Posted on 05/06/2005 7:36:09 PM PDT by DouglasKC
Two great achievements occurred in 1953, more than half a century ago.
The first was the successful ascent of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Sir Edmund Hillary and his guide, Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit that year, an accomplishment that's still considered the ultimate feat for mountain climbers. Since then, more than a thousand mountaineers have made it to the top, and each year hundreds more attempt it.
Yet the second great achievement of 1953 has had a greater impact on the world. Each year, many thousands join the ranks of those participating in this accomplishment, hoping to ascend to fame and fortune.
It was in 1953 that James Watson and Francis Crick achieved what appeared impossible—discovering the genetic structure deep inside the nucleus of our cells. We call this genetic material DNA, an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid.
The discovery of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule opened the floodgates for scientists to examine the code embedded within it. Now, more than half a century after the initial discovery, the DNA code has been deciphered—although many of its elements are still not well understood.
What has been found has profound implications regarding Darwinian evolution, the theory taught in schools all over the world that all living beings have evolved by natural processes through mutation and natural selection.
Amazing revelations about DNA
As scientists began to decode the human DNA molecule, they found something quite unexpected—an exquisite 'language' composed of some 3 billion genetic letters. "One of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century," says Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., "was that DNA actually stores information—the detailed instructions for assembling proteins—in the form of a four-character digital code" (quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004, p. 224).
It is hard to fathom, but the amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica—an incredible 384 volumes" worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves!
Yet in their actual size—which is only two millionths of a millimeter thick—a teaspoon of DNA, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth, and "there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1996, p. 334).
Who or what could miniaturize such information and place this enormous number of 'letters' in their proper sequence as a genetic instruction manual? Could evolution have gradually come up with a system like this?
DNA contains a genetic language
Let's first consider some of the characteristics of this genetic 'language.' For it to be rightly called a language, it must contain the following elements: an alphabet or coding system, correct spelling, grammar (a proper arrangement of the words), meaning (semantics) and an intended purpose.
Scientists have found the genetic code has all of these key elements. "The coding regions of DNA," explains Dr. Stephen Meyer, "have exactly the same relevant properties as a computer code or language" (quoted by Strobel, p. 237, emphasis in original).
The only other codes found to be true languages are all of human origin. Although we do find that dogs bark when they perceive danger, bees dance to point other bees to a source and whales emit sounds, to name a few examples of other species" communication, none of these have the composition of a language. They are only considered low-level communication signals.
The only types of communication considered high-level are human languages, artificial languages such as computer and Morse codes and the genetic code. No other communication system has been found to contain the basic characteristics of a language.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, commented that "DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we've ever devised."
Can you imagine something more intricate than the most complex program running on a supercomputer being devised by accident through evolution—no matter how much time, how many mutations and how much natural selection are taken into account?
DNA language not the same as DNA molecule
Recent studies in information theory have come up with some astounding conclusions—namely, that information cannot be considered in the same category as matter and energy. It's true that matter or energy can carry information, but they are not the same as information itself.
For instance, a book such as Homer's Iliad contains information, but is the physical book itself information? No, the materials of the book—the paper, ink and glue contain the contents, but they are only a means of transporting it.
If the information in the book was spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information does not suffer qualitatively from the means of transporting it. "In fact the content of the message," says professor Phillip Johnson, "is independent of the physical makeup of the medium" (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 1997, p. 71).
The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a compact disk or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.
As George Williams puts it: "The gene is a package of information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message" (quoted by Johnson, p. 70).
Information from an intelligent source
In addition, this type of high-level information has been found to originate only from an intelligent source.
As Lee Strobel explains: "The data at the core of life is not disorganized, it's not simply orderly like salt crystals, but it's complex and specific information that can accomplish a bewildering task—the building of biological machines that far outstrip human technological capabilities" (p. 244).
For instance, the precision of this genetic language is such that the average mistake that is not caught turns out to be one error per 10 billion letters. If a mistake occurs in one of the most significant parts of the code, which is in the genes, it can cause a disease such as sickle-cell anemia. Yet even the best and most intelligent typist in the world couldn't come close to making only one mistake per 10 billion letters—far from it.
So to believe that the genetic code gradually evolved in Darwinian style would break all the known rules of how matter, energy and the laws of nature work. In fact, there has not been found in nature any example of one information system inside the cell gradually evolving into another functional information program.
Michael Behe, a biochemist and professor at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University, explains that genetic information is primarily an instruction manual and gives some examples.
