As a convinced and practising Quaker for nearly 50 years
now, and someone who has never felt comfortable with the theism that was part
of my Anglican upbringing, I agree fully with Lives of Meaning (SiS
54). Weekly attendance at Quaker meeting for worship opens the way for me to
experience connectedness to the whole that the author speaks of. I do not say
‘my’ connectedness because it is an experience that is open to absolutely
everyone and more particularly if they want to join with us in the simple
silence of a gathered Quaker meeting.
Rory Short, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
My people say that once there was a Totality that became
Aware - and so a God - just as he exploded. Since then, all things perceptible
are fragments of this sundered One: us, our world and those we share it with,
the stars we dance around, and all creatures, men and gods. Turn on your radio to
FM, go between the stations. You can still hear him sigh.
Todd Millions, Cypress Hills Range, Saskatchewan, Canada
A colleague recently drew my attention to your provocative
and spot-on piece Mystery
of Missing Heritability Solved? (SiS 53). I am a clinical
psychiatrist with a deep interest in, and unusually enthusiastic scepticism
about GWAS (genome wide association studies) and the feverish hunt for “bad
genes”. You are more than right, and your opponents are not even wrong. The
deluge of data from GWAS and other approaches will force a genuine paradigm
shift in the way we view the living state and our place in it (and how that
translates to policy at every level of human conduct).
Mike C Jones, University of Missouri, Columbia USA
You do not know how much Cancer an Epigenetic Disease (SiS 54) has made my day and stimulated me. In the past, I have been considered a Grass Roots farmer, a title that brings fuzzy feelings of stewardship of the land. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why? Because of the way the greater part of the world’s food is being raised. Ninety percent of the food in America is annualized, which means that the fertile top soil is being plowed physically and doused with chemicals. Plowing breaks the synergistic bonds that took thousands of years to build up between the millions of species, from the perennial grasses, plants, soil bacteria, soil fungi, to larger animals like ants, coyotes, etc.
By plowing for annualization of food production, I create an environment that selects for pests, i.e., cancerous organisms in the ecosystem. What follows are poisonous chemicals or sprays to help control the pests in the environment that I created, not only locally but also regionally, as the pests spread. And other major problems follow - dust storms, floods – as top soils that have been plowed cannot absorb water as quickly
About a month ago, our house was literally covered in several inches of dirt consisting of top soil from our neighbour’s fields that blew for just 3 hours.
We need to see cancer in the light of a system, a condition, not a specific disease. Cancer can best be defined as any organism that strives to use, and exploit every other thing including each other for its own benefit.
I have witnessed ant colonies survive many things including harsh poisons, some for over 40 years, during which the individual agents, ants, have been replaced many times over. It is the colony that survives and gives significance - eternal significance - to the individual ants.
If we are to stop being a cancer to earth, we must learn to see human civilization as a whole in the individual person. We are the top dog in the food chain. We cannot win this fight. We cannot be cancer to Earth without it being cancerous back to us.
We have been using weed sprays, poisons, pesticides for over 50 years. I tried to avoid any direct contact with them. When glyphosate was first introduced, it was said we could drink it and not notice anything. But of all the sprays I have used, glyphosate was the first one that my body could detect, regardless of how I tried to avoid having any direct contact with it. Now, 15 or 20 years later we know why!
The
Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, USA, has been working on changing our annualized
food production for years. When I was a kid, at least the milk I drank, the
meat I ate, and the eggs I consumed were not annualized. Now they are - if I
buy them in most food chain stores - because they have been fed on annualized
grains. Before, the cows and chickens were reared on perennial grasses and
grains.
Jerold Hubbard, Pest Creator alias Grass Roots Farmer,
Johnson, Kansas, USA
The whole approach to cancer prevention and treatment
warrants re-evaluation in view of the fundamentally importance evidence
presented in Cancer
a Redox Disease (SiS 54). It
seems to me that recharging by regularly earthing barefoot on the ground for an
hour a day might also be beneficial as this has been shown to reduce
inflammation and improve capillary blood flow. (www.earthing.com). I am a 74 year old semi-retired
doctor. For the past 40 years I have been increasingly aware that while allopathic
medicine is unequalled in acute interventions, it does not really look at why
people become ill. Claude Bernard's famous dictum “Le microbe n’est rien - le
terrain c’est tout” has been conveniently forgotten although the answer really
does lie in the “soil” or the host with the ubiquitous microbes and other
environmental toxins becoming relatively ineffective when the host is really
healthy.
