Dr. Odhiambo on Life Sciences

Dr. Odhiambo on Life Sciences

MYTH OR REALITY

Dr. Odhiambo and Life Sciences
Thomas R. Odhiambo was the first professor and head of the department of entomology at the University of Nairobi. Dr. Odhiambo was the first dean of the faculty of agriculture in the same University. In 1979 Dr. Odhiambo was awarded Albert Einstein Medal. In 1982 Dr. Odhiambo was awarded the Gold Mercury International Award. In 1983 Dr. Odhiambo was awarded Gold Medal Award from the International Congress of Plant Protection. An Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Oslo was conferred upon Dr. Odhiambo in 1986. Dr. Odhiambo was the founder of African Academy. Dr. Odhiambo was the first president of the African Academy. Dr. Odhiambo maintained, as a distinguished visitor with John D. and Katherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation in Chicago (October 6, 1995):

We in Africa want to make sure that those who contribute are honored so that their children and their progeny will know that their forefathers did contribute to African development. We are proud of our heritage when we look back 5000 years ago among the Shibu, among the Egyptians, among those who followed the Egyptians, the Assumites, Songhai Empire. We know we had a tradition, the tradition of culture, traditional development. We had wealth. That wealth has been interrupted for 500 years. But, because we have been there before, we must know we can be there again, and it is our purpose that we shall be there again.

The story told by Dr, Odhiambo was a story of the real life sciences.
In the ancient African world, myth and science were like strands of a ladder, twisted and developed for descending deeper and deeper into the nature of living entities—replicating existence of heredity in life. Different groups of African people may have had different mythologies, but the myth of the Horus Eye informs us of the way to reassemble molecules of life, which is in consonance with modern biology.

Some mythological stories in Africa were useful in everyday life. Others were not. But myth and science were often intertwined and by that structure reinforced each other in probing for the anti-parallel nature of reality in every day life. Myth and legend helped in transmitting speculations and overtones of fiction or fantasy. Overtones of fictions sparked curiosity and therefore early research approaches in science. Myth in turn led to hypothesis formulation thus was known to have played a significant role in developing the first science in history. Myth was by no means science, as we know it in the present day. At any rate, the ancients used myth to keep alive the understanding of their reality that science now confirms.

Accordingly, the people of the Nile valley created a large number of amulets with mythological and scientific overtones intended to reflect upon their powers of observation, the powers that went as far as the very small in the living and the very gigantic in cosmos.

Research scientists in the dawn of our modern era dug on the amulets and vignette of the Pharaonic Africa without disclosing their sources. On this point of digging deep to unearth the roots of genetic substance, for example, they placed scientific as well as religious writings on the same level of importance. Medical practices were both art and science. They were spiritual and secular.

Biotechnology, especially where the ancients used fermentation as a process, a project in which microorganisms turned raw materials such as glucose into other chemical products, and thus making alcohol, was art along the same line with science. Consequently, in measurement of biological accuracy, comes the amulet known as the Eye-of-Horus. It is one of the best available records of ancient Egyptian to show the power of ancient mythology in modern science. The ancient used the assembling language in the eye amulet for exploring the first idea in molecular biology.

It is possible to interpret the Eye-of-Horus in the light of both myth and magic without claiming that the African world of mythology was entirely science. For deeper in meaning, the eye amulet in discussion here carries truth about African ancient science already at the atomic scale, where it formed the foundation of what would become the art of contemporary molecular modeling and, therefore, the science of genetic engineering. The Horus’ eye was an engineered organ.

Concealed with myth in some levels of interpretations, there exist undeniable and indeed scientific analyses of pristine nature: all of which will be made clearer in the next articles. We are here facing the African project of reclaiming the ultimate source of genetics.