The "Threat" of Creationism, by Isaac Asimov

Scientists thought it was settled. The universe, they had decided, is about 20 billion years old, and Earth itself is 4.5 billion years old. Simple forms of life came into being more than three billion years ago, having formed spontaneously from nonliving matter. They grew more complex through slow evolutionary processes and the first hominid ancestors of humanity appeared more than four million years ago. Homo sapians itself—the present human species, people like you and me—has walked the earth for at least 50,000 years.

But apparently it isn't settled. There are Americans who believe that the earth is only about 6,000 years old; that human beings and all other species were brought into existence by a divine Creator as eternally separate variations of beings; and that there has been no evolutionary process.

They are creationists—they call themselves "scientific" creationists—and they are a growing power in the land, demanding that schools be forced to teach their views. State legislatures, mindful of the votes, are beginning to succumb to the pressure. In perhaps 15 states, bills have been introduced, putting forth the creationist point of view, and in others, strong movements are gaining momentum. In Arkansas, a law requiring that the teaching of creationism receive equal time was passed this spring and is scheduled to go into effect in September 1982, though the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit on behalf of a group of clergymen, teachers, and parents to overturn it. And a California father named Kelly Segraves, the director of the Creation-Science Research Center, sued to have public-school science classes taught that there are other theories of creation besides evolution, and that one of them was the Biblical version. The suit came to trial in March, and the judge ruled that educators must distribute a policy statement to schools and textbook publishers explaining that the theory of evolution should not be seen as "the ultimate cause of origins." Even in New York, the Board of Education has delayed since January in making a final decision, expected this month [June 1981], on whether schools will be required to include the teaching of creationism in their curriculums.

The Rev. Jerry Fallwell, the head of the Moral Majority, who supports the creationist view from his television pulpit, claims that he has 17 million to 25 million viewers (though Arbitron places the figure at a much more modest 1.6 million). But there are 66 electronic ministries which have a total audience of about 20 million. And in parts of the country where the Fundamentalists predominate—the so called Bible Belt— creationists are in the majority.

They make up a fervid and dedicated group, convinced beyond argument of both their rightness and their righteousness. Faced with an apathetic and falsely secure majority, smaller groups have used intense pressure and forceful campaigning—as the creationists do—and have succeeded in disrupting and taking over whole societies.

Yet, though creationists seem to accept the literal truth of the Biblical story of creation, this does not mean that all religious people are creationists. There are millions of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews who think of the Bible as a source of spiritual truth and accept much of it as symbolically rather than literally true. They do not consider the Bible to be a textbook of science, even in intent, and have no problem teaching evolution in their secular institutions.

To those who are trained in science, creationism seems like a bad dream, a sudden reveling of a nightmare, a renewed march of an army of the night risen to challenge free thought and enlightenment.

The scientific evidence for the age of the earth and for the evolutionary development of life seems overwhelming to scientists. How can anyone question it? What are the arguments the creationists use? What is the "science" that makes their views "scientific"? Here are some of them:

A watch implies a watchmaker, say the creationists. If you were to find a beautifully intricate watch in the desert, from habitation, you would be sure that it had been fashioned by human hands and somehow left it there. It would pass the bounds of credibility that it had simply formed, spontaneously, from the sands of the desert.

By analogy, then, if you consider humanity, life, Earth, and the universe, all infinitely more intricate than a watch, you can believe far less easily that it "just happened." It, too, like the watch, must have been fashioned, but by more-than-human hands—in short by a divine Creator.

This argument seems unanswerable, and it has been used (even though not often explicitly expressed) ever since the dawn of consciousness. To have explained to prescientific human beings that the wind and the rain and the sun follow the laws of nature and do so blindly and without a guiding would have been utterly unconvincing to them. In fact, it might have well gotten you stoned to death as a blasphemer.

There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance only implies ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

In short, the complexity of the universe—and one's inability to explain it in full—is not in itself an argument for a Creator.

Some creationists point at that belief in a Creator is general among all peoples and all cultures. Surly this unanimous craving hints at a greater truth. There would be no unanimous belief in a lie.

General belief, however, is not really surprising. Nearly every people on earth that considers the existence of the world assumes it to have been created by a god or gods. And each group invents full details for the story. No two creation tales are alike. The Greeks, the Norsemen, the Japanese, the Hindus, the American Indians, and so on and so on all have their own creation myths, and all of these are recognized by Americans of Judeo-Christian heritage as "just myths."

The ancient Hebrews also had a creation tale—two of them, in fact. There is a primitive Adam-and-Eve-in-Paradise story, with man created first, then animals, then women. There is also a poetic tale of God fashioning the universe in six days, with animals preceding man, and man and woman created together.

