For some time now, it has been known that there is more to heredity than the "Genes". Thus, increasingly, the encompassing field became known to be "Genomics". Within "Genomics", it started as a "controversy" that DNA sequences including protein-coding regions (the "exons") as well as non-coding regions (the "introns"), altogether less than 1.3% of the (human) DNA, were not only called "genes" but the thesis was increasingly assumed that "it is all in the genes" for heredity. The notion of "junkDNA" (up to 98.7% of the DNA in the human) somehow "stuck" and became the antithesis (needless junk) to the thesis of genes (all-important hereditary material).

The Nobel-lecture of Walter Gilbert (1980) already made it apparent, that "Gene structure" was similarly not the ultimate "unit" of heredity, just as the "atom" is not what it was cracked up to be - the ultimate "unit" of elements. However, he attributed only as a "distancing" function to "introns". Later, an immunonologist (Malcolm J. Simons at around 1987) bet his life in more than one ways that the old thesis was a dogma, to be superseded by actual use of the meaningful "patterns" to the "junk" that was way too repetitious and self-similar to be random. By August 1st of 2002 the FractoGene concept went on record, linking in a cause and effect relationship the fractality of the DNA with that of emerging organismal structure and function. At the 2003 July World Congress of Geneticists in Melbourne, the "Genius of Junk" science documentary video (by ABC) stirred what can be seen now as an issue in need of resolution between "Genes" doing everything for heredity and "JunkDNA" doing nothing.

Scientific American declared in 2003 November that "overlooking the role of introns was the biggest mistake in the history of molecular biology" - and media picked up the issues of "junkDNA" and "FractoGene" as early as late November, 2002. On December 5th 2003 the sequencing of the mouse was completed and published in Nature - providing evidence that the genes of the mouse and man are 99% homologous - and the difference therefore is in the 30% larger amount of "junkDNA".

Now, with the sequencing of the DNA of the chimpanzee completed and announced (in both Science and Nature, 1st of Sept. 2005) time has arrived to make a stand. Contrary to scientific evidence that the field exists, there is still no "establishment" of the "junkDNA" field even at the level of ordinary journalism to have such statements retracted that "non-Genes" are "non-functional". Much more importantly, when leading scientists on one side provide evidence that some "non-coding sequences" (occasionally of over a million nucleotides) are preserved in an "ultraconservative" manner, proving that such sequences are clearly not random, other leading scientists when recognizing that the genes of the chimpanzee and the human are so perfectly close to one another that "the question of what makes us human is not only biological - it is also theological" the question inevitably arises if this means that "Genetics" as a science (and not as an ideology) has reached some "end of the road".

Both fields (the all-encompassing "Genomics" and the narrowly defined "Genetics") have built their "establishment" that might not be ideal for the fastest-growing sub-field of Genomics, to be called "PostGenetics". While recognizing that "junkDNA" may still be an uphill battle in some cases of journalism, editorial policies of meetings and journals (let alone the funding systems either in some governments or private domain industries), in the entities under the influence of International PostGenetics Society the prevailing wisdom is that understanding and utilization of the function of "junkDNA" is vital.

At the least, understanding the function of "junkDNA" is literally vital for all those (and their relatives and friends) who suffer form known dreadful diseases that originate *not* from "genes" (that are pristine, intact) - but sometimes well-known glitches are in the "junkDNA". The chip is on our shoulder. Who is to say that this life-or-death priority can be put off any longer?

Deja vu?

The need for the International PostGenetics Society recalls a historical parallel. Looking (in vain) for the "gene(s) of intelligence" is a "deja vu" for a former huge science establishment, called "Artificial Intelligence". "AI" was also looking (in vain) for "intelligence" based only in abstraction barricaded from biological reality. AI was dominated for decades by MIT professor Marvin Minsky, who even dared to "prove" that looking for biological clues of how the biological brain produces some (even utterly simple) functions, was "theoretically impossible" (technically, that the perceptron was incapable ever implementing the "exclusive-OR" [X-OR] logic function; "Perceptrons" by Marvyn Minsky and Seymour Papert, MIT Press, 1969). As a result, the field of neural networks was discredited and destroyed for decades and all R&D was monopolized by non-biologist "Cybernetists". Minsky's (in)famous objection froze all Government funding of theoretical neurobiology for at least two decades. Exploding "Neuroscience" could only break through this devastating handicap by some determined and devoted scientists at the "Neuroscience Study Program" in Boston in the late seventies) to establish a new field (with its International Neural Network Society, Congresses and Journal, leading to Government Funding Programs), called "Neural Networks" - with the clear intent of looking for clues of "Intelligence" in the right place (the biological brain).

This commentator, therefore, as a Founder of the International Neural Network Society (INNS) and a Founding Member of Editorial Boards of several Journals on Neural Networks sees an clear parallel between AI/NN earlier and Genetics/PostGenetics of today - when Genetics as we know it may appear to "give up on biology" in finding answers what makes us human and may be about to turn from natural sciences to ideology for answers. If the science establishment as we know it (either former AI or Genetics in the present case) runs out of answers, it must yield to those little new branches of science establishment "that could" (Neural Networks a quarter of a Century ago, and to PostGenetics, looking beyond Genetics as we know it, today).

It is certainly a fact of today, that a good number of deadly diseases (e.g. types of cancer) originate from "regulatory DNA" problems, for which no "gene discovery" is likely to find a solution - as there may be no "gene" to look for, but rather "non-gene discovery" appears to be a "must". In all likelihood, "Genetics", having turned 100 years old in 2005 may wishes to redefine itself in the parent field of Genomics and within the establishment of Genetics (unlikely to happen with appropriate speed), or in an establishment of PostGenetics as the most rapidly advancing sub-field of Genomics. This latter course of action is more likely to succeed, since it is free of built-in constraints.