part0011

From what sounded like a faraway place, a man was asking the question, yet he sounded so distant that I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me or to someone else. I remember the sensation of feeling both awake and asleep at the same time and thinking that maybe I was dreaming. It didn’t even occur to me that I could open my eyes to see who the man was. Then I heard his voice again, this time speaking my name. “Gregg . . . you’re okay. You did great. But I need you to tell me why you’re here.” This time I knew I wasn’t dreaming—the man knew my name and he was speaking directly to me. Instinctively, my eyes began to open as I turned my head in his direction. The light overhead was so bright that it forced me to squint as I looked up at the ceiling from my bed. Surprisingly, the man wasn’t far away at all. In fact he was standing right next to me, looking down at me from behind a blue surgical mask. Seeing him jolted my memory and suddenly I remembered what was happening.

I was awakening from the anesthesia I’d been given earlier that morning. I was in the post-operation recovery room of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. The voice I was hearing was the doctor who had reassured me only an hour or so earlier that I was in good hands with his team, and that I would be okay. And while he continued his assurances, I wasn’t prepared for the question he kept asking about why I was there.

Less than a month before, an examination at a different clinic had shown an anomalous growth on the wall of my bladder. “Something is in your bladder that shouldn’t be there,” that first doctor had told me. “It needs to be removed.” Wanting to ensure the best possible outcome for whatever was needed, I’d gone to the prestigious Mayo Clinic for a second opinion. It was there that I discovered that the only way to determine with certainty that the growth was benign was to test the tissue itself—to perform a biopsy.

What was happening now, however, was not part of the original plan. After being fully anesthetized and prepped for surgery, I was waking up to a puzzled doctor asking a question that I could barely answer in my altered state of consciousness: Why was I there? He was asking the question because the anomalous growth that had shown up in the previous exams was no longer there. The surgeon was telling me there was nothing to remove because I had a normal and healthy-looking bladder. To emphasize his point, he showed me a color photograph of the inside of my bladder, taken only moments before.

As I did my best to grasp what he was saying, the surgeon used the tip of his pen as a pointer to show me where the growth had been in the earlier scans. He emphasized, however, that today there was no bruising, no discoloration, and no scar tissue or any sign whatsoever to indicate that anything out of the ordinary had ever existed. And he wanted to know why. He wanted to know how such a thing could have happened.

In my groggy state I was not as eloquent with my answer as I would have liked. I did my best to tell the doctor about the research I’d done into the self-healing potential of the human body, the ancient traditions that had mastered this healing potential, and the science that now confirms that our bodies can heal themselves when given the conditions to do so. The last memory I have of this doctor is of him turning away and walking toward the door as I tried my best to answer his question. The explanation I was offering for what we’d both experienced that day was obviously not what he had expected, nor what he wanted, to hear.

When I thought about my doctor’s response later, after my recovery, I could understand his frustration. There is absolutely nothing in the training of a modern medical professional that allows for us to have such self-healing relationships with our bodies. And it’s for precisely this reason that when an experience such as mine occurs, the medical team has limited options when it comes to offering an explanation. They generally chalk it up to a mistaken diagnosis, an unexplainable spontaneous recovery, or simply a miracle.

From my doctor’s point of view, a miracle had just happened in his operating room and he was trying to make sense of it. From my point of view, however, what had happened was less about a miracle and more about a technology—a powerful inner technology that’s available to each of us—whose existence has been largely forgotten over time.

Since 1986, I have researched the wisdom, studied the principles, and where possible, experienced the techniques embraced by ancient and indigenous traditions when it comes to our ability to self-heal. From the monks, nuns, and abbots in the monasteries of Tibet, Nepal, and Egypt to the indigenous healers and shamans of the Yucatán jungles in Mexico and the Andes Mountains of southern Peru, our ancient ancestors, and their modern counterparts, have done their best to preserve the knowledge of the most intimate relationship we can ever have: our relationship with our own bodies. And while the knowledge they preserved is not science in the traditional sense, new scientific discoveries in genetics, molecular biology, and the new fields of epigenetics and neurocardiology have confirmed many of the relationships described in the ancient traditions.

When it came to my own body, however, even though I strongly believed that self-healing was possible and had even witnessed other people’s success at it, a combination of my scientific training and the limiting beliefs instilled in me at an early age by my alcoholic father and dysfunctional family environment had left a deep doubt that such a healing was possible for me. So even though I’d performed the yogic techniques, qigong, and other healing modalities, taken the medicinal herbs, adopted a raw diet, and accepted emotional changes to the best of my ability between my diagnosis and the procedure at the Mayo Clinic, I still doubted my capacity to create for myself the successful healings that I’d seen occur with others. And it was because of my doubt that I had chosen the modern technology offered through one of the highest-rated medical facilities in the world as a responsible option for the diagnosis I’d received.

