I like DW - his talks are VERY interesting! But I don't necessarily agree with the notion that quantum level phenomena are significant factors in DNA modification - in spite of the buckyball teleportation experiment comparison. The keyword is "significant". [I'm also skeptical - but intrigued - by multidimensional time.] Now before you jump on that, I obviously believe that electron transfer between atoms and charge distribution about atoms is what the chemistry of atomic bonding is really all about. And electrons are most definitely quantum level entities. But the vast majority of DNA influences involves much higher energies - those that exists at a level that determine the conformation of and interaction between very massive bio-macromolecules - especially the enzymes that are involved in DNA replication and repair. This really all boils down to probabilities. And it's certainly not impossible that some quantum superpositional event(s) wouldn't or couldn't have some fairly large scale result in the animal's system functionality and be then reproduced through the modified DNA. It's just that the larger the system effects we're talking about, the more unlikely it is that such quantum effects can become integrated as large scale manifestation. Other, much more efficacious types of influences - relatively high energy influences - tend to wash out small, random, mostly self-canceling quantum effects. A couple of examples would be diet, epigenetic factors, radiation (esp. solar uv)), etc. But that's merely my opinion based on some other guys (particularly MIT's Eric Lander). I think Erwin Schrodinger may have thought it possible. Not sure. I've yet to read his 1944 masterpiece, "What is Life?" - but it's available in free pdf HERE. One should note that this was written well before Watson and Crick, so the actual mechanism behind heredity wasn't known at the time.
DW is very interesting, some of it is pretty out there but it helps keep me open to even atypical possibilities. What exactly is electron transfer? Wasnt the 'particle' notion abandoned in favor of the 'cloud'. Or is the cloud just a probability distribution of a particle?
Basically, if an electron doesnt have a definite spatial positition or location, how can it be transferred. I kind of like the idea that particles are standing waves of various modes/energies.
Basically just the nucleus it is associated with changes. So its area of probability moves to the new atom. Have you taken any chemistry classes? Redox is probably the best and simplest example. Organic chemistry is all electron transfer if you're interested in the stuff. This singularity thing is trippy. We've evolved fast but definitely not too fast. Cancer rates are up? Yeah cancer diagnosis in the 1800s probably left a lot to be desired. Not to mention with increasing average life expectancy comes an increase in cancer in the elderly. It would be nice for the focus to be shifted to a greater good, but let's be honest that's not gonna happen. Greed runs the world.
Depending on charge distribution within an atom's energy levels (determined by quantum effects of the electron according to its energy), atoms will tend to either be hungry for more electrons, stuffed and want to give them away, or peacefully satisfied. Each type of atom (element) has a very particular arrangement of this charge in terms of both space (or, more accurately, spacetime), and quantum energy level. These factors together determine what has been termed, an atom's "electronegativity" Electronegativity is basically a measure of an atom's need to fill it's energy bands with external sources of electrons (other atoms). That in turn heavily influences Inter-atomic bonding - which determines molecular shapes ("conformation") - and those shapes and resulting electrostatic fields determine how molecules interact with each other. Also, biochemical processes are driven by energy cascades, much of which being in the form of atoms stealing electrons from donors, and ultimately driven by photons being absorbed by electrons and causing them to be raised in energy sufficient to leave one atom and be absorbed or accepted by another in photosynthesis. Oxygen is a very strong electron thief and most of the energy used to power biochemical processes uses redox (or oxidation-reduction) reactions where high energy electrons are stolen by oxygen molecules....... and I don't think I want to get into the electron transport chain or ATP synthesis using the miraculous proton motor enzyme, ATP synthase. lol Nothing like getting a sip of water from a fucking fire hydrant (on drugs).
If you want to think of it in terms of quantum probability waves, a highly electronegative atom A (say oxygen) affects another type of atom with lower electronegativity (via QED considerations of the electric field), atom B, so that atom B's electron probability wave distribution for its valence electrons so that it is more probable to find one of B's valence electrons closer to A and more associated with A's energy distribution. But this CAN be a complete, 100% transfer from B to A, determined by the particular energy characteristics of the two atoms. Then we have "electron transport". Something like that. I'm omitting a whole lotta shit.and sort of misstating the thing but sorry.
David Wilcox seems to omit the fact that DNA repair mechanisms are amazingly efficient. Where that is defeated, cancer is quite frequently the end result. Where they fail, cell apoptosis (suicide) is normally the result. If these mechanisms weren't so efficient, we'd all be confined to opaque shelters or else die of skin cancer from the unbelievably widespread damage that uv radiation produces in our skin cell's DNA. The quantity of repair going on simultaneously throughout the body (especially exposed skin) is astounding. In order for quantum effects to produce a quantum leap in humanity, an astronomical quantity of cooperative and integrated quantum mutations would be necessary, all somehow choreographed to skirt these mechanisms and produce not cancer but superhumans. Probability wise, I think that is rather absurd.
Thanks Mega and Slowmo, im sorry i cant refrain from physics talk and end up derailing thread. No i havent taken chemistry in college.