The New Genetics

Even though it kicked up a lot of controversy at the time, my generation seems to have survived the New Math. As far as I can tell, it revolved around a motivated appeal to set theory (including some colorful goofing around with Venn diagrams). All in all, the pedagogical change seems to have done some good.

Not content to let sleeping dogs lie (which is an absurd expression, because they can’t even talk), someone has developed an even newer New Math, also known as Whole Math (cousin of the Whole Language program). The notion is to allow students to discover mathematical principles on their own. After all, Descartes did it. Pascal did it. (Even educated fleas did it, or something like it, if I recall my Cole Porter correctly.) So why not have everybody do it, including little kids?

The more that I researched this breakthrough, the more excited I became about the breadth of the implications. In a flash, it occurred to me that I could apply these same commonsense principles to my own education and turn myself into a geneticist. I immediately felt a great sense of urgency, because I could tell that the idea was in the wind.

I could think of no better subject for my genetic analysis than myself, given my ready availability, so I put myself under the microscope. I invite you to accompany me on my incredible journey through the New Genetics.

(No, dammit, it’s not really a story chapter.)

* * *

To begin with, let me ask you a question. When you were a kid, did you ever wonder if you were adopted?

Not me, because I could tell that I was adapted.

I’m not a smooth genetic blend; I’m a chameleonic juxtaposition. I’m one of those people who look like whichever parent happens to be standing closest at any given time. Surround me with family, and I get blurry and confused. It’s a phenotypic phenomenon I call adaption.

Let’s get something straight: I have a doctorate in Cognitive Science and Linguistics, and it cost me quite a bit of time and money, so if I say that “adaption” is a word (and I do) then baigahfree (likewise) it’s a word. You only think it’s a mistake.

Family photos made it quite clear that the egg chose to dominate bones and keratin, leaving cartilage and flesh to be molded by the sperm. Roughly speaking, that left me with Dad’s body stretched over Mom’s frame, her cheekbones flanking his nose, with her hair on his skin.

And then there’s Great-granduncle Larry’s eyebrows. In his younger days, he was an honest-to-goodness stand-in for Clark Gable. I guess I was lucky to avoid his ears. And frankly, my dear, he couldn’t care less.

But here’s the interesting part: for all I know, I could have John Howland’s hairline, Hetty Green’s supple spleen, and the sublime nipples of Dr. Benjamin Rush. You gotta admit, not everyone can claim the areolae of a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Well, not honestly.

* * *

How do I know all this stuff? Well, my mom’s a dedicated genealogist, so we had loads of photographs to pore over when I was a kid. These pictures weren’t hung on the walls, framed on the mantle, or otherwise displayed anywhere in the house; instead, they were tucked away in albums, or stacked in envelopes within shoeboxes, all archived in several bigger boxes.

It was treasure.

There were loads of snapshots and a few movies, and over the last couple of decades we have added enough videotape to host our own arts festival. There’s color, black-and-white, hand tint, sepia tone, tintype… I seem to recall that there’s even a cave painting hidden in there somewhere. “See that red-ocher-and-soot guy waving his arms around and stabbing the wooly mammoth? No, not that one, the crazy guy over there with the stick legs making bunny ears behind that bleeding guy’s head. Yeah, that one. That’s Fat-Og-no-like-fire. You have his calves.”

And when there weren’t pictures, there was other documentary evidence, like Brown’s Genealogy, or old Pilgrim land contracts. “You started out with four ancestors on the Mayflower, then one of them fell off (you have his propensity for accidents), but he was rescued due to an alert raised by the woman who married him and gave birth to number five... it was a long trip.”

On top of all this, my mom used to take me and Jeff to the local museum where she worked. “See that gold pocket watch?” she would say, “That belonged to your grandmother’s father. And that racing sulky over there? That came from your great-grandfather’s ranch. That mummy? That’s Iret-net Hor-irw, and he’s your great-great-something-or-other. You have his sloped shoulders.”

You think I’m not serious.

* * *

Now, much like a new-world monkey, it’s all fine and good to feel secure about my place in the tree, but what I really want to know is where I got my fat. (I have been craftily hoarding it around my waist and under my chin, because contemporary scientific research suggests that this will provide a natural buffer against ill health in my old age. I’ve also heard good things about exercise, and I fully intend to try some soon.) While I strongly suspect that I can point a rigidly accusing finger at Italy, it would be nice to have some sort of certified confirmation of my suspicions, like a tax stamp, just to put my mind at ease.