As a trained scientist, I cannot say to you that the practices, techniques, and lifestyle changes I adopted during those two weeks were the reason the medical team found nothing to remove the day of my surgery. What I can say is that new scientific discoveries have identified a link between specific healing modalities known in the past and their ability to restore balance in our bodies. It’s the fact of this relationship that invites an honest reassessment of the limiting story we’ve been told about our origin as a species and what we’re capable of. When we consider the facts revealed by the best science of today, spontaneous healings and miracles such as the one I experienced seem less rare and extraordinary and more like an ordinary part of everyday life. The chapters that follow reveal these discoveries and the story they tell. And with that larger story, we’re given the reasons to embrace a new answer to the question Who are we? and to write our new human story.

If you’ve ever felt that there’s more to the story of our past than we’ve been led to believe, I want you to know you’re not alone. A 2014 Gallup poll revealed that in the United States alone, a whopping 42 percent of the people who were asked believe that there’s something more to human origins than is typically acknowledged in the mainstream—that something beyond Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is responsible for our existence. 1 The results of this poll reflect a growing sense that we humans are part of something great, powerful, and mysterious. Some of the greatest minds in science agree.

Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize–winning co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, believed that the eloquence of life’s building blocks has to be the result of something more than a lucky quirk of nature. Through his pioneering research, he was one of the first humans to witness the complexity and the sheer beauty of the molecule that makes life possible. Late in life, Crick risked his reputation as a scientist by publicly stating, “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.” 2 In the scientific world, this statement is the equivalent of heresy, suggesting that something more than chance evolution led to our existence.

The feeling that there’s something more to our story is not just a recent phenomenon. Archaeological discoveries show that, almost universally, ancient humans felt connected to more than just their immediate surroundings. They sensed that we have our roots in other worlds, some that we can’t even see, and that we are ultimately part of a cosmic family that lives in those worlds.

The sacred text of the ancient Mayan Popol Vuh , for example, describes how the “Forefathers” created humankind, while the Christian Bible and the Hebrew Torah describe how we are the descendants of wise and powerful beings linked to a greater and otherworldly intelligence. 3 , 4 , 5 Could there be a simple explanation as to why such a sense has remained with us so strongly, across such diverse traditions, and has lasted for so long? Is it possible that our feeling of having an intentional origin and a greater potential is based in something that’s true?

When we ask Who are we? the short answer is that we’re not what we’ve been told and we’re more than most of us have ever imagined.

From the time of our earliest ancestors, we’ve used stories to explain the world around us and describe our place in it. Sometimes our stories are based in fact. Sometimes they’re not. Some stories are metaphorical. We’ve used these stories to explain the unexplained and make sense of our existence.

The ancient Egyptians, for example, thought of the earth, the space beneath the earth, and the sky above as worlds unto themselves. In their view of creation, the earth beneath their feet was floating upon Nun, a primordial ocean that was the source of the Nile River. The sky above was formed by the body of the goddess Nut. The dome of Nut’s rounded belly was the home of the sun and the stars as she arched over the earth, facedown, throughout time. The realm under the earth, Duat, was where the sun would go at night as it disappeared beneath the horizon at sunset. 6

All these realms had deities—gods and goddesses—associated with them that played a powerful role in the daily lives of the Egyptian people. And while the stories weren’t based in science, they worked for the people of the time. They provided a mechanism to explain what the ancient Egyptians saw happening in their everyday world and helped them know where they fit in.

Today, we continue to use stories to explain our world. And our stories play a role that’s more important than ever. Not only do they inform the way we manage everything from disease and healing to our relationships and romances; on a global level, the future of our planet and the survival of our species, which now hang in the balance, also depend on the stories we choose to embrace. It’s precisely for these reasons that it’s vital we tell ourselves the right story.

We cherish the stories we create. As individuals we often proudly share our family history and the accomplishments of our ancestors. As nations we defend with pride our teams’ athletic achievements at the Olympics, the scientific and technical advancements that sent our astronauts to the moon, and the flags that unite us as countries. But sometimes we find ourselves defending stories that we’ve grown up with even when new discoveries tell us these stories are wrong. It’s our willingness to cling to a story that’s familiar, even if new evidence shows us it’s obsolete, that may be the greatest hurdle we face as we learn to embrace our world of extremes in a healthy way.

A commonly used axiom suggests that if we hear something said often enough we begin to accept that something as fact, whether or not it’s true. The sanitized story of smoking tobacco that was generally accepted until the early 1960s is a perfect example. Prior to a 1964 report on the dangerous effects of cigarette smoking, America’s tobacco companies were engaged in a powerful media campaign to convince the public that smoking was a safe, even a healthy, habit. Catchy slogans such as “When tempted to over-indulge, reach for a Lucky instead,” “I protect my voice with Luckys,” and “As your dentist I would recommend Viceroys” were common in magazine, radio, and television advertisements. 7

A particularly disturbing poster for Camel cigarettes from the 1940s stated that, according to a nationwide survey, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” 8 A further investigation into the survey revealed the rest of the story. The questions had been asked of doctors who had received complimentary packs of Camel cigarettes at meetings and conferences before they took the survey. It was after they’d received the free samples that they were asked what brand they liked best or had in their pockets. The samples effectively skewed the answer in favor of Camels. American consumers trusted and believed these and other ads. After all, if a cigarette was safe for doctors, it must be safe for everyone else, right?

