building pyramids & ruling over the Egypt 25th Dynasty,when Scott Wolter`s ancestors were walking barefoot & cannibalizing each others.
Shawn Flynn
4/11/2013 09:27:08 am
I never understood why people would think aliens/angels would find humans women appealing. Wouldn't it basically be beastiality for them?
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Its is most likely that the Nephilim were what you might call "despotic rulers". In Genesis to this point there has been a downward spiral of people doing bad stuff. Cain kills Abel because he has God's favour. Lamech kills someone for bumping into him, and takes several wives. Now these despotic rulers - imagine a bunch of terrifyingly powerful warlords who pretty much can do anything they want. In fact, we have the story of Gilgamesh, 1/3 man, and 2/3's God, who can rock up to a wedding and take the wife out to the ceremonial marriage bed and take her virginity whilst the families of both sides are powerless to do anything.
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Thane
4/11/2013 01:15:32 pm
If I recall correctly most kings and tyrants did their best to tie their lineage to great heroes and the gods of their people. Alexander the Great, for example, claimed descent both from Hercules and Zeus. Kings of England could trace their lineage back to Arthur.
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Gunn
4/11/2013 01:20:29 pm
In order to believe in both creationism and evolution, it almost seems as though humans were brought up to a point of intelligence, at which point they were "human enough" to be endowed with souls, or spirits. Unless one believes in the literal act of Adam and Eve being created out of the dust of the earth, separately from evolution. Either way seems to be acceptable if God is the One doing the creating. Who will question His methods or ambitions?
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4/11/2013 01:44:45 pm
That's a Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, one that of course Jews deny. Most of the "prophecies" are post hoc attempts to fit to the facts, and as I said, the Church Fathers spent hundreds of years parsing whether Jesus was fully God, fully man, half-and-half, both at once, neither, etc.
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Gunn
4/11/2013 02:51:28 pm
I know, many Jews are still waiting for the Messiah. They somehow missed His coming.
Christopher Randolph
4/11/2013 07:20:53 pm
Gunn, did you "miss" Mohammed, and the Quran?
Gunn
4/12/2013 05:33:01 am
Forget about it, Christopher. I don't want Jason's blog to be the catalyst for WW-III.
Christopher Randolph
4/12/2013 06:14:49 am
Gunn -
Mila
4/12/2013 06:43:06 am
It sounds that you consider Church Fathers as authorities. Why don’t you do some research about Church Fathers. It would be a quite interesting blog…..much more interesting that alternative history or aliens. 4/12/2013 07:28:58 am
Were you speaking to me, Mila? I don't consider the Church Fathers authorities. Like any ancient texts, they are evidence for what people thought and believed at the time they were written.
Gunn
4/12/2013 07:57:05 am
From Christopher to Gunn: "The hope was that you might gain some empathy for the Jewish position and not go around casually posting that an entire faith tradition "missed" something you happen to believe in and they don't, nor would they be definitionally compelled to for any reason."
Christopher Randolph
4/12/2013 08:27:08 am
Gunn -
Jim
4/12/2013 08:35:18 am
...and what about the Christians that convert to Muslim? If we take the assertion that Jews converting to Christianity somehow prove the correctness of the NT over the OT, then wouldn't the fact that a non-trivial number (I won't say 'millions') of Christians converting to Muslim proves that the Koran is more correct than the NT?
Mila
4/12/2013 10:39:28 am
Yes, Jason, sorry that I didn’t make it clear. Well, the way you wrote about Church Fathers gave an impression that you considered them as authorities.
Gunn
4/12/2013 12:00:21 pm
Christopher, how about if we add in all the Jews who converted to Christianity over the last two thousand years? Converted Jews don't disappear when they die...they still exist, collecting up in numbers. I wasn't sure, which is why I said thousands and thousands if not millions. You almost got me on that one!
The Other J.
4/12/2013 04:10:03 pm
If you want to count all the Jews who converted to Christianity in the last 2,000 years, don't forget the ones who were forced to convert by force on pain of death; compelled to outwardly appear as practicing Christians while maintaining their own faith traditions in private; or converted or gave up their religion due to the social pressures of assimilation after immigration (hi grandma!).
Christopher Randolph
4/13/2013 02:20:44 am
Other J. -
Gunn
4/13/2013 03:21:33 am
It bolsters the point that I don't have an imaginary "disdain" for Jews as an "entire faith tradition" who are missing out. Stop twisting and turning and get over it.
