Origin of the Genetic Code is suprascientific
http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com.newproxy.rsm.ac.uk/cgi/eletters/103/2/43 Journal of Royal Society of Medicine March 15 2010
Response: The disappointments of the double helix: a master theory
Origin of the genetic code is suprascientific
The title of Dr James Le Fanu’s magnificent article suggests inadvertently that, with all the advances in genomic research, our inability to have “a mind capable of understanding the origins of the universe” [1] is to be blamed on the double helix when he could justifiably have pointed his finger at ourselves.
Discoverer of the ‘Double Helix’, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, confessed his inability to explain “the origin of the genetic code” [2]. I discovered the reason why from Professor Sir Peter Medawar FRS OM, another Nobel Laureate, who taught that questions like origins not only go “beyond the explanatory confidence of science” [3 (p. xiii)] but also that “science cannot answer these ultimate questions and no conceivable advance of science could empower it to do so” [3 (p. 59)].
It is beginning to dawn on some of the world’s brightest scientists that Medawar is quite right, and that DNA, with its genetic code, belongs to the lowest rung (statistics) of information-transmission whose other rungs, in ascending order, capable of sending a message and producing results are syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics [4]. Useful messages do not arise anyhow. The first question I ask when I receive useful information is not “How was this information sent?” but “Who sent this?”
Until we begin to accept Medawar’s humbling limitation of the “explanatory confidence of science” [3] and admit that the origin of the universe and of DNA information programming in particular, is in the realm of the “suprascientific” [5] we shall continue (as we do at present) to be “whistling in the dark to keep our scientific courage up” [5].
Felix ID Konotey-Ahulu, Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana and Consultant
Physician Genetic Counsellor, Sickle & Other Haemoglobinopathies 10 Harley St., London W1G 9PF
E-mail: felix@konotey-ahulu.com
Competing interests: None declared
References
1 Le Fanu J. The disappointments of the double helix: a master theory. J R Soc Med 2010; 103: 43-45. DOI.101258/jrsm.2009.09k077 February 2010
2 Crick FHC. The origin of the genetic code. J Mol. Biology 1968: 38: 367-379.
3 Medawar P. The Limits of Science. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 1985 pp xiii & 59.
4 Gitt Werner. In the beginning was Information. Christliche Literatur-Verbretung e.V.
Postfach 110135.33661 Bielefeld, Germany, 2001.
5 Konotey-Ahulu FID. The suprascientific in clinical medicine – a challenge for
Professor Know-All http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121901
Brit Med J. 2001; 323: 1452-1453
Are patients with G6PD Deficiency to avoid eating prawns?
Are patients with G6PD Deficiency to avoid eating prawns that have been farmed?
In his very informative editorial (March 4) Geoff Scott says “Chloramphenicol is also used in certain practices in agriculture, such as the farming of prawns” [Reference 1]. Should I, therefore, mention to my Ghanaian patients one in five males (hemizygotes) of whom were born with G6PD Deficiency [References 2-4] that eating prawns that have been farmed could lead to what Geoff Scott calls “dangers of unwanted effects” [Reference 1]?
That would increase my list [See Reference 5] from 20 to 21 of how to recognize effects of Glucose-6 Phosphate Dehydrogenase deficiency in Ghanaian hemizygotes, female heterozygotes, and the homozygotes that constitute 1 in 16 of all females at home in Ghana and in the diaspora [2].
Felix ID Konotey-Ahulu MD FRCP DTMH
Kwegryir Aggrey Disitnguished Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana and
Consultant Physician Genetic Counsellor in Sickle and other Haemoglobinopathies, 10 Harley Street, London W1G 9PF
Email: felix@konotey-ahulu.com
Conflict of interest: None declared
1 Scott Geoff. Over the counter chloramphenicol eye drops. BMJ 2010; 340 c1016
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/feb26_1/c1016
2 Owusu SK. Absence of glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase in red cells of an African. BMJ 1972; 4: 25-26
3 Owusu SK, Foli AK, Konotey-Ahulu FID, Janosi Marianne. Frequency of glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency in typhoid fever in Ghana. Lancet 1972; 1: 320
4 Owusu SK. Glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency in causation of disease in Ghana. Ghana Medical Journal 1974; 13: 168-170
5 Konotey-Ahulu FID. G-6PD Deficiency in Ghanaians: How to recognize it. http://blog.konotey- ahulu.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/16/3468557.html Jan 2008.
Competing interests: None declared