The Elect Gene?

March 19, 2007

Joe Bob Briggs
Door Science Correspondent

After several years of research, scientists at the Clinical Molecular Genetics Laboratory at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico have isolated three genes that are believed to prove a biological basis for becoming a practicing Southern Baptist.

"We were stunned," said Jose Aguilar de la Estacionamiento, Director of Basic Research at the university, at a morning press conference. "We were actually looking for the determinant gene for sphincter occlusion. It's one of those inadvertent discoveries that sometimes occur when you're doing basic science."

Aguilar said the results were so shocking that he withheld publication for two years while the DNA was taken from every member of the Iglesia Bautista Hugo Chavez mega-church in San Miguel Allende. He found a 99.7 percent correlation between the genetic makeup of the Baptists in that congregation and the presence of the three mutated genes that normally identify people with a tendency toward stiff necks, rigid sphincter muscles, and early-pattern baldness. Given the overwhelming evidence, Aguilar said, there was no choice but to announce his findings to the scientific community.

Instantly, there were ethical issues raised as Mexican Catholics besieged parish priests with questions about whether it was possible that their infants could grow up to be Baptists. {continue...}

[via The Wittenburg Door Insider, HT: The Raging Paradoxidation]