The Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton [19]
Lenton subscribes to James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis that holds that the Earth and all of its species constitute one interactive, living organism. Those who endorse this hypothesis argue that tampering with the balance of the superorganism called Gaia, whether it be by destroying the rainforest, depleting the ozone layer, or altering organisms through genetic engineering, can threaten its survival and consequently ours.
Recent studies funded by Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council provide support for those concerns. (Thomas, et al, 2004; Stevens, et al, 2004) While there have been five mass extinctions in the history of our planet, they are all presumed to have been caused by extraterrestrial events, such as a comet smashing to earth. One of the new studies concludes that the “natural world is experiencing the sixth, major extinction event in its history.” (Lovell 2004) This time though, the cause of the extinction is not extraterrestrial. According to one of the study’s authors, Jeremy Thomas, “As far as we can tell this one is caused by one animal organism—man.”
Walking the Talk of Cells
In my years of teaching in medical school, I had come to realize that medical students in an academic setting are more competitive and backbiting than a truckload of lawyers. They live out the Darwinian struggle in their quest to be one of the “fittest” who stagger to graduation after four grueling years in medical school. The single-minded pursuit of stellar medical school grades, without regard for the students surrounding you, no doubt follows a Darwinian model, but it always seemed to me an ironic pursuit for those who are striving to become compassionate healers.
But my stereotypes about medical students toppled during my stay on the island. After my call to arms, my class of misfits stopped acting like conventional medical students; they dropped their survival of the fittest mentality and amalgamated into a single force, a team that helped them survive the semester. The stronger students helped the weaker and, in so doing, all became stronger. Their harmony was both surprising and beautiful to observe.
In the end, there was a bonus: a happy Hollywood ending. For their final exam, I gave my students exactly the same test the students in Wisconsin had to pass. There was virtually no difference in the performance of these “rejects” and their “elitist” counterparts in the States. Many students later reported that when they went home and met with their peers who attended American medical schools, they proudly found themselves more proficient in their understanding of the principles governing the life of cells and organisms.
I was of course thrilled that my students had pulled off an academic miracle. But it was years before I understood how they were able to do it. At the time, I thought the format of the course was key, and I still believe that overlapping human and cell biology is a better way to present the course material. But now that I’ve ventured into what I told you would be considered by some as wacky Dr. Dolittle territory, I think a good part of the reason for my students’ success was that they eschewed the behavior of their counterparts in the United States. Instead of mirroring smart American medical students, they mirrored the behavior of smart cells, banding together to become even smarter. I didn’t tell my students to pattern their lives after the lives of the cells, because I was still steeped in traditional, scientific training. But I like to think that they went in that direction intuitively after listening to my praise of cells’ ability to group together cooperatively to form more complex and highly successful organisms.
I didn’t know it at the time but I now believe that another reason for my students’ success was that I did not stop at praising cells. I praised the students as well. They needed to hear they were first-rate students in order to believe that they could perform as first-rate students. As I will detail in future chapters, so many of us are leading limited lives not because we have