The perception of such messages, and of tobacco use itself, however, changed forever with the landmark study from the surgeon general. For the first time, the study reported scientifically what many people had suspected intuitively. It described a direct link between tobacco use, chronic bronchitis, and lung cancer. The study stated, “It is the judgment of the committee that cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.” 9 By 1965, the tobacco industry was required to place the now-familiar warning labels on every tobacco product sold.

The point of this example is to illustrate that a belief once shared by the mainstream media and the general public—the story that smoking tobacco is safe—changed over time. It had to change because the evidence of debilitating diseases experienced by so many tobacco users simply didn’t fit the mainstream story of safety and health. It didn’t jibe with what people actually experienced.

In a similar way, an information campaign to skew public opinion is happening today when it comes to us and the story of our origin. The 19th-century theory of human evolution is taught as undisputed fact in today’s classrooms, leaving no room for consideration of any other possible explanation for the mystery of our existence. And because the mainstream story does not take into account recent discoveries, it leaves us unprepared to address the radical social issues and global challenges we’re experiencing today, including everything from terrorism, bullying, and hate crimes to the epidemic of drug and alcohol abuse among young people.

Because we are invested in the theory of evolution, we use it to guide our decisions, and so we celebrate competition and force over cooperation and compassion. Among other things, we keep trying to solve problems associated with our racial, religious, and sexual diversity through the obsolete thinking of competition and “survival of the strongest”—both of which are key components of the theory of evolution. It makes no sense when we think about it, and yet, for reasons of habit, money, ego, and power, the mainstream educational system and educators cling to an outdated story of human origins that’s no longer supported by the evidence. Both the tobacco story and the story of human origins illustrate perfectly why it’s important to get our stories right—and what can happen when we don’t.

When it comes to the human family, the shared stories of our successes, the memories of our tragedies, and the inspiring examples of our heroism are the threads that connect us. Our connection is powerful, primal, and necessary. Whether it’s the big issues of politics, religion, or shipping weapons to “freedom fighters” in war-torn countries half a world away, or deeply personal issues such as the right of a gay man to marry or a woman’s right to control her own body, modern technology now allows us to share the stories that justify our choices and the future we want to create.

English novelist Terence David John Pratchett, known to his fans as Terry Pratchett, beautifully described the awesome power of our stories when he said, “Change the story, change the world.” 10 I think there’s a lot of truth in this statement. Our lives are reflections of what we believe about ourselves and how the world works. Pratchett’s observation is so universal, in fact, that we can take it one step further.

In the same breath that we say, “Change the story, change the world,” we can go to an even deeper level by saying, “Change the story, change our lives .” Both statements are true. And both offer a powerful way of thinking in the darkest moments of our lives.

The scientific narrative regarding the vastness of the cosmos, and our insignificance in it, is a perfect example of the powerful influence that a story can have on us. It also illustrates the axiom that if we tell a story enough times we begin to accept it as true.

For the last century and a half we’ve been steeped in a cosmic story that leaves us feeling like little more than trivial specks of dust in the universe, or biological sidebars in the overall scheme of life. Carl Sagan described this mind-set perfectly when he commented on the scientific perspective on our place in the cosmos: “We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” 11

This kind of limited thinking, promoted by the scientific community, has led us to believe that we’re unimportant when it comes to life in general and also separate from the world, from one another, and ultimately, even from ourselves.

Albert Einstein echoed this perception of our insignificance when it came to his ideas about the validity of the evidence in the emerging field of quantum physics that suggested that all things are deeply connected. Einstein couldn’t accept the fact of that connection. Leaving no doubt in our mind as to what he believed the new quantum ideas meant for science, Einstein said, “If quantum theory is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science.” 12 His beliefs wouldn’t allow him to actually accept the possibility that we live in a world where everything and everyone is so intimately linked.

One of the reasons for Einstein’s resistance to the ideas of the new physics was that to live in a world of quantum connection would mean we have the ability to influence what happens in our lives and are faced with the responsibility for the outcomes we create. Ultimately, it was Einstein’s firm belief that we live in a world where things are not connected that prevented him from fulfilling his life’s dream. He passionately believed that his research would eventually lead him to discover a scientific truth that united all the laws of nature, a “theory of everything.” Sadly, Albert Einstein died in 1955 without seeing his elusive dream realized.

With Einstein and Sagan’s legacies of separation and human insignificance in mind, it’s not surprising that we often feel helpless when it comes to what happens in our bodies and lives. In a world of disconnection, we’re told that things just happen whenever and however they do. Is it any wonder that we often feel powerless when we see the world changing so fast that some say it’s “falling apart at the seams”?

Charles Darwin’s proposal regarding human evolution in the mid-1800s laid the foundation for the scientific conclusions of our insignificance that came later, in the early 1900s. The theory of evolution was based upon the premise that we are the latest result of a series of chance events that have never been witnessed, proven, or duplicated, and we can attribute the fact that we still exist to the “survival of the strongest” among us. The theory that struggle has gotten us to where we are today suggests that we’re hopelessly locked into lives of competition and conflict. Culturally, this idea is now accepted to such a degree that many people believe that using force is the best way to do things in the workplace and in the community of nations.

