Original subtitles

[THEME MUSIC]

My name's Gregg Braden, and I'd like to welcome you to this

very special presentation of "Missing Links",

the deep truth of our origin history, destiny, and fate.

In the last episode, I shared the new evidence

that is absolutely shaking the foundation of modern science

when it comes to the story of human evolution, us

and where we come from.

Advanced CSI-like technology is now

revealing DNA evidence in our time

that Charles Darwin simply could not have known in his.

The DNA that was supposed to represent our ancestors

is now telling us a story--

it's our story-- and the story is

that we are not the product of the long, slow process

of evolution that we see for other forms of life.

So I want to be very clear.

DNA is telling us that evolution is a fact.

It's just not our story.

The DNA is also telling us that we did not

descend from primitive beings such as ancient Neanderthals.

The DNA is telling us that we appeared on this earth

suddenly, in evolutionary terms, as what

are called now anatomically modern humans, AMH.

We appeared about 200,000 years ago,

and the thing is we haven't changed since we appeared.

So now that we know what we're not

and we know how quickly we did appear,

the questions that come to mind are why and how.

Why did we suddenly appear?

Why did we show up on this earth 200,000 years ago,

and how did it happen?

Well, that's what this episode is all about.

In this episode, we'll answer these questions.

And in doing so, we're going to open the door

to an even deeper mystery.

Because the answer to the mystery

begins in our chromosomes.

So one of the mysteries when it comes to our origin

has always been our DNA, specifically the way

that our DNA compares to our nearest primate neighbors,

the great apes and chimpanzees.

And part of that mystery is simply

in the sheer number of chromosomes that we have.

Humans have 46 chromosomes.

The apes have 48.

And the question has always been,

why do they have more than us?

Why do they appear to have two more chromosomes than we do?

Well, it was only with advances in genetic research

relatively recently that the answer to this mystery

has been determined.

The mystery has been solved.

But in solving the mystery, it's opened the door

to an even deeper mystery, and this

is something that happens over and over

and over again in this study of our origin.

So when we look at the genome for the primates,

when we look at their 48 chromosomes, what we find

is that there is a place, chromosome number 2, where they

have two separate chromosomes.

And only recently have scientists

found that in the human genome, our human chromosome number 2

is actually made of a very specific, very precise union

of those two primate chromosomes.

Let me say that again.

The mystery as to why we seem to have

fewer chromosomes than other primates

is because there are two of theirs that

were fused into one of ours.

And that brings us to the mystery of that chromosome--

why it was fused, how it was fused,

what the fusion looks like.

It's all about human chromosome number 2.

Human chromosome number 2 has always

been fascinating to scientists.

It is one of the largest chromosomes in the human body.

It makes about 8% of the DNA in every cell in our body.

And the way that this chromosome has formed

is very controversial right now, so much so

that it was the subject of an entire study.

It has been the subject of entire conferences

that last a week and longer on human chromosome number 2.

But what I'd like to do right now,

I'm going to begin with a technical paper that

was published.

So this is peer reviewed science.

This isn't theory.

It's not hypothesis.

It is peer reviewed science that now is telling us

precisely how these two primate chromosomes were

fused to give us the one chromosome that

makes us unique.

It makes us who we are.

It gives us the abilities that we have that sets us apart

from all other life.

And I think because of that, it's

worth taking a deeper look at this chromosome.

So I'm going to read to you directly

from a technical research paper, the "National

Academy of Sciences"-- proceedings of the "National

Academy of Sciences."

Let me read what they say in their language, and then let's

you and I talk about what that means.

And we'll use some graphics to help break this

down a little bit.

In the proceedings from the "National Academy of Sciences"

in the journal that is titled "Genetics",

the subtitle tells the whole story.

The "Origin of human chromosome 2:

An ancestral telomere-telomere fusion."

So before we go any further, I want

to talk to you about what a telomere is.

When we look at the ends of a human chromosome,

what we see is the chromosome that

looks essentially like a little X. And within that X, the DNA--

the strands of the DNA, the double helix--

are within that X. All right?

At the end of each strand of chromosome,

there's a very special kind of DNA.

It is a repeating sequence, the same sequence

over and over and over again.

And this sequence is called a telomere.

And we're going to talk a lot about this

later in this episode.

