THE HUMAN GENOME : Now the hard work & the hard questions.

The dramatic announcement last month of the final sequencing of the human genome by Celera Genomics, a private corporation, and the publicly funded International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium brought to an exhilarating conclusion decades of hard work and creative technological application. Now the really hard work begins. We now have a map of the genome but we need to figure out where to go with it and what to do when we get there. The ethical and social issues raised will be as daunting and complex as the technical ones.

The immediate findings raise significant questions. One discovery that shocked scientists is that the human genome consists of only about 30,000 genes, rather that the 100,000 to 200,000 previously anticipated. This finding gives humans only a slight numerical advantage over the fruit fly (with 13,000) and the roundworm (with 19,000 genes). What is more, the human genome trumps the mouse genome by a mere 300 genes, and we seem to have borrowed 113 genes from bacteria. While it has long been known that we differ from orangutans and similar primates by fewer that 1 percent of our genes, what is now so amazing is the incredible complexity created from so relatively few human genes.

This new discovery raises questions about traditional philosophical and theological understandings of humanity. It brings into sharp focus a paradigm shift that has been making its way through the culture since the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1856), a shift that began with the Copernican revolution. Not only has the earth been displaced from the center of the universe, humans have been dislodged as the apex of creation. It is clear we are just another species linked with many others by common origins. What the mapping of the human genome has done is put a final scientific stamp of approval on this Darwinian model: We come from and are related in the most intimate ways to all other life forms. The DNA giving rise to the earliest life forms is the very DNA that shows up in our genome. Indeed, we are the beneficiaries of this long, complex process of descent that has given rise to the almost infinite variety of life on Earth.

Additionally, the genome announcement makes it clear that species boundaries are not as sharply drawn as we once thought. Though there are clearly groupings of lifeforms in historical and environmentally stable forms, the genetics underneath are more fluid. What many thought to be fixed boundaries between species turn out to be, at best, semipermeable membranes. The many have indeed come from the one, and the source of this complexity is the wonderful combinations made possible by the four elemental letters of the genetic alphabet (A, C, G, T). Clearly, evolution combined with the new genetics requires a paradigm shift in how we think about ourselves.

It is clear, for example, that we can no longer hold to a belief in a distinct creation of humans as presented by a literal reading of the first chapters of Genesis. Nor is it clear that we can trace our human origins to an original pair. Even though many are convinced of what is referred to as a mitochondrial Eve and a similar nucleotide Adam, these are statistical recognitions that at some point in the evolutionary process the group we understand as modern humans began to emerge in Africa, and that from this genetic pool we have all descended. We carry in our genome the record of this process, a record that is the source of our uniqueness and distinctness, but which also relates us to all other living organisms.

Some fear that acknowledging such an evolutionary process, as well as our commonness with other creatures, will necessarily lead to a loss of human dignity. They understand this dignity to be based on human uniqueness, which is a separate and distinct creation, and superiority over the other creatures as the steward of all creation. Now, however, we must rethink our dignity in light of our relatedness to the rest of creation.

Decades ago, Teilhard de Chardin described humans as "evolution become conscious of itself." This affirmed both our deep relatedness and also a differentiation. Thanks to the genome project, we now understand this evolutionary relatedness in a deeper way. But this relatedness includes a difference: our consciousness. Pope John Paul II, in a message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996, provides grounding for what he calls an ontological leap. Clearly, the complexity of matter--witnessed in the ever-changing and adapting genome--issued as a species that has the amazing capacity not only to reflect on its origins but also to search for meaning. But this consciousness, while it differentiates us from other creatures, does not separate us from them. It is a transcendence from within, as opposed to a transcendence from without. The reality of our being "evolution become conscious of itself" underscores not only our dignity but our responsibility for being the voice or spokesperson of and for creation. Our dignity is therefore one of service, not of status.

The Christian tradition gives us resources to support this model of human dignity. Consider the wisdom tradition of Saint Bonaventure. Briefly stated, Bonaventure argued that each form of matter is ordered to the next higher form. Furthermore, he theorized that humans are located in the very center of creation, since they reconcile within themselves both matter and spirit. Finally, he believed that we represent all of creation before the throne of God as we recapitulate all the elements of creation in our bodies. Even though Bonaventure sees humanity as having the highest position in all of creation, such a position confers responsibility rather than power. Dignity is in service, not in position. A second resource is scriptural. In Matthew 20, Jesus announces that "the son of Man came not to be served, but to serve." In the context of a discussion about authority, Jesus' message is clear: Position confers not power but the obligations of care and responsibility.

The theological and perceptual problem is that we have historically identified human dignity as something conferred by a distinct creative act of God. We now realize that we--as all creation--have emerged from the fullness of the process initiated by God. This revised view can provide the basis for a different, much-needed ecological ethic, one that understands us as embedded in the created order which we nonetheless affect through our actions. This ethic will argue against a long-standing ethic of domination, one that is characteristic of our present attitude toward natural resources. The new revelations from the genome project, therefore, are not a threat to or a diminishment of human dignity. Rather, they provide us with the opportunity to rethink forgotten elements of our tradition.

Thomas A. Shannon is professor of religion and social ethics in the department of humanities and arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.