Consciously, and sometimes on levels that are unconscious, this belief of struggle and conflict plays out every day in our lives. And it happens sometimes in surprising, unexpected ways. For example, when we find our “hot buttons” being triggered by those who know us best in our most intimate relationships, even the most spiritually minded among us will lash out, using hurtful tactics to protect ourselves in the moment. The reason is not surprising.

From the time we’re born, and even before, while we’re still in our mothers’ wombs, we begin to learn how to cope with the world through the thoughts and feelings of our caregivers. We learn from the tone of our mothers’ voices, for example, when the world is safe and when it’s not. We also learn to associate the chemicals of stress, as well as the chemicals of pleasure, that flow through our bodies with the voices, sounds, and experiences that trigger the release of those chemicals.

Unless we are fortunate enough to come from a really healthy family of caregivers, the chances are good that their responses to the world are based upon the false conditioning they learned from the caregivers in their early lives. And it’s precisely these patterns from other people, sometimes generations old, that become our patterns as well.

So when we feel threatened as adults, it’s these conditioned patterns that show up in whatever way our minds deem necessary for our survival. When the patterns kick in, they draw from the deep well of whatever beliefs are “hardwired” into our subconscious minds. The key here is that these beliefs are often rooted in the stories and experiences of other people.

Do we lash out violently, as we’re conditioned to do through our stories of “survival of the strongest”? Or do we respond confidently and honestly, embracing the deeper knowledge of our connection with all life, including our connection with the people who’ve just triggered us?

To be absolutely clear, I’m not suggesting that either response is right or wrong, good or bad. I am saying, however, that our reactions don’t lie. Regardless of what we may think we believe, the way we respond in such intimate moments is a telling reflection of what we truly believe. The point here is that the stories we’re told during our most vulnerable and impressionable years of childhood form our most deeply held beliefs. And that’s where the story of our origins comes in too.

We begin hearing the story of human origins early in life. And depending upon our families’ beliefs, sometimes we’re even exposed to two entirely different and conflicting stories taught around the same time—one at home and the other at school.

In most schools we’re taught the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection, which is a sterile and unsettling story for any young person to hear. It begins long ago with an unbelievable run of good luck, when just the right atoms combined at just the right time to create just the right molecules under just the right conditions to lead to the first simple forms of life that would eventually become the complexity of us.

Even the most passionate supporter of evolution must admit that the uncannily good fortune required for such a series of events requires a stretch of imagination, or faith, that such a process is even possible. As noted previously, Francis Crick called the existence of DNA “almost a miracle.”

Evolution theory accounts for this good fortune, however, suggesting that it’s the struggle itself—the competition among varying forms of life—that made this unlikely combination of events successful. Proponents of evolution claim that competition has led us to be the present-day winners in nature’s multimillion-year-long quest to survive. The key here is that we’re told that “struggle” has served us well in the past, and by extension, still serves us today. In fact, struggle has been so successful, we’re told, that it’s actually been “programmed” into our bodies genetically. So because of natural selection, we’re now supposedly hardwired for competition and struggle.

At the same time that children are learning the scientific story of evolution and struggle in school, they’re often told a religious story that’s equally frightening. This story also begins at the time of our beginning. And it also requires a stretch of the imagination to believe that it is even possible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this story is the story of a mysterious force—God—and how God created the first human from the dust of the earth, breathed life into the being he created, and caused the first human, Adam, to wake upon Earth.

From this story we learn that we are the descendants of Adam and his children, and that we come into this world inherently flawed as people. The rest of the story describes how we’re destined to struggle between good and evil as we search for a way to redeem ourselves from our flaws. Other world religions use similar stories to explain the origin of humankind and the purpose of life.

Both stories—the scientific and the religious—begin long ago. Both have mysterious gaps in the details. And both leave us feeling separate from the rest of our world. Perhaps most importantly, both stories leave us with the feeling that we exist as we do on earth today as unwitting combatants locked into a hopeless struggle for survival—either with nature or between good and evil. From either the scientific or the religious point of view, as different as the stories may seem on the surface, when we look a little deeper, we realize that they start from the same place and have the same purpose. They begin with the fact that we exist as we do, and they are attempts to explain what our ancient existence means for us today.

Despite emerging evidence that does not fit with the traditional scientific story, educators perpetuate the theory of evolution and human survival, and teach it in our classrooms, as if it were an absolute and undisputed fact. And this is where the problem begins: We’re trying to solve modern problems that require cooperation and mutual aid through a 150-year-old story based in competition and struggle. Not surprisingly, the story we’ve embraced—the theory of evolution—no longer makes sense in addressing where we come from and how we’ve become as we are. We need a new human story that reflects the new evidence in order to break the spell Darwin’s ideas have on us.