He writes: "Consider a step-by-step list of [genetic] instructions. A mutation is a change in one of the lines of instructions. So instead of saying, "Take a 1/4-inch nut," a mutation might say, "Take a 3/8-inch nut." Or instead of "Place the round peg in the round hole," we might get "Place the round peg in the square hole" . . . What a mutation cannot do is change all the instructions in one step—say, [providing instructions] to build a fax machine instead of a radio" (Darwin's Black Box, 1996, p. 41).
We therefore have in the genetic code an immensely complex instruction manual that has been majestically designed by a more intelligent source than human beings.
Even one of the discoverers of the genetic code, the agnostic and recently deceased Francis Crick, after decades of work on deciphering it, admitted that "an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going" (Life Itself, 1981, p. 88, emphasis added).
Evolution fails to provide answers
It is good to remember that, in spite of all the efforts of all the scientific laboratories around the world working over many decades, they have not been able to produce so much as a single human hair. How much more difficult is it to produce an entire body consisting of some 100 trillion cells!
Up to now, Darwinian evolutionists could try to counter their detractors with some possible explanations for the complexity of life. But now they have to face the information dilemma: How can meaningful, precise information be created by accident—by mutation and natural selection? None of these contain the mechanism of intelligence, a requirement for creating complex information such as that found in the genetic code.
Darwinian evolution is still taught in most schools as though it were fact. But it is increasingly being found wanting by a growing number of scientists. "As recently as twenty-five years ago," says former atheist Patrick Glynn, "a reasonable person weighing the purely scientific evidence on the issue would likely have come down on the side of skepticism [regarding a Creator]. That is no longer the case." He adds: "Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis. It is the simplest and most obvious solution . . ." (God: The Evidence, 1997, pp. 54-55, 53).
Quality of genetic information the same
Evolution tells us that through chance mutations and natural selection, living things evolve. Yet to evolve means to gradually change certain aspects of some living thing until it becomes another type of creature, and this can only be done by changing the genetic information.
So what do we find about the genetic code? The same basic quality of information exists in a humble bacteria or a plant as in a person. A bacterium has a shorter genetic code, but qualitatively it gives instructions as precisely and exquisitely as that of a human being. We find the same prerequisites of a language—alphabet, grammar and semantics—in simple bacteria and algae as in man.
Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, consists of "artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction . . . [and a] capacity not equalled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours" (Denton, p. 329).
So how could the genetic information of bacteria gradually evolve into information for another type of being, when only one or a few minor mistakes in the millions of letters in that bacterium's DNA can kill it?
Again, evolutionists are uncharacteristically silent on the subject. They don't even have a working hypothesis about it. Lee Strobel writes: "The six feet of DNA coiled inside every one of our body's one hundred trillion cells contains a four-letter chemical alphabet that spells out precise assembly instructions for all the proteins from which our bodies are made . . . No hypothesis has come close to explaining how information got into biological matter by naturalistic means" (Strobel, p. 282).
Werner Gitt, professor of information systems, puts it succinctly: "The basic flaw of all evolutionary views is the origin of the information in living beings. It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself [through matter] . . . The information theorems predict that this will never be possible. A purely material origin of life is thus [ruled out]" (Gitt, p. 124).
The clincher
Besides all the evidence we have covered for the intelligent design of DNA information, there is still one amazing fact remaining—the ideal number of genetic letters in the DNA code for storage and translation.
Moreover, the copying mechanism of DNA, to meet maximum effectiveness, requires the number of letters in each word to be an even number. Of all possible mathematical combinations, the ideal number for storage and transcription has been calculated to be four letters.
This is exactly what has been found in the genes of every living thing on earth—a four-letter digital code. As Werner Gitt states: "The coding system used for living beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint. This fact strengthens the argument that it was a case of purposeful design rather that a [lucky] chance" (Gitt, p. 95).
More witnesses
Back in Darwin's day, when his book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, life appeared much simpler. Viewed through the primitive microscopes of the day, the cell appeared to be but a simple blob of jelly or uncomplicated protoplasm. Now, almost 150 years later, that view has changed dramatically as science has discovered a virtual universe inside the cell.
"It was once expected," writes Professor Behe, "that the basis of life would be exceedingly simple. That expectation has been smashed. Vision, motion, and other biological functions have proven to be no less sophisticated than television cameras and automobiles. Science has made enormous progress in understanding how the chemistry of life works, but the elegance and complexity of biological systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science's attempt to explain their origins" (Behe, p. x).
