Seeds of Heaven includes several unique scientific themes within the body of the work and its back story. In the next weeks, the author will elucidate some of these. For now, read on to consider a Third Evolutionary Paradigm that is neither Darwinian nor Intelligent Design, but may resolve the issues these two views on the development of life have with each other.

Chromosomes: Human 46 Primates 48 explores the puzzle of the different numbers of chromosomes between human beings and primates.

The Middle Way is a discussion of balance between science and religion within the context of governance.

Feedback

This feedback section is in keeping with my desire to have a broad cross-section of opinion and analysis on these very complex issues. I hope the honest evaluation of the visitors to this site who wish to respond helps bring us closer and closer to the true history of human kind.

This is the complete and unedited text of an email message I received on 9/26/2005, regarding the article Chromosomes.

Mr. Abao:

I had just finished teaching my classes about the difference between human and chimp chromosomes (46 vs. 48), when I came across your thesis. You have an interesting idea, but it is enormously full of niggling little errors. You should clean these up, or only fools will be taken in.

E.g.:
"Humans possess 46 chromosomes, primates 48."

First of all, humans are primates. What you mean is humans possess 46 and non-human primates, possess 48. This is still wrong. A species of Callicebus has recently been found with 16, and other primates have as many as 60 chromosomes. Perhaps what you meant was that the genus Pan and Gorilla, our closest living relatives, have 48.

"Darwinian evolutionists theorize that in the evolution from a common ancestor, Homo Sapiens lost two chromosomes which primates retained. Yet the loss of two chromosomes in such a short time span would surely result in a major disaster befalling Homo Sapiens. Two chromosomes represents massive amounts of DNA and RNA just disappearing."

Overlooking misuse of the term primate, your thesis appears to be that the "loss of two" chromosomes cannot be explained by evolution over such a short period of time. You say it's a lot of "DNA and RNA" to disappear. First off, RNA is not really lost in such a scenario, only DNA. Second of all, Mr. Abao, surely in your research on this topic you must have noticed that the DNA (and in fact the chromosomes) were not lost. They are still there! There is strong evidence (I can provide it if you want) that two chimp chromosomes fused together to form the giant 2nd human chromosome. You can match up the banding patterns nearly exactly. How long would it take two chromosomes to fuse into one? Perhaps one generation. No DNA was lost!!!

There are other more subtle differences between human and chimp genomes than the number of chromosomes, which is not an issue at all, that you could have trotted out.

I could go on, but, it makes little sense to. And frankly, I only skimmed the rest of your theses after seeing the shoddy treatment you gave to facts in the beginning bit of your chromosome essay.

You are of course free to interpret Sumerian texts as you wish, and make whatever hermeneutical leaps you want, but you just can't get away with playing so loose with the science. It gives you the strident voice of a crackpot, or, worse, a mere mountebank.

Hi Mr. Plotkin:

I had just finished teaching my classes about the difference between human and chimp chromosomes (46 vs. 48), when I came across your thesis. You have an interesting idea, but it is enormously full of niggling little errors. You should clean these up, or only fools will be taken in.

Keep in mind that I am a novelist, artist and a generalist. The material I have on the site is to help as deep background for my book Seeds of Heaven which is fiction. That said my articles are meant to be broad strokes, in a conversational vernacular for ordinary everyday people, not a thesis for a degree in biology, I am simply pointing out that there are serious problems with the present theories of natural evolution and of course the Intelligent Design crowd. I suggest there is a Third Paradigm and that is intervention. This article was vetted by a pretty astute editor and advisor but I welcome your more precise information, thanks. Be sure I will run it past my editor and if we can keep the article readable to the everyday person I will incorporate your thoughts. The other thing about Seeds of Heaven and my site is that I want a lot of feedback I hope to make it a center of informed discussion.

"Humans possess 46 chromosomes, primates 48."

First of all, humans are primates. What you mean is humans possess 46 and non-human primates, possess 48.

No that is not what I mean and I will have to review the article and see if I can keep it short and sweet and still get across the real point. What I mean is that current natural evolutionary theory postulates that Earthman (read Homo sapiens) evolved from primates. If that is the case in 250,000 years or even 500,000 years nothing good could happen if one loses 2 chromosomes and the DNA involved in the lost. But even without the 2 chromosomes problem it is still not enough time to go from Homo Erectus (which does fit the time requirement) to Homo sapiens. What I failed to say and I thought it was understood is that a very sophisticated splicing technology by a high order scientific order COULD have accomplished the task.