Darwin published Origin of Species , his best-known book, in 1859. From the time of its publication until today, the implications of this book have reverberated through the foundation of our society. Whether it’s the academic controversy of where we come from and why we’re here, or the emotionally charged issues of conception, abortion, and the death penalty that sometimes polarize families and whole communities, the implications of Darwin’s work impact our lives in a way few other ideas can. I often wonder if Darwin himself ever imagined the effect that his work would have on the world and how deeply his ideas would influence the lives of everyday people living over a century into his future.

Before Origin of Species , there were few sources to turn to when it came to answering life’s biggest questions. Prior to the mid-19th century, the philosophical questions of life, such as Where do we come from? Why are we here? and How do we make life better? were relegated to religion and traditional folklore. With the publication of Darwin’s first book, this changed. The theory of evolution offered a new story to answer life’s big questions that didn’t require biblical interpretations or religious teachings.

While the full title of Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection , may sound complex, the idea that it’s based upon is really very simple. Darwin proposed that all life, including human life, began with a single primal organism that mysteriously appeared on earth long ago. Darwin didn’t even attempt to describe how that organism first came into existence. In fact, contrary to what many people commonly assume, the actual origin of life was never his focus. While he readily acknowledged that the science of his day had yet to shed any meaningful light on that mystery, he also admitted that solving the mystery of how life began wasn’t necessary for his theory of evolution to be accepted.

Darwin defended his beliefs by using the analogy of another unsolved mystery to make his point. He pointed to the scientific acceptance of gravity as an analogy for how it’s possible to accept a theory even though it hasn’t been fully explained. “It is no valid objection,” he said, “that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction.” 13

From this and similar statements, it’s clear that Darwin was less concerned with how life originally appeared and more concerned with what happened after it did so. Specifically, how did the simple form of life that he believed first emerged in the world morph into the complexity and diversity that we see as life today?

Darwin based his theory of evolution on his personal experience and direct observations. Many of those observations were made during a five-year journey aboard the British research ship the HMS Beagle . 14 Darwin was the designated naturalist on the ship, whose mission sounds much like the mission to document new forms of life in unknown galaxies for the starship Enterprise (of Star Trek fame). His job was to document new forms of life in the uncharted lands discovered during the Beagle ’s voyage. Although Darwin’s journey lasted from 1831 to 1836, he didn’t share his theory until 23 years later. With the publication of Origin of Species , for the first time the essence of Darwin’s theory of evolution was available to the general public. He writes:

But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection. 15

Today, over 150 years after Charles Darwin first published his theory, the best scientists of the modern world, from the best universities of our time, having access to the most funding in research history and using the most advanced technology ever available, are still struggling to prove the viability of this theory in general, and specifically when it comes to humans.

In essence, the unanswered questions are:

As we’ll see in the sections that follow, new discoveries are making it necessary to rethink the way we’ve answered both these questions in the past.

Charles Darwin didn’t know in his day what we know today about the world. He couldn’t have. Many fields of science that we take for granted simply didn’t exist until later in the 19th century and early in the 20th century. Darwin couldn’t have known about genetics, for example. While the fact that one generation can inherit the traits of its parents was recognized during Darwin’s time, exactly what made the transfer possible—DNA—was not understood until after his death. Darwin couldn’t have known about the specialized heart cells that give us access to the extraordinary abilities and sensitivities that will be described later in the book. And he couldn’t have known that those cells, or the capabilities they make possible, already existed when modern humans appeared on the scene 200,000 years ago.

While Darwin couldn’t have known these things specifically, he clearly suspected that future discoveries would overturn at least some of his theory. He stated this possibility in his writings. In Origin of Species , he writes: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications”—the hallmark of evolution—“my theory would absolutely break down.” 16

It’s because the conditions that Darwin himself described as the keystone to his theory have now been overturned—because in fact we do have complex organs that did not form through “numerous successive slight modifications”—that evolution theory, alone, cannot explain what we find in the real world. In other words, just as Darwin suspected would happen, his theory has broken down.

In Origin of Species Darwin revealed his suspicion that evolution theory might not be enough to explain the complexity of life. Though the following statement may appear a bit wordy, it’s Darwin’s language. I’m sharing it so that you’ll have a sense of his reservations—in this case, with regard to the complex functions of an eye.

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. 17

The fact that the complexity of the eye, as well as the complexity of a number of other organs, meets the condition that Darwin himself stated would invalidate his theory, opens the door to the theme for Part I of this book: Evolution in and of itself is not enough to account for the extraordinary features and abilities we’ve had from the beginning. The evidence suggesting that certain physical features—including our eyes, our advanced nervous systems, and our brains—were already functional when modern humans arose is casting doubt on Darwin’s theory when it comes to humankind.

The conventional thinking of today leaves us with the sense that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a “done deal.” That it’s an open-and-shut case universally accepted by the scientific community and there is little room for doubt when it comes to the explanation of life as we see it today. Evolution is described as fact in textbooks and classrooms. In this environment of unconditional acceptance, scientific discoveries that cast doubt on evolution are often not reported, or worse yet, are ridiculed as superstition, religion, or pseudoscience. For this reason, people are often surprised when there is any mention of discoveries casting doubt on Darwin’s theory.

