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DNA Testing For Supernatural Powers

Tempest63

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Dec 19, 2009
Messages
2,972
I recently had my Ancestry checked and as an aside to that my sister submitted my results to another site that identifies what my bad DNA could potentially lead to health wise.
It identified that I am 35 times more likely to suffer Crohn’s disease (surprise, surprise I’ve lived with it for 45 years), I am more likely to get Age Related Macular Degeneration, I’m am high on the list for Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis amongst a host of others. That doesn’t mean I will get them, only my DNA tells me I have a disposition towards them. She did hold back on the last 35 pages so I not sure what other goodies may be hiding around the corner.

This made me wonder that if mediumship, second sight and all those other so called paranormal gifts do actually exist, would it show up on the individuals DNA. Is there something in the make up of these people that gives them psychic abilities?

Just a thought.
 
I recently had my Ancestry checked and as an aside to that my sister submitted my results to another site that identifies what my bad DNA could potentially lead to health wise.
It identified that I am 35 times more likely to suffer Crohn’s disease (surprise, surprise I’ve lived with it for 45 years), I am more likely to get Age Related Macular Degeneration, I’m am high on the list for Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis amongst a host of others. That doesn’t mean I will get them, only my DNA tells me I have a disposition towards them. She did hold back on the last 35 pages so I not sure what other goodies may be hiding around the corner.

This made me wonder that if mediumship, second sight and all those other so called paranormal gifts do actually exist, would it show up on the individuals DNA. Is there something in the make up of these people that gives them psychic abilities?

Just a thought.

It would need lots of testing and it would have to be establishable that mediumship, second sight, etc is actually a thing. Also then you'd need to prove it to be hereditary.

Sadly can't see anyone forking out money to test any of this.
 
It would need lots of testing and it would have to be establishable that mediumship, second sight, etc is actually a thing. Also then you'd need to prove it to be hereditary.

Sadly can't see anyone forking out money to test any of this.
Isn’t there a research team at an Edinburgh university to look into remote viewing etc. Maybe they could spend a few quid to research it a bit further.
 
Isn’t there a research team at an Edinburgh university to look into remote viewing etc. Maybe they could spend a few quid to research it a bit further.

Yeah, parapsychology has been going on for years but to move something like mediumship into the mainstream would take a huge amount of money and willpower. Just dealing with the scepticism from the established scientific community has been enough to keep parapsychology tucked away as crackpot thinking as it is.

Also, most illnesses have approx 70 odd years of diagnosis and research behind them. The research you are talking about is tiny in comparison and most of it is done by ancient Victorian "chairs" that are considered irrelevant by many.
 
DNA serves as the template for guiding overall physical / organic development as well as certain aspects of biochemical operations.

This implies that DNA testing (for paranormal capabilities) can only be effective for detecting paranormal capabilities that are directly related to innate physical / organic structures or individual variations in biochemical processes.

There have been figurative (non-scientific) suggestions that certain items of human neural architecture could be associated with enlightenment or extra-sensory capacities. For example, Madame Blavatsky claimed the pineal gland was the seat of the "third eye."

If (big "if" ... ):

- such psychic / psychological / spiritualistic phenomena were to be proven to occur; and
- their occurrence and manifestation were proven to rely on one or more physical / biochemical quirks; and
- any such facilitating quirks were to be reflected in the individual's DNA ...

Then yes - it's conceivable such paranormal capacities could be detectable via genetic (and hence DNA-based) evidence (markers, etc.).

My point is that all this requires multiple connections, none of which have yet been established. As a result, I suppose the most optimistic answer would be "Maybe - but not until a lot of research has demonstrated all the implied interconnections."

FWIW I doubt many - if any - psychic type phenomena are uniquely dependent on physical structure or biochemistry. This in turn means the probability of this category of paranormal talents being detectable via genetic analysis is arbitrarily infinitesimal (i.e., effectively nil).
 
This implies that DNA testing (for paranormal capabilities) can only be effective for detecting paranormal capabilities that are directly related to innate physical / organic structures or individual variations in biochemical processes.

So should there be a physical/organic area of the brain that acts like a psychic switch, just needing the right circumstances to turn it on, it may be measurable in a persons DNA?
 
It /might/ be possible to find a comorbid and then go from there.

So, assuming that there is anything to find... look at the examples you have of people who "do psychic stuff". Look at their other conditions - anything from hair colour to which toe is longest!

If you can find a positive correlation which isn't echoed in the general population then you might have somehting you could look at.
 
So should there be a physical/organic area of the brain that acts like a psychic switch, just needing the right circumstances to turn it on, it may be measurable in a persons DNA?

The far more appropriate term would be "detectable" rather than "measurable." If there were one or more discrete genes or gene sequences confirmed as governing the development and / or functionality of such a physical psychic switch this connection would either be present or absent. In other words, there's no intermediating variable to measure in such a starkly binary set of outcomes.

If such a feature or capacity were subject to functional variation (e.g., waxing and waning; situational activation / deactivation) such variability would not be reflected in the genome itself, even though it's conceivable the limits of such variability might be loosely attributable based on the range of physical manifestations governed by genetics.
 
In my personal opinion, if there is a psychic on/off switch in the brain then a considerable number of genes or extensive gene-interraction would be involved - and it would appear in everyone's genome (just not switched off in some individuals maybe). Like studying the coding for 'intelligence' you would run into the Nature/Nuture debate and would be double-dared to come up with an evolutionary advantage for psychic abilities.
I have never had my DNA checked for future health problems, if the results were that reliable then I cannot imagine every Health Insurance company not insisting on a blood test before offering a policy.
 
It Is a science in its infancy. Some of the potential Illnessesthat could impact on me are based on the DNA of a handful of Finnish Yak farmers or similar; based on family history, both maternal and paternal, we have no history either side so I’m not really worried.
 
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