You are of course free to interpret Sumerian texts as you wish, and make whatever hermeneutical leaps you want, but you just can't get away with playing so loose with the science. It gives you the strident voice of a crackpot, or, worse, a mere mountebank.

michael plotkin

Well I hope my reading public looks at Seeds of Heaven as part of a Space Opera, Indiana Jones adventure, Romance cycle with a deep layer of questions, Point of view answers, surprising insights and twists and an alternate history. I don't think the history we think we know is the history that really happened.

Thanks again for your interest. You wrote so I don't think you think I am a crackpot, or, worse, a mere mountebank. LOL.

Tito Abao, author Seeds of Heaven

I took this question up with Lloyd Pye, the father of what he calls the Interventionist Theory and I call the Third Paradigm, that is the idea that humans are the product of genetic engineering by extraterretials. Pye believes, and has extensive evidence on his site, that not only humans were genetically engineered but so were many domesticate animals and plants. For further information, please check out his personal web site at http://www.lloydpye.com/, the Starchild Site at http://www.starchildproject.com/ & http://www.starchildproject.com/SCUK/, and, for video of Lloyd, http://www.planetxvideo.com/lloydvideo.htm. The last link goes directly to a discussion of the chromosome number issue on load.

Note: This email was intended by Lloyd to be an explanation of the issue for me, not a formal rebuttal, and certainly not an invitation to dialog between Lloyd and Mr. Plotkin or others who wish to refute research that challenges their paradigms. I'm printing it here with Lloyd's guarded permission because of its clarity, eloquence, and informational value. Please respect Lloyd's wishes here. If you have further input, please do send it to tito@seedsofheaven.com with the subject "chromosomes". Thanks. Here's Lloyd's reply:

I don't like to waste time on arguments with scientists who are predisposed to do exactly as Mr. Plotkin does, pick on small things that are not precisely accurate in order to deflect interest away from larger issues that are correct.

Technically, he's correct in that only the so-called "great" apes have 48 chromosomes. I think both of the "lesser" apes, gibbons and siamangs, have different chromosome counts. However, they are far removed from the great apes, genetically speaking, other than their obvious lack of a tail, so this is not an issue that is really germaine to what happened to the "missing" chromosomes. But I use the same terminology you do in order to keep from doing the same kind of niggling parsing that scientists love to use to obscure their work and keep ordinary people from wanting to dig into it to understand it. That technique of overcaution and overparsing of terms is part of how they keep their work to themselves and out of the hands and minds of ordinary people who might challenge it.

He's also correct to point out that the chromosome COUNT has been reduced, but the chromosomal material remains the same due to the inexplicable "fusion" of great ape chromosomes 2 and 3, which he dismisses as something that might have arisen from a "sport," (in one generation), though that's an absurd argument because a sport with such a chromosomal alignment would require a different sex sport with exactly the same configuration and then they'd have to meet and reproduce in order to continue a line with the new configuration. Otherwise, the new arrangement would die with the sport who would live his or her life unable to reproduce and pass it along. In short, it's absurd to think such a fusion is "natural." That's the kind of thing done in a genetics lab and nowhere else.

As for your "loose" use of the word "primate," I do that all the time, too, in order to point out the absurdity of including humans in any kind of grouping of primates. We are something different, something standing apart, albeit on two legs but otherwise utterly different. Yes, he is correct that as of today we humans are considered to be primates, but that doesn't make it a correct or proper categorization.

The bottom line from my point of view is this: you're basically wasting your time trying to convince scientists of the correctness of your position. Anything that conflicts with their positions is ipso facto wrong and to be dismissed as cavalierly as Mr. Plotkin dismissed you. This is the way it has been and will be. People like us can't make headway trying to convince our opponents of anything. We can only keep on doggedly doing our research, doggedly writing and lecturing, and eventually the tide turns and we cram the new position we espouse down their unwilling, gagging throats. I hate to be so graphic, but that's the way it invariably goes. Like children, they never take their medicine willingly, especially if it tastes bad, as material from "outsiders" invariably does before it becomes accepted.....

Lloyd