A perfect example of this one-sided view is the choice by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to exclude any competing scientific theories or scientific criticism of evolution in their beautifully produced eight-hour miniseries Evolution: A Journey into Where We’re from and Where We’re Going , which aired in 2001. In the network’s own words, the goals of the program were to “heighten public understanding of evolution and how it works, to dispel common misunderstandings about the process, and to illuminate why it is relevant to all of us.” 18 And for anyone watching the series, they did just that, illustrating evolution solely from Darwin’s perspective, which many scientists see as flawed for reasons that will be described later in this chapter.

A review of the PBS special by author and former White House speechwriter Joshua Gilder minced no words with regard to the way the content was produced: “The problem [with the PBS documentary] is that none of it is true, or is so fraught with inconsistencies, misinterpretation, and bad (sometimes fraudulent) data as to be worthless as science.” 19 Gilder based his critique, in part, upon the scientific discoveries documented by molecular biologist Jonathan Wells in his book Icons of Evolution , where the PBS “proofs” of human evolution are dismantled one by one.

The evolution controversy is especially visible when it comes to state and national laws regarding what teachers are allowed to teach in public schools. A recent Senate bill in the state of Oklahoma is a perfect example of this. In 2016, Republican senator Josh Brecheen introduced legislation to allow teachers to encourage their students to think critically about the topics that affect their lives and their future.

Brecheen’s proposed legislation, Senate Bill 1322, states that the purpose of the legislation is to “create an environment within public school districts that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues. . . . Teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” 20

While Brecheen’s bill does not mention the teaching of evolution specifically, it’s clear from his history of introducing similar legislation since his election in 2010, and the inclusion of the phrase scientific theories , that his goal was to allow teachers to share discoveries related to human origins, including discoveries that don’t support the existing story of evolution.

In 2005, the legal ruling informally known as the Dover Case was about evolution specifically, and about the way a new, alternative theory of human origins known as intelligent design relates to evolution. The case made worldwide headlines because it was the first legal test of the new theory in a U.S. federal court.

The Dover Case began when eleven families filed a lawsuit against the Dover Area School District of York County, Pennsylvania, over a change in the required curriculum for a ninth-grade biology class. In 2004, the school district had directed teachers to offer discoveries supporting intelligent design in addition to the traditional teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Proponents of the theory of intelligent design, which was first used in the book Of Pandas and People in 1989, assert that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” 21 Both theories were being offered in the classroom as possible explanations for human origins. The parents who filed the suit felt, however, that the ideas of intelligent design were too similar to the religious ideas of creationism, a belief that the universe and living organisms originate from acts of divine creation, so they demanded that the teaching of the new theory be discontinued.

The case was heard as a bench trial, rather than a trial by jury, and the outcome immediately sparked controversy when the judge ruled that the conclusions drawn from the science-based discoveries underlying intelligent design were, in fact, not science at all.

From the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, with John E. Jones III (appointed by George W. Bush in 2002) as the sitting judge at the time, the finding reads as follows:

Teaching intelligent design in public school biology classes violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and Article I, Section 3, of the Pennsylvania State Constitution) because intelligent design is not science and “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.” 22

Immediately following the trial there were accusations of false testimony, even perjury, when it came to the details and expert witnesses called to reveal the scientific evidence for intelligent design. Due to the nature of a bench trial, where there are no jurors, the religious and political beliefs of the judge, and the questionable testimony, the controversy continues today.

To be absolutely clear, I’m not suggesting that intelligent design is the answer to the mystery of human origins or that the trial should not have happened. What I am saying is that I believe we owe it to ourselves to be honest about any new discoveries that are made and to consider where they may lead. What is troubling about this court ruling is what appears to be a double standard used to discount the science that supports intelligent design. On one hand, the 150-year-old theory of evolution—one that has yet to be scientifically proven—is taught as fact. On the other hand, scientific evidence suggesting that the theory of evolution is incomplete or leading us in the wrong direction is not even allowed to be mentioned in the classroom.

When we’re denied the opportunity to question existing theories and present new ones based upon new evidence, we also lose the power of critical thinking that we will need if we are to successfully confront the challenges of today’s world and survive those of the future.

It’s the authoritative nature of beautiful and convincing documentaries, such as PBS’s Evolution , and the skewed nature of the legal arguments, such as those made in the Dover trial, that lead many people to believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is an open-and-shut case for natural selection. Nothing could be further from the truth.

While many scientists have, in fact, accepted evolution as the best theory to explain the mystery of human origins, so far their acceptance does not exclude the recognition of new theories, especially when the new theories are anchored in good science.

I’ve included the objections to evolution in Human by Design for two reasons:

In the remainder of this chapter, I’ll share some of the opinions that continue to fuel the fires of controversy regarding the theory of human evolution.

