One of the most active areas of research today is epigenetics (literally, “above genetics”), the study of how the environment controls gene activity. Epigenetics flies in the face of the conventional genetic model, which stated that DNA controls all of life and that all gene expression takes place inside the cell. This old understanding doomed us to a predictable future in which our destiny fell prey to our genetic inheritance, and all cellular life was predetermined, like an automatic “ghost in the machine.”
