Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 157
through its longitudinal middle and manufacture a new half for each original half in a
never-resting process of replications, and it does so in less than 3 seconds. Given the
quasi-perfection of the duplication occurring among an almost infinite number of
possible combinations and the hunger and speed with which it takes place, it reveals
itself as the primordial force that drives life – an enigmatic bioelectric phenomenon. To
make the riddle even more uncanny, the DNA molecule, without which no organism can
live on earth is so dead that it stays unchanged for hundreds of years, perhaps
thousands.
Microbiologists are making breathtaking strides in understanding how life is transmitted
and how it can be improved. Understanding the genome, despite answering many
questions, has posed many more. It is simply as if we have learned how to assemble
the computer, but we know very little about the operating system that makes it useful,
and of its program applications. The science that is beginning to develop to consider
this enigma is called proteomics, and deals with the contemplation of the astronomical
number of combinations that result in protein formation created by the genes
interactions. I venture to say that during the lifetime of my grandchildren it will probably
be known which gene or interaction of genes among themselves or with noncoding DNA
carry the instructions for the instincts of survival and self-improvement that drive our
progress. In the eschatology of life, I see these milestones of knowledge as way
stations in our journey of discovery.
Our quest will not end when we figure out how life is transmitted and how we can
scientifically improve the process. It will continue until we learn what caused our
beginning, how we relate to primordial bioelectric processes, whether life is inevitable
and why, how we fit in the rest of the cosmos, and finally, who engineered the whole
thing. Without a doubt humans are engaged in the search for God, who appears to be
little interested in our individual joys and pains. Nevertheless, we are evolving toward
Him.
To clearly admit even at the beginning of the 21 st century that curiosity is the force that
drives our quest for knowledge, may sound agnostic and to some even blasphemous,
but it is undeniable. To me we are just answering the call from the Supreme Developer,
which seems to be inescapably imprinted in our proteomes. The answers that science
provides, as in the past, will force reappraisal of religious dogmas. And, if history is a
teacher, the religions that are more dogmatic and claim to be infallibly in contact with
God, are the ones that will have to change the most, or perhaps, disappear.
This is not to imply that the undeniable influence that religion has had in driving
humanity’s destiny will suddenly end. On the contrary, religion is still one of the greatest
forces that move humanity today. It is at the root of what most of us learn in the family
and therefore can be discussed in the context of how it shapes America.
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