appropriate measure, Morowitz thought, would be the retail cost of complete human biochemicals, most of which can be purchased from chemical specialty supply firms, so he began checking catalogues.
The prices ranged from a modest $2.95 a gram for hemoglobin, the blood’s oxygen-carrying substance, to $17,500,000 a gram for Prolactin, a hormone that stimulates and helps regulate milk production by the female breasts. Other items in a do-it-yourself human kit would include DNA, at $768 a gram, crystalline insulin for $47.50 a gram, alkaline phosphatase at $225 a gram, and acetate kinase for $8,860 a gram, Morowitz found.
“The real shocker came when I got to follicle-stimulating hormone at $4,800,000 a gram—clearly outside the reach of anything Tiffany’s could offer,” he said. “I’m going to suggest it as a gift for people who have everything. For the wealthy, there is prolactin at $175,000,000 a gram, street price.”
Collagen, a fibrous protein “glue” that holds the body together, was a relative bargain at $15 a gram.
Using the best scientific estimate of the amount of each biochemical in an average human body, Morowitz calculated that human tissue is worth $245.54 per gram dry weight, based on the catalogue prices. He computed his own 168-pound body weight in grams, subtracted the 68 percent that is water, and multiplied by $245.54.
“The number literally jumped out at me—$6,000,015.44—I was a Six Million Dollar Man, no doubt about it, and really an enormous upgrade to my ego after the 97-cent evaluation,” Morowitz quipped.”
From there Morowitz went on to calculate that assembly costs for a human body indeed are incalculable.
More than 40 years after Morowitz made this calculation, it is still true that the top scientists in the world are not even close to making a single human cell using the raw materials and assembling that cell into a highly functional human being. Yet, your body’s Innate Intelligence makes trillions of new cells for you throughout your lifetime, and as long as there is no interference, it will keep you functioning at your highest level for a lifetime.
There are three types of interference:
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3.