The Other J.
4/13/2013 05:12:20 am
Christopher --
Christopher Randolph
4/13/2013 08:29:57 am
Other J. -
Gunn
4/13/2013 11:27:57 am
Christopher says: It's amazing to me that you don't see how your statement that Jews "missed" Christianity isn't offensive to Jews.
Christopher Randolph
4/14/2013 04:39:33 am
I'm not a "hard one to please", I just think that's it's well beyond absurd that for the second time in this sub-thread alone your 'apology' or at least 'mitigating post' about the minority group you've taken a clumsy whack at contains ANOTHER whack at them, all during another one of the faux-humble Christian defensive declarations that garted on me even back in my youth when I identified as Christian.
Gunn
4/16/2013 04:52:52 am
http://www.jewishvoice.org/media/television-show/
Thane
4/11/2013 01:23:32 pm
One other thing, it's not just a "Western tradition" gods that take an interest in human women. It's pretty universal.
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4/11/2013 01:42:43 pm
True. I figured that if I said it was a universal someone would come up with a culture I'm not familiar with where a goddess was in charge and mating with the menfolk. There's speculation that Catal Huyuk and the Minoans might have favored this pattern.
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Thane
4/11/2013 03:51:03 pm
I am not well read on goddess faiths. Mythology and comparative religions are just one hobby area for reading. Joseph Campbell had an interesting take on the disappearance of goddess dominate / matriarchal societies in favor of the god / patriarchal societies. He believed that the migration of tribes conquering new territories resulted in the new dominate culture integrating the previously dominate culture / religion through myth. Hence Zeus and his many mistresses..some of who may have been ancient goddesses demoted while others remained goddesses and perhaps were reassigned roles in the new dominate culture...perhaps as daughters of Zeus or so on.
Jim
4/11/2013 06:34:52 pm
I'm neither a geneticist nor an expert in information theory, but this claim seems rather thin at first glance. My simple understanding is that DNA exists to encode and copy information and make proteins. It is constructed like a zipper joined by two base pairs; A & T, and G & C. The information is encoded by the ordering of these pairs into codons made of 3 nucleotides. So you can kind of think of the base pairs as the alphabet, the codons as words, the DNA strand as sentences, and the entire genome a book.
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Jim
4/11/2013 07:06:02 pm
Jason,
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Jim
4/11/2013 07:09:57 pm
"easier then aliens..." should be "easier than aliens..." There's probably many more typos. I shouldn't post messages when it's this much past my bedtime,
Christopher Randolph
4/12/2013 03:52:42 am
Interesting stuff, Jim!
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Jim
4/12/2013 06:31:26 am
Not all non-coding DNA is useless 'garbage', but we are definitely very far from a comprehensive understanding of all the mechanics underlying DNA. For me, one of the more fascinating aspects of non-coding DNA is that of endogenous retroviruses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus, which is a virus that has become incorporated into the host's genome, and often mutated into non-coding DNA in later generations.
The Other J.
4/12/2013 04:18:59 pm
If an encoded message was ever discovered within human DNA, I'd hope that message was "Don't Panic."
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Gunn
4/12/2013 05:15:57 am
Having a touch of the "Divine Curse" or the "Jewish Disease," as folks used to call it (TS), I have a natural interest and curiosity about the disorder. In most cases it is passed down through a parent.
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Jim
4/12/2013 06:44:28 am
The supreme court is hearing a case next week that could make DNA sequences unpatentable - http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-05/opinions/38307541_1_gene-patents-myriad-s-polio-vaccine.
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Gunn
4/12/2013 12:22:20 pm
Thanks for that link, Jim. I hadn't looked into this for a few years, so I'm glad for the update. Apparently, a lot of people are offended by what has happened. Human genome greed of ownership is going too far. I'm posting the powerful opening of the article:
Jim
4/12/2013 03:06:48 pm
Gunn,
Gunn
4/13/2013 04:01:17 am
Right, Jim. When patenting my own double-enclosed vertical-axis wind turbine for building tops in good wind zones, I came upon a group of lawyer/inventors from Texas who had tried to patent the very idea of having a wind turbine in a structure, as though they were the first to come up with this idea. The only problem is that the ancient Iranians had already come up with the concept, along with ancient others, I'm sure. The Chinese even had land sailing vessels (wagons).
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