What If We Created Ourselves, Naturally, With The Motion of Our Bodies? Part 1: Looking deeper into the world of epigenetics

I. Introduction & Thesis

On Sunday morning, November 24th, 2024, I finally sat down to write this article to begin my pursuit of presenting a new view of biology to the scientific community. November 24th marks a significant milestone in the history of evolutionary biology. It was on this day that Charles Darwin published his legendary “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. I chose to write this article on this day to mark this beginning with relevance. I’ve been holding back this publication for 10 years just to be absolutely sure of its conclusion, and I am even more certain of its implications now than I was in 2014 when I first ran it through an experiment. Please feel welcome to share in this experience I’ve undergone. If you are a lover of biology as I am, you will immediately see the significance of this data and ponder all of its hidden secrets.

The Thesis

As indicated in the title, we will explore new perspectives on biological evolution – as a growing body of evidence in epigenetics suggests Darwin’s description of evolution may be in need of a major revision. Here is what we already know about epigenetics:

• 1909 – The actual term “Epigenetics” (meaning – “outside of genetics”) was coined by British zoologist Conrad Waddington. He introduced the term “epigenetics” to describe the unknown processes by which external factors of the environment outside of genes were observed to give rise to the traits (phenotypes) of an organism’s developmental biology.

• 1942 – The Role of Chromatin: The discovery that chromatin structure influences gene expression laid foundational knowledge for understanding epigenetic mechanisms, highlighting how genetic regulation occurs at the chromatin level.

• 1975 – DNA Methylation Identified: The discovery of DNA methylation as a chemical modification of DNA itself and its role in gene regulation, proposing that it could alter gene activity without changing the underlying DNA sequence.

• 1983 – X-Chromosome Inactivation: Mary Lyon’s discovery of X-inactivation in female mammals as a form of genetic dosage compensation demonstrated a clear example of epigenetic regulation, garnering significant attention to the field.

• 1996 – Agouti Mouse Study: Researchers John Gordon and colleagues find that the coat color of Agouti mice is influenced by maternal diet and environmental factors affecting epigenetic modifications, linking diet to phenotype via epigenetics.

• 2000 – Human Genome Project Completion: The mapping of the human genome emphasized the complexity of gene regulation beyond DNA sequence, drawing attention to epigenetic factors in health and disease.

• 2003 – DNA Methylation Analysis Advances: The development of techniques like bisulfite sequencing allowed for comprehensive mapping of DNA methylation, revolutionizing the study of epigenetics in various organisms.

• 2007 – Small RNA Regulation Discovery: The identification of small RNA molecules (e.g., miRNAs) and their role in gene regulation broadens the understanding of epigenetic mechanisms, linking RNA biology and epigenetic regulation. 2007 was also the year that Dr. Marcus Pembrey published a documentary of his research on the family pedigrees of the children he saw in his care at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health where he observes early childhood diseases that were inherited.

• 2010 – ENCODE Project Insights: The ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) Project revealed that much of the noncoding DNA has regulatory functions, including epigenetic modifications, highlighting the complexity of gene regulation networks.

• 2016 – Epigenetic Therapeutics Emergence: The approval of the first epigenetic drugs, such as inhibitors targeting DNA methyltransferases for treating specific cancers, establishes the clinical relevance of epigenetics in therapeutic strategies.

• 2020 – Increase in Epigenome Research Tools: Advancements in tools like CRISPR/Cas9 and epigenome editing techniques have led to a surge in epigenetic research, enabling precise manipulation of epigenetic marks and their study in various contexts.

• 2021 – Rise of Epigenetic Landscape: Publications on the concept of the epigenetic landscape highlight how epigenetic changes correlate with various diseases, further establishing its importance in medical research and therapy.

The early 2000s saw the more impactful breakthroughs in epigenetic inheritance, revealing that environmental factors influence gene expression and allow either beneficial or nonbeneficial phenotypes to be passed to future generations. This challenges the notion that genetic information is fixed with the fittest members of a species and only evolves through random mutations. The previous model we still run with on the subject of biological evolution is, of course, Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection and Sexual Selection sorting out the fittest traits for a particular behavior and environment coupling. This model still stands strong, but Darwin himself did not know where brand new genetic variations came from. However, he called them “mutations”, and we still to this day label the existence of mutations as something that happens at pure random, from copying errors in the mRNA processes. The idea that genes alone influence the expression of all phenotypes – and not the external environment – is called genetic determinism. In the face of epigenetics, the stance of genetic determinism is the orthodoxical thesis, and epigenetics is the antithesis.

I was raised to view biology in the same respect that a child views a good bedtime story. My mother collected her own personal library of Time Life biology textbooks, which I was exposed to at a very early age. While other kids were falling asleep at night to Robin Hood and Chicken Little, I was under my bedsheet covers with a flashlight, exploring the history of dinosaurs and their place in the geological timetable. Many of the books in my mother’s collection were on the subject of zoology and ancient fossils, and this is what gave me a head start on my obsession with prehistoric ecosystems, geology, and paleontology. Thus, my long-held childhood fascination with fossils led me to study the relationship between environment and genetics as an adult.

Art was always my primary passion before science, and I started drawing and sculpting when I was in kindergarten. Realism is what I specialize in, and in order to be a good realist artist, you are forced to study anatomy and physiology; this is how science became my life’s work as well. The details of my life can be explored in a more personal biography, but the short version of the story is that my passion for art and science landed me a job working for Joe Kulis, a world-renowned hunter and taxidermist, who just happened to have his taxidermy shop, Kulis Freeze Dry & Taxidermy, located and based close to the city I grew up in, Bedford, Ohio..

