Abstract
Scientific materialism is the largely
unquestioned basis for modern science’s understanding of life. It also
holds enormous sway beyond science and thus has increasingly
marginalized religious perspectives. Yet it is easy to find behavioral
phenomena from the accepted literature that seriously challenge
materialism. A number of these phenomena are very suggestive of
reincarnation. The larger test for science’s paradigm, though, as well
as for any potential general import from reincarnation, is the DNA (or
genetics)-based model of heredity. If that conception-beget, DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid)-carried model can be confirmed at the individual
level then in a very substantial way we would be confirmed as
material-only creatures. In particular, can behavioral genetics and
personal genomics confirm their DNA-based presumptions? During the last
decade enormous efforts have been made to find the DNA origins for a
number of health and behavioral tendencies. These efforts have been an
“absolutely beyond belief” failure and it is here that the scientific
vision faces its biggest challenge. The common pre-modern reincarnation
understanding, on the other hand, fits well on a number of specific
conundrums and offers a broad coherence across this unfolding missing
heritability mystery. For people trying to make sense of a religious
perspective or simply questioning materialism, you should be looking at
the missing heritability problem.