Passionate objections to Darwin’s theory appeared almost as soon as his book was published in 1859. The first was raised by Louis Agassiz, who is regarded as one of the great scientists of the 19th century. His pioneering legacy is recognized in the field of natural history, specifically for his work in the areas of geology, biology, paleontology, and glaciology. His tireless dedication to his work took such a priority in his overall life that he once declared to a colleague, “I cannot afford to waste my time making money.” 23 In other words, he was so consumed with his research and making discoveries about the natural world that making a living was secondary. While he and Darwin were both using the same methods and looking at the same information, their interpretations couldn’t have been more different.

Commenting on Darwin’s theory in an 1874 publication, Agassiz wrote, “The world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin’s theory, like all other attempts, to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has not even made the best conjecture possible in the present state of our knowledge.” 24

Agassiz was not alone in his objections. A community of respected scientists has objected to Darwin’s work from the time it was first published. That community continues to grow. Its roster now sounds like a who’s who of leading minds in contemporary science. Following is a sampling of the types of criticisms that have been raised from the time Darwin introduced his theory in 1859 to the present.

“There are . . . absolutely no facts either in the records of geology, or in the history of the past, or in the experience of the present, that can be referred to as proving evolution, or the development of one species from another by selection of any kind whatever.” 26

“The theory suffers from grave defects, which are becoming more and more apparent as time advances. It can no longer square with practical scientific knowledge, nor does it suffice for our theoretical grasp of the facts. . . . No one can demonstrate that the limits of a species have ever been passed. These are the Rubicons which evolutionists cannot cross. . . . Darwin ransacked other spheres of practical research work for ideas. . . . But his whole resulting scheme remains, to this day, foreign to scientifically established zoology, since actual changes of species by such means are still unknown.” 27

“Evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on unproven theory. Is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which the believers know to be true, but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof.” 29

“The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein. I am at a loss to understand biologists’ widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious.” 30

“Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more or less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century. The truth is that despite the prestige of evolutionary theory and the tremendous intellectual effort directed towards reducing living systems to the confines of Darwinian thought, nature refuses to be imprisoned. In the final analysis we still know very little about how new forms of life arise. The ‘mystery of mysteries’—the origin of new beings on earth—is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the Beagle.” 31

“But how do you get from nothing to such an elaborate something if evolution must proceed through a long sequence of intermediate stages, each favored by natural selection? You can’t fly with 2 percent of a wing or gain much protection from an iota’s similarity with a potentially concealing piece of vegetation. How, in other words, can natural selection explain the incipient stages of structures that can only be used [as we now observe them] in much more elaborated form?” 32

“The point, however, is that the doctrine of evolution has swept the world, not on the strength of its scientific merits, but precisely in its capacity as a Gnostic myth. It affirms, in effect, that living beings create themselves, which is, in essence, a metaphysical claim. . . . Thus, in the final analysis, evolutionism is in truth a metaphysical doctrine decked out in scientific garb.” 33

The preceding statements offer insights rarely seen by the public, and certainly not shared in typical school classrooms, when it comes to accepting Darwin’s theory. In 2001, during the same period of time that PBS was airing the Evolution miniseries, a diverse group of international scientists signed a declaration that they posted online to let the world know that, for them, the mystery of our origins was not yet solved. As of July 2015 the declaration had been signed by 1,371 esteemed scientists from around the world and the list of signatories continues to grow.

The petition itself is brief and simply reads:

Clearly, the jury is still out on the viability of Darwin’s theory of evolution when it comes to solving the mystery of human beginnings. It’s obvious from objections such as the ones listed, and more, that criticism of evolution continues with passion and vigorous debate. And while Darwin’s ideas are a century and a half old, they’re still among the most emotionally charged issues of our time. My sense is that the reason for the controversy is twofold: first, the theory has deep moral, social, and religious implications; second, evolution is usually presented as scientific fact even though conflicting issues have yet to be resolved.

Now that we have viewed some of the objections to Darwin’s theory of evolution, I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify my personal view as a geologist, researcher, and author when it comes to Charles Darwin himself and his ideas of evolution.

I’ll begin by stating that I have tremendous respect for Charles Darwin, both as a man and as a scientist, for what he accomplished in his day. He lived in a society that was very different from our 21st-century world. It took tremendous courage for him to offer what he did, in the way that he did it, during his time in history. The Catholic Church played a powerful and dominant role in 19th-century England, and Darwin knew that his theory would pose a direct threat to the religious doctrine of the Church. It was precisely because of this awareness that he waited over twenty years after his voyage on the HMS Beagle ended in 1836 to publish his book. In a letter he wrote to botanist Asa Gray in 1860, he stated his concern, saying that he “had no intention to write atheistically.” 35

Darwin lived to see his fears of such criticism justified as Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, England’s highest-ranking Catholic official when Origin of Species was published, attacked the theory of evolution as a “brutal philosophy,” stating that it implied “the ape is our Adam.” 36 In spite of such criticism, at the time of his death in 1862, Darwin was considered to be the greatest scientist of his era.