Dr. Meyer considers the recent discoveries about DNA as the Achilles" heel of evolutionary theory. He observes: "Evolutionists are still trying to apply Darwin's nineteenth-century thinking to a twenty-first century reality, and it's not working ... I think the information revolution taking place in biology is sounding the death knell for Darwinism and chemical evolutionary theories" (quoted by Strobel, p. 243).
Dr. Meyer's conclusion? "I believe that the testimony of science supports theism. While there will always be points of tension or unresolved conflict, the major developments in science in the past five decades have been running in a strongly theistic direction" (ibid., p. 77).
Dean Kenyon, a biology professor who repudiated his earlier book on Darwinian evolution—mostly due to the discoveries of the information found in DNA—states: "This new realm of molecular genetics (is) where we see the most compelling evidence of design on the Earth" (ibid., p. 221).
Just recently, one of the world's most famous atheists, Professor Antony Flew, admitted he couldn't explain how DNA was created and developed through evolution. He now accepts the need for an intelligent source to have been involved in the making of the DNA code.
"What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinary diverse elements together," he said (quoted by Richard Ostling, "Leading Atheist Now Believes in God," Associated Press report, Dec. 9, 2004).
"Fearfully and wonderfully made"
Although written thousands of years ago, King David's words about our marvelous human bodies still ring true. He wrote: "For You formed my inward parts, You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . . My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought. . ." (Psalm 139:13-15, emphasis added).
Where does all this leave evolution? Michael Denton, an agnostic scientist, concludes: "Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century" (Denton, p. 358).
All of this has enormous implications for our society and culture. Professor Johnson makes this clear when he states: "Every history of the twentieth century lists three thinkers as preeminent in influence: Darwin, Marx and Freud. All three were regarded as 'scientific' (and hence far more reliable than anything 'religious') in their heyday.
"Yet Marx and Freud have fallen, and even their dwindling bands of followers no longer claim that their insights were based on any methodology remotely comparable to that of experimental science. I am convinced that Darwin is next on the block. His fall will be by far the mightiest of the three" (Johnson, p. 113).
Evolution has had its run for almost 150 years in the schools and universities and in the press. But now, with the discovery of what the DNA code is all about, the complexity of the cell, and the fact that information is something vastly different from matter and energy, evolution can no longer dodge the ultimate outcome. The evidence certainly points to a resounding checkmate for evolution! GN
Since the first man aknowledged his being, he came to wonder who made all this, what came before all the fathers and all the mothers. Isn't it a curiouse thing that the first question man has asked from the dawn of his self awareness is where did we all come from and why- and that that very same first question is still being asked today? We still don't know. And we can research and look all we want- we can even throw our hands up- but I don't think we'll ever know how this stuff works.
It even talks about a single cell developing from some gook. And that's what I was taught in school. That we came from nothing. The goo to you theory is what I have heard it called.Its called dumbing down the material for high schoolers to understand it. Molecular biology and quantum physics is a little over their head.
What has that got to do with this thread? If you're referring to opposites, then yes, Schools teach only political correctness right now. I also feel they should be at least balanced enough to teach Conservative values just as much. Right now, it's man worship all the way. Why not open doors to a wider range of thought? Either that, or allow school choice so parents can decide which they'd prefer their children to be taught.
Well, faith and fossil records and variations of species. EVOLUTION DOES NOT EXPLAIN GOD! It explains how A got to B- but not how A got there.
Why bother debating with the cleti? Collectively, these types of threads are leading to the demise of FR. Every day it seems like another long-time poster is bailing out. We literally had to cut a 'devil's deal' with these people to Bush elected; now we get to enjoy nonsense like these ID threads.
Isn't that kind of like saying that the usefulness of words and letters is entirely dependent on the words and letters being formed into coherent thoughts and put on paper?
Thank you. Great point about the medium being the message. YOU beat me to it.
Yes, This part
"Even one of the discoverers of the genetic code, the agnostic and recently deceased Francis Crick, after decades of work on deciphering it, admitted that "an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going" (Life Itself, 1981, p. 88, emphasis added)".
This article is taking his quote out of context to suggest Crick (One of the greatest scientist of the 20th Century) believes in / supports ID
Here is the whole thing
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."
Not at all what this article presents it to be.
Now how strong can your position be if in order to prop it up you have to LIE and take a dead man's quotes out of context?
Do Creationist / IDers have any shame?
Evolution is based on the scientific method. ID is based on a specific religious philosophy or belief.
Question? Is there anything that could shake your belief in the bible and its version of creation? If the answer is "No, nothing could shake my belief in the bible and creation," then you have answered the science/religion question in favor of religion.
That's fine. But don't now pretend you are doing science.
An Intelligent Designer has control over everything and He created the physical laws by which all things consist.