But what I want you to know right now

is that those telomeres--

at the end of each repeating sequence,

they are the key to what the scientists found

about the fusion of the primate chromosomes that give us

our chromosome 2, that makes us unique,

because the fusion happened at the end of those two

telomere sequences.

So I'm going to go back.

I'm going to read precisely what this paper is saying,

and then we're going to break this down.

I'm going to cut to the chase, once again,

because I don't think we want to read through the entire paper.

I'm going to go to the last sentence of the conclusion

of the study from the "Origin of human chromosome number 2"

And it says that "we conclude that human chromosome number 2

is the relic of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion."

All right?

And the paper goes on to say--

and this is what's really important here--

not only did the fusion happen, the paper says,

"this fusion must have been followed

by the elimination of overlapping functions

as well as by events that stabilize the fusion."

Now, what are they saying here?

Well, it's telling us two things.

First of all, they're telling us that the second largest

chromosome in our body is the chromosome that makes us

unique, that gives us the advanced abilities that we have

that no other form of life has-- things like intuition

and things like logic, all of those kinds of things--

that chromosome is the result of an ancient fusion.

OK?

So that's the first thing it's telling us--

that somehow through a mechanism that

is not completely understood, the primate, the great ape

chromosomes were fused to make us who we are today.

Number one-- this is where it gets really interesting.

Because they say that the fusion that happen

could not happen under natural conditions,

at least as we know those conditions today.

This isn't something that you see happen all the time.

And here's the reason why--

not only did the fusion occur, the telomere-telomere fusion.

After it happened, the redundant,

the overlapping portions from the two chromosomes,

were removed so that the chromosome became

efficient and very stable.

And that is something.

The precision and the timing with which that happened

is where the mystery really unfolds.

So let's take a look at this again.

I want to show this to you graphically so in your mind

you have a sense.

If you look at your screen, let's go through this breakdown

how the chromosomes actually came apart,

how they came back together, and what that means to us today.

What you're seeing on the screen is a graphic representation.

These are two separate chromosomes.

So these were two chromosomes already existing

in the primate genome, in the great apes and the chimpanzees.

We're seeing a dotted line across those chromosomes.

For a reason that we don't understand--

we're not sure what happened-- there was a break,

something broke or cut or sliced those chromosomes.

And they were broken in the way that you're seeing

on your screen right now.

Portions of those were deleted.

That material-- the longer portions

on the lower part of the graph, the lower part of the chart--

it disappeared.

So that material no longer exists.

Above the two portions that you see are now free

actually came together and fused at the ends,

as you're seeing on your screen right now.

And that fusion created the longer human chromosome number

2.

It makes 8% of the DNA, as I mentioned,

in every cell in our body.

However, that's not the end of the story

because after the fusion happened, as you can imagine,

each of those chromosomes was independent unto itself

before the fusion.

So each of those chromosomes had information to help it

function in the way that it did.

When they were fused--

when the two pieces came together--

all of a sudden there were overlapping functions

that actually would have made human chromosome

number 2 less efficient.

And to deal with that in a way that is not understood today,

the overlapping functions were either

turned off within the DNA--

they shut down within the chromosomes--

or completely removed altogether.

That is what changes the story.

So what we're looking at is the mystery

of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion.

The function, the precision, the timing with which this fusion

happened, the fact that it happened quickly,

the fact that it is so precise that

certain redundant functions were removed

and portions were deleted, it tells us

that something more than evolution has happened here.

Evolution, as we know it today, cannot and does not explain

this fusion.

And this fusion is key because it's

the fusion that makes us human.

It's the fusion that sets us apart

from all other form of life.

It appears to be intentional, and this

is where we begin to kind of open the door to forbidden

territory in science.

So I'm sharing with you the science--

this is peer reviewed science that tells us what happened.

And we've just done that.

Now there's this gray, this shady kind of fuzzy area--

why would something like that happen?

There appears to be an intent underlying this,

and scientists don't know who or how or why.

And I don't either for certain.

I have my sense, my suspicions, but I'd

like to explore some possibilities with you.

Because the conventional thinking--

when we hear about the fusion of DNA a long time ago and the way

that that happened--

we're taught to think in binary terms.

We say, well, it's either evolution.

And if it's not evolution, it's creationism.

OK?

Creationism invoking religion, invoking God,

invoking a lot of things that seem to be hot buttons

for a lot of people just because of the implications.