I’d also like to acknowledge that much of the controversy that Darwin’s theory has caused both in his time and today is due to 1) a misunderstanding of what he actually said and 2) the desire of universities, college professors, the scientific community at large, and politicians to hold his work sacred and infallible. In other words, institutions and the people who support them have attempted to make Darwin’s work into something he himself never intended it to be. They want to use his theory for purposes he never foresaw or intended.

Darwin was a geologist and, by all accounts, a good geologist. He was fair and honest when he wrote about what he observed, as well as about what he believed his observations were telling him. His work was well thought out and meticulously documented, and his methods followed the accepted guidelines of the period. Where I believe Darwin’s process was flawed is in regard to what he did after he published Origin of Species . Because his theory of evolution seemed to fit what he saw happening for one form of life in one place in the world—specifically, for the finches of the Galapagos Islands—he tried to generalize the theory to apply to all life everywhere, including humankind. This leap is where Darwin’s theory of evolution appears to break down.

While we still don’t know precisely what did happen when our modern human ancestors appeared 200,000 years ago, the best evidence we’ve obtained from the fossil record does not support evolution as the explanation for how they came to be as they were. I’m mentioning this point now because the thinking that is perpetuated by the mainstream media and many academic institutions that have a vested interest in keeping the story of evolution alive is that the controversy is over.

Immediately following Charles Darwin’s 1859 release of Origin of Species , the widespread acceptance of his theory led to a search for the physical evidence to support it: the “missing links” between species that were believed to exist in the fossil record. If scientists could find these clues, the logic goes, then they would be able to reconstruct our ancient family tree of development. Just the way we can document our individual family lineage in reverse, going from our parents to our grandparents, and then to our great-grandparents, and so on, they assumed one day it would be possible to create a family tree of all our collective ancestors.

The current thinking about our human evolutionary tree is shown in Figure 1.1 . In this image, modern humans are represented by Homo sapiens , the bold dot in the upper left portion of the chart. The lines forming the branches that connect us with the other skulls lower on the tree represent the various paths of development—evolutionary paths—scientists believe have led from early primates to us today.

Figure 1.1. An example of the traditional human family tree of evolution. The problem with the thinking represented by this tree is that physical evidence confirming a connection between the fossils has yet to be discovered. This lack of evidence is the reason the lines that form the tree are labeled “inferred” relationships.

A close look at the illustration in Figure 1.1 , however, reveals that the links between the fossils are shown as dashed lines rather than solid ones. This means that the lines represent speculative or inferred connections rather than proven ones. While the links are believed to exist, after 150 years of searching for the evidence to support them, they have yet to be proven.

Key 8: While the connections between ancient primates and modern humans on the evolutionary family tree are believed to exist, they have never been proven as fact—they are inferred and speculative connections only, at this point in time.

In other words, the physical evidence that confirms the evolutionary links that influence aspects of our lives ranging from health care to the moral justification of hate crimes, suicide, assisted suicide, and the death penalty as well as the criteria for our self-image and intimate relationships has yet to be discovered!

From the time evolution theory was introduced in 1859 to the date of this writing, to the best of this author’s knowledge no clear evidence of a transitional species leading to us—that is, fossils that reflect an evolutionary journey from primitive to more human-like beings—has been discovered! Thomas H. Morgan, the winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine, left no doubt of this in the minds of readers of his book Evolution and Adaptation . As modern science applies what Morgan says are the “most rigid . . . tests used to distinguish wild species,” he states, “Within the period of human history we do not know of a single instance of the transformation of one species into another.” 37

In the face of impassioned scientific debates, and with the “futuristic” technology that’s now unlocking life’s deepest mysteries, the stark fact of Morgan’s observation remains a warning against wholeheartedly embracing the theory of human evolution. Even so, the theory continues to be taught in public classrooms as if it’s an undisputed fact!

In Origin of Species , Darwin acknowledged the irony in the lack of physical evidence to support his theory. He also noted that the reason for the lack of physical evidence could possibly be explained in one of two ways: Either the geologists were interpreting the history of the earth incorrectly, or he himself had incorrectly interpreted the observations that became the foundation of his theory.

In Darwin’s own words:

Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections which may be urged against my theory. 38

It’s against the backdrop of these ideas and criticisms that an astounding discovery in the late 20th century gave scientists the opportunity to put some of the strongest-held arguments for evolution to the test. If human evolution has in fact occurred, as Darwin’s theory hypothesizes, then the best way to prove the theory would be to compare us to our ancestors at the deepest level of our cells. To do so, scientists would need to sample the DNA of our early ancestors and compare it to the DNA of our bodies today, which is a problem because modern humans have already been on earth for 200,000 years. Because DNA is fragile, it doesn’t last that long.

Is it possible that DNA from ancient primate life could still exist today? And if it were to exist, could we test the recovered DNA the way we routinely test our DNA today? Although these questions sound as if they could have come from the plot of Jurassic Park , a movie depicting ancient dinosaurs being resurrected through DNA in the present day, the answer to these questions came to light in the form of a one-of-a-kind discovery in 1987. The revelations of the discovery have left more questions unanswered, created even deeper mysteries, and opened the door to a possibility that has been forbidden territory in traditional science.