I could put the stamp in one of the albums, maybe right next to my great-grampa’s Italian passport. “What’s this thing?” my great-grandkids will ask, and my eldest (their grandmother) will say, “Well, your great-grampa was a nice guy, but he was really kind of a nutcase. You see, he wanted to know, um, well, where his fat came from, you see. It’s kind of hard to explain. Maybe you’d better just read his book… you have his forehead.”

This sort of speculation is fun, but we can settle this issue once and for all with a little science. Fat is a kind of flesh, so the sperm rule says that it must come from my dad, which is doubly obvious if you just look at the two of us together. Now my dad got his fat from his mom’s side of the family (because it couldn’t have come from his dad, who was, like the King of Siam, “a spare man”). Gian Lorenzo Bernini is way back along that particular branch someplace (you know who I mean, the baroque architect of St. Peter’s cathedral), so I have a pretty good idea of what he used to look like, especially from behind, because I probably have his butt.

Anyway, this all means that my fat comes from Liguria, above Genoa, by way of Ellis Island.

One suspects, therefore, that I would make superb salami.

* * *

Maybe too much salami, though. When I do the math, I calculate that by the time I’m 100 years old, I’ll weigh nearly 550 pounds, and with shrinkage I’ll be just about 3.25 feet tall. That’s around 14 pounds per inch.

Scoff if you like, but numbers don’t lie.

Don’t believe me? It’s not that hard to prove, just a little boring.

To begin with, my fat had to come from overseas (and get through customs), which must be why it had a little trouble finding me when I was still a kid. I was 100 pounds in seventh grade, then I ate like a mad fiend for six years, and graduated high school at a whopping 140. At the time, there was plenty of room for this new weight to distribute itself, because I was six-two.

Right on through college, I continued to devour everything in sight, and was found by another five whole pounds a year. Problem was, I forgot to keep getting taller.

Over time, relative poverty slowed my phenomenal growth rate down to less than a measly three pounds a year, and in 1992 I actually hit a plateau at one-ninety.

Fascinating, I know, but bear with me. We’re coming to the climax here.

I first got married in 1992.

I moved eight times after that, but 50 pounds still tracked me down over the next ten years, which means that I was back to my normal rate.

But gaining weight’s not really the problem. Last year, I shrunk by half an inch.

So like I said, at this rate, when I’m 100 years old, I won’t be able to reach the high shelves anymore.

Talk about being scared straight. As soon as I figured out this whole dynamic, I knew that I had to take action. I ran right out (okay, drove right out) and picked up a copy of Tom Arnold’s autobiography, How I Lost Five Pounds in Six Years. (Yes, Tom, I was that sales spike in June of 2003, not too long before I started this experiment.)

I even read the book. It inspired me to make a change. (It also made me extremely hyper for several hours. His bio is reading speed.)

If I can just keep up with the Tom Arnold Weight-loss Plan, then by the time I’m 100, I’ll be back down to my pre-1992 weight.

I’m not sure what I’ll do to keep from shrinking, but it has been suggested that I’m not really shrinking so much as that I simply have less hair (on my head).

Which is an incredible relief. I can’t wait to go bald. And I mean real bald, not shaved bald. You see, the whole idea is to make things simpler: No hair means no need for haircuts. It’s one less thing to shampoo in the morning. And with the whole cancer surprise thing going on, I found out that I actually have the right head shape for baldness. So now I have the advantage of the preview.

Unfortunately, I’m not genetically destined for true baldness. I’ve got my mom’s father’s hairline. I’m still working conscientiously on a distinguished recede, but I think that’s about all I’ll ever be able to manage in the long run. I just have too much else going on.

* * *

Given the scope of these discoveries, I’d have to say (in my considered opinion) that the New Genetics is an unqualified success. Porter was right: even lazy jellyfish can do it. And just think, if my experiments had been regimented by conventional dictatorial academics, my insides would still be in the dark. But thanks to an open-minded pedagogy, the sun shines now where it never has before.

I can hardly wait for the New Chemistry.