 |
 |
Advanced Cell scientist presents view of life By Lisa Eckelbecker TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF [log in to unmask] WORCESTER- Forget what you think you know about the universe. Scientist and author Dr. Robert P. Lanza, the vice president of medical and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology Inc., has posited a view of life built around the concept of "biocentrism" that he believes will answer all those difficult questions that keep physicists and existentialists up at night. In short, it's all about biology. Of course, there's more to it than that - enough to fill a 16-page article in The American Scholar, a quarterly publication of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, with the argument that nothing exists unless we humans perceive it. For Dr. Lanza, who is probably best known for his work in the controversial field of embryonic stem cells, his theory of the universe is the work of a lifetime. As a child who turned over stones to see what crawled beneath, he said, he decided "it was very clear that every creature had its own world." As a physics student, he chafed at the notion of a static universe willing to give up its secrets if humans could just come up with the right mathematical formula. And as a stem cell researcher in Worcester for California-based ACT, he noted that the fastest thing stems cells do in a laboratory dish is make neurons. "It's almost like they're the most fundamental thing, or one of the most important things coming from an embryonic stem cell, and probably for good reason," Dr. Lanza said. "The sense of perception and the nervous system are the building blocks of reality." The search for a unifying scientific theory of space and time is nothing new. It gnawed at Albert Einstein. Stephen Hawking has suggested that we may have answers in the next two decades. However, Dr. Lanza argues that physicists, with their examination of weird phenomena, such as subatomic particles that change behavior depending on whether anyone observes them, don't have it quite right. The point isn't ever-more-complex quantum mechanics theories about how the universe was created to produce us, according to Dr. Lanza. "The universe bursts into existence from life, not the other way around as we have been taught," he writes. "For each life there is a universe, its own universe. We generate spheres of reality, individual bubbles of existence. Our planet is comprised by billions of spheres of reality, generated by each individual human and perhaps by each animal." Dr. Lanza said this week that he expects opposition to his view, particularly from physicists. But he also thinks his theory illuminates a pursuit that has stumbled through murkiness. "We're right in the midst of a major transformation in our world view," Dr. Lanza said. "I think this article completes that transformation." Dr. Lanza's article, "A New Theory of the Universe," is available online at www.theamericanscholar.org. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn