by J. A. Faura
On his end, Scoma smiled, sat behind his desk, put his feet up and proceeded to answer, “Sure, no problem. I have to warn you, though, once I get rolling I tend to get excited and just ramble on. If it starts happening, just stop me and ask me to rewind.”
Steven responded, “Fair enough, I’ll be sure to do that.”
Scoma went on, “Okay, so, you know about Leonard’s Homo sapiens predator and how he got there. He employed some of the same theories on evolution that we have, but given his area of focus, it was clear that whatever evolutionary step he was going to run into would be at the ‘bad’ end of the scale, for lack of a better world.
“We have simply not concentrated on the behaviors on his end of the scale, but rather on behaviors and abilities present in other individuals, behaviors and abilities that were clearly beyond what we, science, had established as human norms. We focused on abilities such as a hyperdeveloped sense of smell, auditory sensitivity far beyond what we had defined as humanly possible, same thing with eyesight and with every other one of the human senses. Synesthesia was a natural field for us.
Steven interrupted, “What’s synesthesia?”
Scoma answered without slowing down, “It is when the neural pathways in the brain that control each of our senses become entangled or overlap. People see sounds or they taste what they see, not figuratively, mind you, but literally. We are starting to find more and more people who have more than two senses that are interacting – seeing and tasting sound, that kind of thing. It was something virtually unknown previously, but it is definitely becoming more common.”
Steven interrupted again, “So it’s an indication of evolution?”
Scoma went on, “Well, there’s a lot more to it, but essentially, yes. It lets us know that this adaptation is becoming more common, which is not surprising given the amount of stimuli our brains have to deal with today. We also paid particular attention to every one of our subjects’ cognitive processes as they relate to morality. Before you ask what we mean by that, I’ll tell you. It is what people might commonly call their internal ‘moral compass.’ We were looking for clarity, for a defined and clear point of view as it related to their view of the world.
“It was fascinating stuff. We looked at philosophers, artists, clergy, anyone who adhered to a very clear idea of what they believed humanity should be.
“Don’t get me wrong, we were always of the opinion that humans, well, most of us anyway, naturally develop a sense of right and wrong. That basic construct is what guides parents when they are raising their children. It is something we found to be true in various cultures around the world, not just here in the US.
“When we did research among natives in New Guinea, the Indonesian islands, even in the remotest Amazon villages and corners of Africa, parents always instill in their offspring a clear idea of what they believe to be right and what is wrong. So killing an innocent person for no reason is something that is ‘bad’ regardless of where it happens and protecting and nurturing your family is always good. That didn’t mean their idea of a reason meshed with ours. A man in Papua, New Guinea might kill his wife for speaking to another man without an elder present. That would clearly be appalling to us, but it is a reason nonetheless, a reason they’ve been taught is enough to warrant killing.”
Scoma was going too fast for Steven. He was indeed captivated by the science he was researching and was talking more to himself than he was to Steven.
If he was going to get the information he needed, he had to focus the man and ask the questions he had, “Whoa, hang on there, professor, let me process what you are saying.”
Scoma chuckled on his end of the phone, “I told you I might get rolling. I apologize, it’s just that with Tyrone’s breakthroughs and some of the stuff we have come up with on our own, it is an exciting time for our field, a very exciting time indeed.”
Steven could hear that excitement in the man’s voice, but he needed to get down to business, “I think I understand what you are saying. There is a universal, moral code that seems to govern how most people act, the decisions they make, and it’s that moral code that guides us as parents to instill it in our children.”
Scoma went on, “Exactly! So you get it! Here is the fascinating thing, however. We also studied instances where children had been deprived of social education, of even the most basic of human social norms. These were what could be termed ‘feral’ children. Incredibly difficult to find, had to go to Africa and South Asia to find them.
“When we conducted our research, we discovered that even in those extreme instances, there is an inherent or inborn framework, a ‘moral compass’ that humans appear to be born with.
“We tested the theory further by using babies that had not yet begun to speak or even crawl. We partnered with Yale’s Center for Infant Cognition to design the tests. We showed these babies two puppet shows with two puppets. In one of them, one of the puppets steals something from the other and runs away while the other one cries. In the other show, one of the puppets helps the other to get something out of a box. When children were asked to select one of the puppets, they almost always chose the ‘good’ puppet, the one that helped the other to get the object out of a box.
“So all of this tells us that humans are genetically wired to be ‘good,’ to be kind and caring, and to help those that need help. This is not limited to our work; it is something that has been established time and again by scientists all over the world. We are naturally an altruistic species, if you will.
“I am telling you about it because that was the premise, the bedrock of our research. I don’t think I need to tell you that as we get older, as we are affected by our environment and by whatever education our elders provide, or fail to provide for that matter, this clarity of purpose, this internal compass, is blurred. It becomes distorted by religion or political beliefs or social pressures. In other words, we grow up.
“The people we studied, the ones that make up the body of our work, are those who never lose that clarity, people who keep a clear and well-defined sense of absolute right and wrong and adhere to that throughout their lives, in spite of their education or social pressures or religious influences, most often at a cost to themselves.”
Scoma stopped to take a breath, long enough for Steven to interject, “I get what you are saying, it was mentioned in the research paper you published last year. I guess what I am wondering is how exactly do you find those people? I mean, when I spoke to Dr. Leonard, I jokingly mentioned Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II, but I was joking.
“Now, as I hear you talking about it, I see that maybe it wasn’t such a joke. Still, I can’t imagine that there are many people out there like them.”
Scoma responded, “You are absolutely right! They are absolutely one of a kind. But to answer your question, no, those were not the kinds of individuals we were looking for, because as good as they were, they had very intense and direct exposure to organized religion. True, they are some of the clearest manifestation of the dogma of their religion, but we were looking for people that were not affected or guided by religious norms.
“No, our work considered people like Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Edison, Copernicus, Einstein, people that were not guided by religion but by a natural desire to better understand nature and mankind.
“Every one of those men were most likely geniuses far beyond what we could possibly imagine. Can you yourself imagine what the world would be like if they had chosen to use their intellect in a selfish or evil way? Can you imagine what someone like Einstein could have done if he had chosen to lend his genius to Hitler? They could have shaken the very core of human history and completely derailed forward progress.
“Anyway, I’m getting away from our work again, sorry about that. Those were the guiding principles for our work, but not the only ones. We also wanted to research people that seemed to have abilities beyond those that we had previously established were the norms for human beings, even e
xceptional human beings. Like I said, hyper-developed senses, ability to regulate core body temperature at will, ability to sense a change in barometric pressure or the UHF waves that earthquakes emit.
“We utilize super computers to scour the Internet for mentions of such instances and then we search for those involved in them.” He chuckled, “We even look in the tabloids! Most of it is crap, of course, but every once in a while…”
Steven now looked at the phone in his hand, he was willing to listen to Scoma, but what the man was saying seemed out of a comic book and not part of scientific research, “Come on, professor, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I find some of what you are saying hard to believe. I read some of it in the paper you wrote and I guess that’s why I wanted to speak with you, because I do think some of it sounds like science fiction more than science.”
On his end, Scoma smiled, clearly this was not the first time he’d heard the same thing from others. “Mr. Loomis, you are not the first to say so and I can almost guarantee you that you will not be the last. I understand how it sounds, but the fact is that we found not one or a few of these people, but hundreds.
“You have undoubtedly heard of the mother who lifts a car to save her trapped child. That story is often told to illustrate the human capacity of a mother when her child’s life is at stake.
“Well, what most people don’t hear is the fact that there have been countless experiments that have tried to replicate such a feat and they have all failed. We have documented hundreds of cases where a mother was presented with that life or death situation and was sadly unable to rescue her child. So those that have been able to lift a massive weight or been able to bend a car door mangled in a crash, a car door that would not yield to the ‘Jaws of Life,’ were not simply moms in a panic. They had the physical ability to do so, an ability that perhaps before that moment they’d never needed to utilize but which had always been present before and was present thereafter.
“Interestingly, almost every one of the women we spoke with was able to later duplicate their superhuman feat without the panic and adrenaline that an unexpected situation might create.
“We then went to the Himalayas where some Tibetan monks practice Tummo. Tummo is a form of intense meditation where the monks utilize their mind to raise their core body temperature. Now I have to tell you, when we first started to research this I would have not believed that what I saw was possible. When these monks engage in Tummo, they wear nothing but a loincloth. We are talking about them doing this in below-freezing temperatures and biting wind.
“Anyway, in addition to wearing nothing, they take sheets and submerge them in water that is just above freezing and then they wrap their bodies with those sheets. When they do it, they take care not to have the sheets actually touch their skin. They make a sort of cocoon around their bodies. Any normal human being would most likely go into hypothermic shock within minutes and die shortly thereafter. The monks sit in meditation, no shaking, no shivering, nothing.
“What really blew my lid, however, was the fact that after a short time the sheets were actually steaming; they weren’t just dry, they were actually hot to the touch. I won’t go into everything we did as far as trying to duplicate that ability in a laboratory setting and the genetic measurements we took, but what I will tell you is that they have, over time, developed genetic mutations, mutations they are born with, that allow their bodies to regulate temperature and to project the heat. We think it is a combination of blood pressure, metabolic rate and muscle regeneration.
“I don’t know how much you know about human physiology, but I will tell you that it is not humanly possible to project heat generated by the body. You can transfer heat, you see. If you lie next to someone, they can absolutely draw heat from you, but for a human to actually send that kind of heat to another being or an object without touching it is not possible. Our bodies are simply not meant to do it, but here are these monks doing it in the Himalayas.