Between 2009 to 2011 I volunteered at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to study anatomy to improve my taxidermy and artwork; and now, 15 years later, I accidentally came to find that evolution is more-so driven by daily experiences shaping physiological changes through shared behaviors in a given targeted environment; giving rise to what we call “adaptation”.

In summary, microevolution eventually leads to macroevolution. My thesis is that we shape ourselves—specifically, our bodily forms—through mimicked behaviors of our parents, which transfer over generations until these recessive genes become more dominant within our genome’s allelic ratio – after making a final pass through natural selection.

• I hypothesized that genomes sculpt themselves by working through environmental stresses to maximize advantages within niches.

• Their adapted forms directly result from the activity itself; an external influence rather than solely an internal one from random errors leading to mutations.

• In Spring 2014, I conducted a two-and-a-half-year experiment at home, which provided supporting data for my hypothesis on the inheritance of sustained acquired traits.

II. Beyond Genetic Determinism

For over a century, the orthodox stance of molecular biology held that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. Genetic determinists insist that DNA replication is accurate, with mutations arising from chanced errors that cause adaptive radiation. However, epigenetics reveals there is an interaction between genes and the environment. Epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation and histone modification, can affect gene expression without altering the DNA sequence, influenced by factors like diet and stress, and passed to future generations.

Here are a couple of examples among many: The Dutch Hunger Winter, where mice were exposed to caloric restriction during WWII, which triggered lasting gene expression changes related to starvation that persisted even when the current offspring returned to normal diets. Dr. Marcus Pembrey published similar results in 2007 with human families affected by the famines of the mid-1800s. These events challenge traditional genetic determinism, suggesting that environment can alter traits.

III. Rethinking Adaptation

Believe it or not, none of these fossil specimens are saber-tooth cats. Saber-toothed fangs convergently evolved many times over the span of the history of life on Earth. However, aside from their saber-tooth canines, what they do have in common is whenever the fangs of the future descendants reach a peak length and girth, the animal’s family tree begins to exhibit the exact same “droop” on both sides of their chin in the mandible located directly under the fangs. It is so consistent that it leads me to suspect that environmental factors not only reshape chemical changes to DNA, as they did with the Dutch Hunger mice, but they also physically reshape bones from accumulated repetitive traumas caused in life. The droop in the chin may be caused by the constant rubbing against the fangs when the mouth opens and closes. I think this because we do not see the same droop in earlier ancestors of the same families back when the saber fangs were too thin to make hard contact with the chin, as it later occurs when the fangs dramatically increase in size. Both the droop in the chin and the girth of the fangs develop together simultaneously, complimentary of each other. Over the time length of many generations, one can view it as a form of “erosion” in biology; just as we see in geology.

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This was one of hundreds of similar observational evidence that I marked down in my notes to strengthen the consistency and predictive power of my hypothesis.

IV. Species Development and Evolution

© Christopher J. Jennings

Hypothesis: Did the wind itself physically shape the genetic direction for aerodynamic feathers?

In 2012, it occurred to me that I could test my theories with a replicable experiment without needing to breed mating pairs and guide their living conditions to forge my own species.
I was working on ducks at my taxidermy job and noticed that the wing feathers progressively became more symmetrical as the angle of the feather in the secondaries faced more parallel with the wind current – versus the asymmetrical knife-shaped primary feathers on the very end that were going against the grain of the wind. The vanes on the wind-facing side of the primaries were completely flattened against the quill; this felt to me like the same observations I was seeing with the process of “biological erosion” in fossil bones. Obviously, natural selection played its usual role of selecting for the most aerodynamic wings, but, could it be possible that the constant wind blasting against the primary feathers literally pushed it along in that direction and assisted in the new morphology?

V. Putting This to The Test

• Experiment A: In 2014, I conducted an experiment providing strong evidence for the inheritance of acquired traits.

I attached two symmetrical turkey feathers to ceiling fan blades and ran the fan for 2.5 years without stopping. The constant wind reshaped the feathers into asymmetrical flight feathers, flattening the wind-facing vane against the quill and bending the quill backward. Testing two feathers simultaneously showcased consistency.

-Day 1: They both were noisy and produced drag.

-Day 832: The fully transformed feathers became silent with aerodynamic efficiency.

These results mimicked the forces that likely shaped ancestral birds’ wings through repetitive gliding, indicating that environmental influence is capable of producing this shape.

• Experiment B: Next, I simply observed wing stage development in fledglings from flightless birds like farm chickens and Galapagos sea cormorants to confirm a genetic imprint present.

Unsurprisingly, they developed wing-tip feathers with identical asymmetrical shapes as my fan-exposed feathers – despite having no exposure to any wind or flight.

This (Experiment B) ruled out the shape being a life-gained feature and suggests that the feathers’ asymmetrical shape is now genetically programmed permanently into the genome, which now copies this inherited acquired trait from the collective activities of the ancestors.

The data I gathered from this method of filtering down the honest truth between Experiment A and Experiment B provides a compelling argument for the claim of which this article is titled; that living things are physically shaping their physiology with the motions of their bodies and passing it down to their offspring as they live out their constant daily activities which invokes constant physical changes to targeted parts of their anatomy (surprisingly a very much Lamarckian style model of biological evolution!).

This is not the only proof I was able to troubleshoot, either; I have much more consistent data that keeps pointing to the same conclusion. However, because of limited space, I need to break up the other proofs I have into two other articles following this one. The implications of my findings are very profound, as they suggest that we must be extremely careful with what we all do together as a collective because repetition in our daily habits can lead to both good and bad evolutionary changes.

This Part 1 article is only the introduction to this work! More will unfold in parts 2 and 3 of this title – with all the extensive details and proof-nailing data!

Stay patient for the rest because I saved all the best for last, and I hope to convey that this may possibly be one of the most important discoveries of the 21st century!