Race is, fundamentally, an inappropriate basis for defining human identity.
Indeed, the scientific mission of the NHGC at Howard University is motivated by knowledge gained from the HGP and human genome variation that enables us to understand more intimately and completely who we are as individuals, and as populations of African ancestry separated by the expanse of oceans between the Old and New Worlds. Such is the depth of our genomic connection, from which we can glean novel insights on our shared biology and common identity encoded in the exquisite diversity of the human genome family. Of course, the scientific and the spiritual have not always made amiable bedfellows. Great thinkers throughout the ages have wondered about the soul. Questions abound: What is it made of and what contains it? Are human souls unique? Where do they come from? How do they interact with the natural world? Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica attributed the soul to all organisms but espoused the belief that immortal souls capable of union with the divine belong only to human beings. Animistic faiths and religions like Hinduism shared Aquinas’s conviction that all living things have souls, while others considered natural objects such as rivers and mountains to possess souls.
foundation for defining human biology and identity, the secrets of genomic life are now revealed through decoding the structure of whole-genome sequence variation. What is unseen, and thus invisible to our previous genetic paradigm, has now claimed its rightful place as the predominant component of our biological inheritance. From the human genome perspective, life extends across all generations, and yet is personalized in each member of humanity. The whole genome is our common inheritance, individually and collectively. Such can be the biomedical scientist’s view of the soul, as each unique expression of life expressed through the biology of whole-genome identity. Thus, one of the lessons learned from the HGP and research on human genome variation is that human identity is the expression of one incredibly whole Life consciousness. Overwhelming data from the HGP and research on human genome variation in populations show that more than 99% of the complete DNA sequence from any two persons randomly selected from any two places on the globe is essentially the same. If information encoded in DNA sequence variation reveals humankind as one interrelated, extremely diverse, and inextricably whole human family, then it follows that the genome is programmed and purposed from the birth of each person to express and experience whole-genome life. And perhaps, we may find a new beginning for the human family in our awareness of and identification with this abundant Life—a profound sense that we are more than just the sum of parts. Indeed, we are each essential components to the synchronous workings of the Whole.
This article is excerpted from a longer paper published in Italian in the 2014 Conference Proceedings of “Physics Interacts with Medicine, Art, and Spirituality” (Associazione Medicina e Complessità, Trieste, Italy).
The Greek philosophers of the Socratic tradition believed the soul to be the center of the human faculties of reason, emotion, and desire. Plato popularized the notion of the Anima mundi, or “world soul,” which describes the intrinsic connection between all living things, writing that “this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.” Aristotle viewed the essential purpose of a living thing—its joie de vivre—as the soul. As the whole cannot be understood fully by a single part, so the whole genome cannot be understood by a subset of genes that comprise it. Mysteries underlying the organization and expression of life in and through the whole genome are waiting to be discovered, as treasures hidden deep within the nuclei of the trillions of cells making up the human body. In the fullness of time, with whole-genome sequencing as a new
25