“We also looked at people that were able to hear sounds that human beings cannot possibly hear, not even blind humans who have a much more acutely developed sense of hearing.”
Steven was still skeptical, “I’ve seen television programs where they show people with ‘superhuman’ abilities, people with incredible strength or people who can perform amazing ‘superhuman’ feats. Is that what we’re talking about here? Because honestly it seems like so much Hollywood crap.”
Scoma answered, “Yes and no. Yes, we are talking about people with abilities that simply go beyond what we have determined are possible for humans, even exceptional humans. But no, we’re not looking for ‘one offs’ or what some mislabel ‘freaks of nature.’ Perhaps it’s such an individual that may call out attention, but we’re looking for mutations and abilities that have become the norm for a group of people. We’re looking for things that are genetic, inherited by those that are a part of that group. History and nature are filled with ‘one offs’ and we wanted true evolutionary mutation.
“So, for instance, we tested children near the Himalayan village where we found the monks doing Tummo. To be honest, we didn’t really have to test them. I cannot explain to you, Mr. Loomis, what it was like to stand shivering in freezing temperatures in spite of several pairs of long underwear, gloves, a hat and the best jacket that The North Face can make while a group of children played throwing snowballs wearing nothing but a sweater and a light coat. And they were flushed and sweating when they were done! To them it was like playing in warm 70-degree weather. Whatever it was that triggered it, there is now a definite genetic mutation among their people and they are obviously being born with this ability.”
“It was the same when we looked at Sherpas. We wanted to know what allowed them to live as high up as they did and to function as if they were at sea level. We weren’t able to get our equipment up to where they were, so we couldn’t take the measurements we wanted. So we examined their bodies. We looked everywhere and came up empty until we looked at the underside of their lips. There we discovered a network of capillaries far beyond those of normal humans and we had our answer.”
Steven was trying to digest everything the man was saying as fast as he could, but he was having a hard time.
He could see why Leonard had said Scoma was a character, but he had to focus and get the answers he needed. “If I understand correctly what you are saying, these people, your subjects in all of these studies, are doing things that are simply impossible for humans to do. You have tried to duplicate these things with ordinary people and were unable to. I guess that my biggest question is, how does all of this relate to the work that Dr. Leonard and some of the others are doing?”
Scoma was quiet for a couple of seconds. Given how much and how fast the man had talked before, this told Steven that he was considering how to best answer the question. After what had happened at Leonard’s office, with him figuring out what he had done, he thought that Scoma also knew who he was and what had happened to his daughter. Maybe he had also figured what he had done, still, the scientist answered him, although at a much slower and deliberate pace, “Well, I’m trying to come up with a soft or easy way to say this, but I can’t come up with one. Tyrone’s, Dr. Leonard’s, work has also identified individuals with many of these abilities, which is where our work intersects. Where it is completely different from what we do is what we were talking about at the beginning, the ‘moral compass.’
“His work, as you know, is focused on individuals who are guided by a different compass, one that does not in any way fit within what science has established as being even remotely human. If we were talking about the Pope and Mother Theresa in our work, his work has brought to light individuals who function at the other end of that spectrum.”
Steven understood exactly what the man was saying, it meshed with what Leonard had already told him and what he’d figured out on his own.
He asked, “What I can’t understand is, why would nature, evolution, create bei
ngs that are guided by what I can’t help but think is an evil compass? I am not a religious man and I can’t really abide by the idea that Satan or some other evil entity is sending his armies onto earth.”
Scoma answered his question, “And you would do well to keep the whole religious thing out of it, because it has nothing to do with religion or even ‘evil’ as you and I have come to understand it.
“You see, these creatures, Homo predaer, seem evil to you because you are looking at the situation and judging it through a human lens. Their behavior is what our society has determined is evil, but it is not evil to them, it is simply nature.
“Nature, Mr. Loomis, is not bound by moral norms nor by social judgments, it is governed by adaptation, individual and group adaptation. Survival of the fittest, if you will. That phrase is outdated and not truly reflective of what actually brings about evolution. Humans have usurped that phrase. We’ve applied it to sports, to business, to whatever suits our purposes, but in its purest form it is an exquisite and brilliant system. Organisms, from the most complex to the simplest one-celled organism, go through a life cycle: they are born, they consume, grow and die, and the cycle begins again. Some are prey, some are predators, and sometimes when the environment changes the predator becomes the prey. No more and no less. It has nothing to do with strength or weakness, it has to do with adaptation. Those that are able to adapt are more likely to survive than those that cannot. We are also learning about how symbiosis and how symbiotic relationships bring about evolution.
“This new species is exactly that, a species within the same genus as another species, Homo sapiens, but with the ability, the inborn ability, to use their skills and their environment to their advantage, to ensure their survival and their place in nature’s ecosystem, the ecosystem that they share with us and with other species.