And I think for that reason-- that's

why it has become forbidden territory in science.

Science simply cannot prove these things.

But there's a third option, a third option that has happened.

For the fusion to occur the way it did,

a mutation had to occur.

That fusion is a mutation.

It means that two genes mutated into the new human chromosome

number 2, or two chromosomes mutated

into the new human chromosome number 2.

Because that is a mutation, the third option

is now recognizing that.

The third option is called directed mutation.

Directed mutation-- it means it didn't happen spontaneously

from a natural process.

Something directed the mutation.

We don't know what it was for sure.

And this is opening the doors to new possibilities in science

and in scientific thinking.

So where and how that happened, that's

where the study is going right now.

And what the studies are showing us

is telling a story that, while it's new for science,

in our most ancient and cherished spiritual traditions

we've heard this story in different ways

many times before.

So when we talk about this directed mutation,

it opens the door to one of the most controversial facets

of evolutionary theory and the ideas

and the beliefs that support it and do not.

That is called intelligent design.

Intelligent design-- precisely what it says,

that there is a design that is in place underlying

the genetic structure of all life

and that some form of intelligence

has been the one to direct that.

For many people, this is where the religious implications

come in.

For me, it doesn't have to be that way.

It doesn't have to be about religion.

It may, but it doesn't have to be.

But the strongest evidence, the strongest argument,

for what is called directed mutation and intelligent design

comes from a principle that I alluded to

in the previous episode, but I didn't really

explain it very much because I knew we would here.

It's called irreducible complexity.

Irreducible complexity.

Here's what I mean by that.

If you are walking in a field and you

find a watch, a watch lying on the ground,

it is a safe assumption to make that some intelligence

underlies the creation of that watch.

The way the gears come together and interlock

and the way that those gears produce a function that

is useful and meaningful obviously

reflects some intent, some design.

And that's very different than if we were just

to find a rock laying on the ground,

and we say, well, that rock may have been put there last week.

It could have been there for a billion years.

But it didn't necessarily take any intention to put it there.

So I'm just using that as an example

because scientists use--

some scientists-- are using this idea of irreducible complexity

to validate this idea that there is some intent

under this directed mutation.

What irreducible complexity says to us,

it says that a system can only work

when all the pieces are in place to function at the same time.

So when you think about our watch,

it wouldn't work for one gear to show up 100 years ago

and then another gear show up 100 years later

and then another gear show up 100 years later.

I mean, the pieces may not even be there,

or they may corrode over those hundreds of years.

So you get the idea of what I'm saying here.

All the pieces for the watch have to be in place

and available at the same time for that watch

to become a watch and function as it does.

That idea, that principle, applies to so many facets

of biological life.

It's kind of like the idea of a mouse trap.

And this is an idea that scientists use a lot when

they're making this argument.

If you look at a mousetrap-- and it's a very simple mechanism.

But if any one portion of that mousetrap

were not there in the moment it was needed,

it wouldn't function as a mouse trap.

You could have the base.

You could have the cheese for the bait.

But if that spring isn't there, it's

not going to be a mousetrap.

If you have the spring and the cheese but no base,

there's no contraption.

There's no mechanism for it to work.

So again, you're seeing this idea in principle.

Let's take a look at what it means in real life.

And this is so amazing when you really begin

to think about these things.

I mentioned the cells earlier.

Our cells are so complex.

Back in the early 1900s, cells were

thought of as little bags, literally little sacks of fluid

and some sticky gooey stuff.

Science had no idea of literally the hundreds of thousands

of mechanisms that have to be working

in place in the cell at the same time,

such as a cell has to be able to nourish itself.

So the cell has to be able to take in food,

process that food in the way that is meaningful to the cell,

and then distribute that beyond the cell

to the rest of the body.

If you're taking in that food, then somehow

you have to eliminate that food.

So the elimination system has to be there

or the cell won't live very long.

So if the elimination system were there first

and the cell were not taking in food, that wouldn't work.

If the food was coming in no way to eliminate it,

that wouldn't work.

If the cell could not reproduce itself in some way

to create another and another cell

or if the cell could not repair and heal itself

in one way or another, then the cell's life

wouldn't last very long.

All of these things had to be in place

at precisely the same time for the cell

to work the way it works.

Another place where we see this is

with the function of human blood, in the hemoglobins.

