Page 63 - Summer2008

All Thumbs Book Reviews

Minerals for the Genetic Code: the weight of the soil before and after it grew.
An Exposition & Analysis of the Dr. Olree The English scientist and preacher Stephen
Standard Genetic Periodic Chart & the Hale tried to test whether plants consumed air
Physical, Chemical & Biological Connection. by clamping a glass container over a number
By Charles Walters of peppermint plants and measuring the change
Acres, USA, 2006 in atmospheric pressure, but the plants simply
died. Later research demonstrated that animals
Dr. Richard Olree, a chiropractor who calls and plants changed the air in opposite ways,
himself a “theoretical geneticist,” has put forth a each allowing for the survival of the other, and
new theory about the nature of the genetic code that plants only changed the air in the presence

that, if correct, would revolutionize the eld of of light. Through many well-designed and well-
genetics. The theory stipulates that each of the controlled experiments, we now know that plants
64 codons, the basic units of the genetic code, produce glucose from carbon dioxide and water,
requires its own unique mineral—thus greatly releasing oxygen, and that animals conversely
expanding the list of essential nutrients. break down glucose with oxygen, releasing car-
Charles Walters, founder of the eco-agricul- bon dioxide and water. Walters narrates in like
ture publication AcresUSA, has transmitted this manner the discoveries of the periodic table of
theory to book form in the 2006 title, Minerals the elements and the genetic code.
for the Genetic Code. While the book contains an When, after more than 80 pages, Walters
interesting introduction to the history of biologi- nally begins describing Olree’s theory, he leaves

cal science, an excellent interview with cancer the reader in nitely less impressed. Rather than
researcher and genetic engineering critic John describing solid experimental research as in the
Fagan, and a useful 100-page appendix listing previous section, Walters describes a “eureka” Walters
important food sources of various trace minerals, moment back in 1981 when Olree realized he
Walters devotes less than one hundred pages to could tie the genetic code in to a chart he had devotes less
his description of Olree’s theory and is remark- already made drawing relationships between than one
ably silent about the experimental basis for this color therapy, aromatherapy, acupuncture and a hundred
theory—assuming one exists at all. Chinese sacred text called the I Ching. Walters
likens this sudden insight to Archimedes’ dis- pages to his
LACK OF EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE covery that he could determine the density of the description of
The book begins with a foreword on the king’s crown, and thus whether it was made of Olree’s theory

dangers of uoride and its rst several chapters pure gold, by measuring the water it displaced in

deliver scathing critiques of the modern medical a bathtub, and to Friedrich Kekulé’s realization and is
system and commercial soil chemistry. Walters that benzene could be structured as a hexagon remarkably
then narrates the fascinating stories of the discov- while staring at the shapes made by the smoke silent about
eries and experimental demonstrations of some of rising from his  replace.
the most basic chemical and biological concepts The basis of the theory is the repetition of the the
that we take for granted today. number 64 in various natural and philosophical experimental
For example, the Flemish physician Jan systems. The vertebral column develops from basis for this

Baptista van Helmont rst demonstrated in the 32 embryonic structures called somites that
seventeenth century that trees synthesize most of eventually become vertebrae and 32 spaces that theory—
their tissue from water or air rather than from soil eventually become intervertebral discs, together assuming one
by planting a tree in an isolated tub and measuring making 64 points along the spine. The ancient exists at all.

SUMMER 2008 Wise Traditions 61