Dr. Michael Godfrey, Tauranga, New
Zealand
Awesome article! I´ve got one
question though regarding K-channels etc. I haven´t read Gilbert Ling´s book
yet and intending to do so, but it was my understanding that channels don´t
exist and actually represent protein-interactions related to the fluid crystal
structure of the cell. Is that right? I am a biology student, and most
of the stuff discussed here is still way beyond me. Science is complicated and
you have to learn a lot of names. But one thing I start to understand is that
life is a flow of electrons and it is this flow that connects all living
matter. If people understand this, the way we live would change tremendously. I
think it is really important to spread this idea, if one wants to make a
positive change in this world. Basically this is how indigenous people used to
understand their presence.
Konstantin Weltersbach, Dusseldorf, Germany
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho replies
Michael Godfrey, you are right. I was sceptical about
earthing for a long time, but it does make sense in view of how important
electronic balance is for health. Earthing simply involves connecting yourself
electrically to the ground so excess positive charges built up in your body can
be neutralized, or equivalently, the insufficiency of electrons can be made up.
Konstantin, you raise a very good point. I deal with Gilbert Ling’s idea in more detail in my new book, 'Living Rainbow H2O'. Gilbert will have to speak for himself. But he may be right in that what conventional cell biologists regard as a potassium channel could be something else, a protein in the cell membrane that changes conformation according to its electronic environment, and releases K+ previously bound to it. Also, Gilbert does not actually deny the existence of channels as such in some specialized epithelial cells.
Mae-Wan
Ho on Science and Democracy (SiS 51) is a brilliant and telling article. I agree with all main
points and particularly your key demands for democratic and responsible
science. You have made great strides in renewing my faith in scientists. Many
thanks
Benjamin Edom, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK
I agree strongly with most of what you’ve said, especially
about corporate science not being open or democratic. I’ve read the Rainbow
Worm, and while I think your holistic views a vast improvement on
reductionist materialism, I still do not think they go far enough as far as
consciousness is concerned. For example, the gap between phenomenological
states and holistic physical states still seems wide to me. Also, if we insist
that the ‘left’ adopt a particular ideology, even a holistic one, aren’t we
still imposing one monolithic point of view on people? I think that people and
groups should be just as free to decide for themselves on scientific issues as
on others. If they are not, you are still acting like a power elite. Replacing
a dogma of reductionist materialism with one of holistic materialism just seems
like a swapping of dogmas to me, and not a truly open or democratic process.
One alternative is a pluralistic approach that welcomes a diversity of views
and accepts dissent.
Dr, Matt Colborn, Bourne, Lincolnshire, UK
The depth of your physics is shown in your clarity on social
and economic issues. Organic materialism hits the nail on the head. I have been
spellbound by The Rainbow and the Worm (my physics education extends to
A level), and is further evidence of a brilliant and courageous mind.
Simon Hodges, www. Wordsthatchange.nl, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
Thank God for courageous and humane scientists like Mae-Wan
Ho. Science must be controlled by democracy just as the business world and even
religion must be if we are to make progress to a more just, cooperative and
safe planet. I am 76 years young and I know it can be done, provided we all
support people like Mae-Wan. PS I loved The Rainbow Worm, even though
the thermodynamics gave me a headache.
Mike Mortimer, Zug, Switzerland
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho replies
Thank goodness for the criticism among the lavish praises!
Matt Colborn raises a good point. I agree fully that the gap between
phenomenological states and holistic physical states is still wide. But
I plead absolutely not guilty to perpetrating dogmas. In Rainbow Worm, I
specifically stress that the organism is nothing if not diverse and
pluralistic. Perhaps you are confusing relativism with pluralism. Indigenous
cultures are very diverse, yet almost all have a deep and reliable knowledge of
nature that enables people to live sustainably. In that sense, indigenous knowledge
is at least equal to the best scientific knowledge of contemporary western
culture. More importantly, indigenous knowledge systems are coherent with one
another; and I suggest the best western scientific knowledge would also be
coherent with indigenous knowledge. The problem with what you call reductionist
materialism is that it neither produces reliable knowledge that enables us to
live sustainably with nature, nor is it coherent with indigenous knowledge. If
what you mean by pluralism is “anything goes”, that to me is relativism, not
pluralism. Nature herself does not tolerate arbitrary relativism; she is the ultimate
arbiter of what goes, but she is not dogmatic. There are myriad ways, indeed,
we need all myriad ways to truth and beauty; to know nature
authentically we need a combination of science, art, poetry, music, and for
some, religion. (See Announcing
Art/Science/Music Festival Colours of Water, ISIS Special.)
Article first published 14/05/12
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