There are 20 proteins that have to be in place simultaneously

for the clotting of blood in our bodies.

And I want you to think about what this means.

20 proteins-- they have to be there.

If they were not there with the first organism,

the first time that organism received a cut or a scratch

that we take for granted is going to heal quickly--

if those 20 proteins were not already in place,

then the clotting couldn't happen.

And that organism would bleed and bleed and bleed

until it bled out, until it died.

If even one of those proteins is missing,

the clotting mechanism doesn't work.

And another place-- I'm just going

to give you another example so you see these aren't anomalies.

The cilia-- cilia are the little wavy tails

that we see on the ends of some kinds of bacteria.

We see them on the ends of sperm,

and that makes them really important

because the sperm couldn't go anywhere

to create life if they didn't have

the cilia, the little tails.

And many of the bacteria couldn't function

the way they do without these.

And for those cilia to work, there

is a very complex series of over 40 mechanisms

that must be in place for the nerves,

for the chemical reactions, for the growth of the cells,

so that little tail can wiggle and move in a fluid medium.

If they're not there all at once,

they're not going to work.

They cannot evolve slowly, gradually over a long period

of time--

just as the 20 proteins didn't, just as what's happening

in our cells didn't.

So what I am sharing with you now--

just so very clear about this--

irreducible complexity says that there are some forms of life

that simply can not evolve from simpler forms

gradually, slowly over long periods of time.

I've just given you three examples.

Well, DNA is another example.

DNA is a beautiful example because it is the very basis--

it's the blueprint-- for what's happening in our bodies.

And scientists now are recognizing this.

And I just want to share with you

from a very well known scientist exactly.

I want you to hear his words, in scientific words,

about what this means when we're seeing it so you know it's not

just me, my opinion, my theory.

This is where a body of scientific thinking

is now going.

So here is what this scientist is saying.

This is from Dr. Cohen, published in a research paper.

It was released in 1984.

He's a mathematician and a member of the New York

Academy of Sciences.

So this is a very well credentialed scientist.

And what he's saying is this-- quote--

he says, "At the moment, when the DNA/RNA system became

understood," he said, "the debate between evolution

and creation should have come to a screeching halt

because the implications of the DNA

and the RNA are obvious and clear."

So what he's saying is that the moment our technology advanced

to the point where we could see what it takes for DNA and its

complement, RNA, to work in our bodies,

the complexities are so great that the evolutionary theory

simply cannot explain those complexities.

So he's saying this whole debate should have come to an end.

It is obvious he's saying, as a mathematician,

that there is some intent, perhaps an intelligence.

Definitely something is directing

this experience, this mechanism, that

is at the core of our lives.

This hearkens back to the very idea of our origin.

Who are we?

Where did we come from?

What is it that combined those two chromosomes to produce

our one, chromosome number 2, that

sets us apart from all other life and makes us unique.

So I'd like to take this opportunity and share with you

yet another perspective.

And for me, this is a very personal perspective

because it involves a research project

that I began over 30 years ago.

My background is scientist.

I was a degreed geologist with a background

in marine ocean and life sciences and mathematics

and physics.

All of these things worked together for me early

in my life.

And when I looked at them honestly and

asked myself truthfully and factually--

what is nature telling us?

My sense at that time early in my life was there

is something, something more than evolution

that underlies our existence, something

that is not being acknowledged in the mainstream.

And while the fossils are interesting,

I don't think they're about us.

And while the DNA is now telling us more information,

we're still lacking a context.

And this may be one of those places where we're not

going to find the answer in the mystery itself,

where we'll have to find the answer in other avenues

that help us to understand and lead to solving this mystery.

So for me, a passion of mine, as I mentioned earlier,

has been to look for clues in our most ancient and cherished

traditions to see what those clues may be saying to us

or what did our ancestors know in their time

that we're only beginning to discover in ours.

And I've always had a very strong sense

that if we know where and how to look into our past

that there are insights that have been preserved in some

of our most ancient texts and traditions,

insights that maybe just aren't so well understood today.

So I'm going to share with you very quickly--

I'm going to condense 30 years of research

into a project that can only happen when

we cross the traditional boundaries of science

and spirituality.

Now, I was told as a scientist that these two

are mutually incompatible.

You must choose-- I was told--

the path of science or the path of spirituality,

that the two were in fact mutually exclusive.

Here's my thinking.

