Pentagon Briefing Removing The God Gene

Video Transcript:

Excuse me on the left over here. We have individuals who are religious fundamentalists, religious fanatics, and this is the expression, RTPCR, real-time PCR expression of the V-MAT2 gene. Over here, we have individuals. So let me complete. So over here, we have individuals who are not particularly fundamentalists, not particularly religious, and you can see there's a much reduced expression of this particular gene, the V-MAT2 gene. Another evidence that supports our hypothesis for the development of this approach. What you see here is that by spreading this virus, we're going to eliminate individuals from donning on a bomb bastard going into a market and blowing up the bomb. So our hypothesis is that these are fanatical people, that they have overexpression of the V-MAT2 gene and that by vaccinating them against this, we'll eliminate this behavior. So we have some very, very remarkable data in this next slide. Here we have two brain scans. These are FMRIs. These are two different individuals with different levels of expression of the MAT2. On top is an individual who's a religious fanatic and individual. And we've repeated this numerous times that has high levels of the MAT2. Now, this individual down here who had low levels of the V-MAT2 gene, this individual would self describe as not particularly religious. In each case, these individuals were read a religious text. This individual lit up the right middle frontal gyros shown here. And that's a part of the brain that's associated with theory of mind. It's a part of the brain that has to do with intense and beliefs and desires and contrast. In more contrast, here's an individual who would not particularly self describe as religious. And when they're read a religious text, what you see is that this part of the brain, called the anterior insula, lights up. This is a part of the brain that's associated with disgust or displeasure on hearing something. So, do you suggest I take a CT scan with me when I evaluate people to determine whether they put a bullet in their head? So the data that I'm presenting here supports the concept that we're proposing. And I think that we would not propose to do CT scans or FMRIs on individuals out in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. The virus would immunize against this V-MAT2 gene and that would have the effect that you see here, which is essentially to turn a banana into a normal person. And we think that will have major effects in the Middle East. How would you suggest that this is going to be spurred to the original? Well, so the present plan and the tests that we've done so far have used respiratory viruses, such as flu or rhino viruses. And we believe that that's a satisfactory way to get the exposure of the largest part of the population. Most of us, of course, have been exposed to both of those viruses. And we're quite confident that this will be a very successful approach. This is fascinating. What's the name of this proposal? Yes. So the name of this project is FundVax, which is the vaccine for religious fundamentalism. And you have a proposal already? The proposal has just been submitted. And I think that the data that I have shown you today would support the development of this project. And we think it has great promise.