Your assbackwards statement is just another glistening gem of ignorance that typifies the evolutionary Darwinist's world view.
STOP CONFUSING Creationism with Intelligent Design!
I think the fundamental issue is not that it is incomplete but that it is fundamentally flawed in explaining the rise of complexity. Dr. Behe in Ithaca readily assented that some Darwinian mechanisms - like selection pressure - can be easily shown to exist, but they have very limited scope. The fundamental issue is that these cannot adequately explain the rise of irreducibly complex biochemical structures and processes - so complex that they won't work if one element is missing. But Darwinian approaches must insist that they developed incrementally, piece at a time. But since Darwinian processes have no foresight, it canot be "known" that there is an advantage to begin developing a complex system ("trust me, you'll need this protein synthesis gene sequence later!"). Each step (the genetic blueprint and the resulting biochemical product and process) must arise RANDOMLY, and at each step these structures/products must confer an adaptive advantage (or at least no disadvantage). Then, after countless generations, the last step/structure develops, the new biochemical machine can start up, and run, and confer an adaptive advantage? To quote Vizzini in The Princess Bride, "Inconceivable!" Yet this is exactly the foundation on which modern Darwinism stands. And the increasing unveiling of the complexity of the genome compounds the issue.
I remember sitting in college biochemistry listening to DNA replication mechanisms being explained. In high school we were told the DNA strands magically unfold, more DNA floats in, lines up, and voila, a perfect copy. Sorry - more complex. In real life a biological machine (an enzyme, a hunk of protein) slides along a chromosome, snipping the DNA strand in half. Another one works its way along the chromosome, piecing in new matching components according to the prescribed base-pairing. Finally, another enzyme works along the chromosome to CHECK the pairing. If it finds an error, it seeks to snip out the bad acid and bring in a correct one. But the really flooring fact is that this checking enzyme has steric structure ("handedness")- it can only read and fix in one direction. One one side of the chromosome it can work fine, but on the other, it has to back up two bases, then read ahead one, back up two, read ahead one. Remember, this all just happened. And it had to happen early on, as part of the genetic replication machinery essential to all life.
Yet, the theory of creationism is also "full of holes", that is to say that it fails to explain, in any way other than the circular, HUGE elements of the real world as we find it. It is not enough to say that "God just made it that way." That is not an adequate answer.
Indeed - it is intellectually lazy to rest there, I agree. But as regarding current Darwinist thought , Behe suggested pursuing inquiry solely along lines tainted with fatal logical flaws will ultimately go nowhere.
Yet, on threads like these, that argument is the one that is always resorted to. And always by people who have no trouble tossing the entire body of scientific research into the evolution of life on earth on the trash heap because some issue or another remains unexplained in full detail. It's basically dishonest.
See above comment. What is fundamentally dishonest is the position of the mainstream scientific establishment, assuring the general public that the overall pattern of evolution is proven, and there are just a few details to work out. I was at a university forum where a retired professor (not of biology) referred to the "proven facts" of evolution. A renowned and uniquely honest professor of evolutionary biology stood up to rip that guy's statement to shreds. He said, to paraphrase, "I was a graduate student during the great evolutionary synthesis of the 1960's, and nothing we thought true then is thought true any more ... We still don't have ONE good example of speciation!" [the divergence of a single species into two].
To see how thin the ice has often been, read "Of Moths and Men" (check Amazon or google it - I forget the author). Written by a non-creationist, it shows how contrived the famous "pepper moth" experiments (industrial melanism) were that you read about in high school (Hint: in real life the moths never land on sooty tree trunks but on leaves). No one has ever been able to replicate the claimed selection advantage, but they have become mythic in more ways than one. You will also read about what happens when even committed Darwinists stray too far off the plantation.
No. Its the other way around. Evolutionists have to make a reasonable case it is likely before teaching this stuff to children as fact. The fact no one is allowed to even question evolution without being ridiculed is preposterous. Political correctness has infested academia on this topic and global warming.
Only God knows, for only God could.
No. It's just a theory. All of it is a guess. None of the fossils of "early man" have any human DNA. They're still animals.
Not only that, but in one huge evolutionary jump, the entire back bone and skull change from that of a monkey to that of a bear. No one even discusses that part. It doesn't fit the "theory."
Actually, to suggest that information, DNA or otherwise, can be shared apart from intelligence and design is ludicrous.
Explain Phi.
And how did those Chemicals get there?
Please see my profile for futher indepth analysis of this.
DON'T CONFUSE CREATIONISM WITH INTELLIGENT DESIGN!!!
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