We're living in a time of extremes.

We owe it to ourself to draw upon every facet, every source

of information possible, to give ourselves

whatever it is we need and to call

whatever it is that exists so that we can weave a new story--

honestly answer the questions for ourselves

that we can thrive in our time of extremes

so we can end the suffering and move into a new way of living

and thinking.

And for me, I believe those clues exist in our past

as well as in the new discoveries

we're talking about now.

So here's what that meant for me--

I went into one of the oldest and most

mysterious spiritual texts that has ever been known to exist.

And it's called the Sefer Yetzirah.

It is a Hebrew text that is so mystical that the rabbis say

it is not even something that can be studied

by traditional students because the mystery is so deep and so

great.

It's a relatively short text, only about 1,000 lines long.

And it's only been translated into English once.

And I took that translation, and I read it through it very,

very carefully as a scientist.

And what I found is this--

the Sefer Yetzirah is essentially

a step-by-step description as if someone, an observer,

were present the day that the universe and humankind were

created, an observer describing the process in line

after line, the 1,000 lines, what it took

to get us where we are today.

But the text is 3,000 years old.

Whoever wrote that text, 3,000 years old,

and it may be that whoever wrote it received it

from a wisdom that's even older than 3,000 years.

Whoever it is that put that text together,

they didn't know what we know today.

They didn't know about science.

They didn't know about the periodic table of elements.

So I began to interpret the text through the eyes

of a scientist.

And when the text began talking about the elements of the earth

and of the wind and of the sun, I asked myself

if I were writing this text today,

are those the words that I would use?

And my answer was, probably not.

As a scientist, when I talk about the sun,

rather than calling it the sun, I

would refer to the most dominant element in the sun,

which is hydrogen. When I talk about the air,

the wind, I would refer to the most dominant element, which

is oxygen. And I began to look at these overlaps.

Well, there's another great mystery

when it comes to the languages of our past.

Scientists know this.

Linguists know this very well.

Every language, every single alphabet

that has ever been known to exist,

bar none, cuneiform, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, every Greek,

every alphabet that's ever been created

has always had a mysterious number linked to the letter

that it represents.

No one knows for sure where those numbers came from.

The numbers never change.

They are a constant.

So the numbers that are linked to the letters

of ancient alphabets--

they allow us to think of those alphabets mathematically.

So here's what I did as a scientist.

I compared the ancient texts 3,000 years old

and the elements that it describes

that make us with the elements of the periodic table.

The ancient elements of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,

and carbon we find in the periodic table as the letters,

and they have numbers associated with them.

And the numbers that I linked from those ancient alphabets,

as I looked at the atomic mass and the atomic weight

of our elements, lo and behold, they are the same.

They overlap.

The atomic mass of hydrogen links precisely

with very specific letters in ancient Hebrew, Arabic,

and Sanskrit.

The atomic mass for oxygen links precisely

with letters in those ancient alphabets.

So here's what I did.

I replaced the letters in the ancient text

with the elements of the periodic table.

And when I did that and applied it to DNA--

because DNA is made of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon

in different combinations--

when I took the ancient alphabets

and I replaced the elements of the DNA with those alphabets,

the DNA began to read as you read the letters in a sentence

in the page upon a book.

Our DNA holds a message that can only

be read by crossing the traditional boundaries

of science and spirituality.

And it helps us one more piece with this clue of our origin

because the very first sentence, the very first line

of every strand of every human DNA

says exactly the same thing.

And here's what it says--

when we replace those letters with the periodic table

and we begin reading the text, the very first sentence

in every strand of DNA literally says the words

"God Eternal Within The Body."

"God Eternal Within the Body."

It doesn't say who God is, how that got there,

or why it's there.

I'm just sharing with you what happens when we

marry science and spirituality.

So that gives us one more insight.

Now that we know that we appeared on this earth 200,000

years ago and we know that we haven't changed

and now that we know that the DNA that makes us who we are

appears to be more than a random process of biology,

the question now is what does it mean to have that kind of DNA?

What do we do with it?

How do we awaken the extraordinary abilities

that that DNA, that fusion, gives to us in our lives

and gives to no other form of life?

In our next episode, that's what we're going to explore.

I want to thank you for joining me for this program today.

And be sure to tune in for our next

all new episode of "Missing Links",

the deep truth of our origin history, destiny, and fate.