These Hebrew myths are not inherently more credible than any of the others, but they are our myths. General consent, of course, proves nothing: There can be a unanimous belief in something that isn't so. The universal opinion over thousands of years that the earth was flat never flattened its spherical shape by one inch.

Creationists frequently stress the fact that evolution is "only a theory," giving the impression that a theory is an idle guess. A scientist, one gathers, arising one morning with nothing particular to do, decided that perhaps the moon is made of Roquefort cheese and instantly advances the Roquefort-cheese theory.

A theory (as the word is used by scientists) is a detailed description of some facet of the universe's workings that is based on long observation and, where possible, experiment. It is the result of careful reasoning from these observations and experiments that has survived the critical study of scientists generally.

For example, we have the description of the cellular nature of living organisms (the "cell theory"); of objects attracting each other according to fixed rule (the "theory of gravitation"); of energy behaving in discrete bits (the "quantum theory"); of light traveling through a vacuum at a fixed measurable velocity (the "theory of relativity"), and so on.

All are theories; all are firmly founded; all are accepted as valid descriptions of this or that aspect of the universe. They are neither guesses nor speculations. And no theory is better founded, more closely examined, more critically argued and more thoroughly accepted, than the theory of evolution. If it is "only" a theory, that is all it has to be.

Creationism, on the other hand, is not a theory. There is no evidence, in the scientific sense, that supports it. Creationism, or at least the particular variety accepted by many Americans, is an expression of early Middle Eastern legend. It is fairly described as "only a myth."

Creationists, in recent years, have stressed the "scientific" background of their beliefs. They point out that there are scientists who base their creationists beliefs on a careful study of geology, paleontology, and biology and produce "textbooks" that embody those beliefs.

Virtually the whole scientific corpus of creationism, however, consists of the pointing out of imperfections in the evolutionary view. The creationists insists, for example, that evolutionists cannot true transition states between species in the fossil evidence; that age determinations through radioactive breakdown are uncertain; that alternative interpretations of this or that piece of evidence are possible and so on.

Because the evolutionary view is not perfect and is not agreed upon by all scientists, creationists argue that evolution is false and that scientists, in supporting evolution, are basing their views on blind faith and dogmatism.

To an extent, the creationists are right here: The details of evolution are not perfectly known. Scientists have been adjusting and modifying Charles Darwin's suggestions since he advanced his theory of the origin of species through natural selection back in 1859. After all, much has been learned about the fossil record and physiology, microbiology, biochemistry, ethology, and various other branches of life science in the last 125 years, and it was to be expected that we can improve on Darwin. In fact, we have improved on him. Nor is the process finished. it can never be, as long as human beings continue to question and to strive for better answers.

The details of evolutionary theory are in dispute precisely because scientists are not devotees of blind faith and dogmatism. They do not accept even as great thinker as Darwin without question, nor do they accept any idea, new or old, without thorough argument. Even after accepting an idea, they stand ready to overrule it, if appropriate new evidence arrives. If, however, we grant that a theory is imperfect and details remain in dispute, does that disprove the theory as a whole?

Consider. I drive a car, and you drive a car. I do not know exactly how an engine works. Perhaps you do not either. And it may be that our hazy and approximate ideas of the workings of an automobile are in conflict. Must we then conclude from this disagreement that an automobile does not run, or that it does not exist? Or, if our senses force us to conclude that an automobile does exist and run, does that mean it is pulled by an invisible horses, since our engine theory is imperfect?

However much scientists argue their differing beliefs in details of evolutionary theory, or in the interpretation of the necessarily imperfect fossil record, they firmly accept the evolutionary process itself.

Creationists have learned enough scientific terminology to use it in their attempts to disprove evolution. They do this in numerous ways, but the most common example, at least in the mail I receive is the repeated assertion that the second law of thermodynamics demonstrates the evolutionary process to be impossible.

In kindergarten terms, the second law of thermodynamics says that all spontaneous change is in the direction of increasing disorder—that is, in a "downhill" direction. There can be no spontaneous buildup of the complex from the simple, therefore, because that would be moving "uphill." According to the creationists argument, since, by the evolutionary process, complex forms of life evolve from simple forms, that process defies the second law, so creationism must be true.

Such an argument implies that this clearly visible fallacy is somehow invisible to scientists, who must therefore be flying in the face of the second law through sheer perversity. Scientists, however, do know about the second law and they are not blind. It's just that an argument based on kindergarten terms is suitable only for kindergartens.

To lift the argument a notch above the kindergarten level, the second law of thermodynamics applies to a "closed system"—that is, to a system that does not gain energy from without, or lose energy to the outside. The only truly closed system we know of is the universe as a whole.

Within a closed system, there are subsystems that can gain complexity spontaneously, provided there is a greater loss of complexity in another interlocking subsystem. The overall change then is a complexity loss in a line with the dictates of the second law.

Evolution can proceed and build up the complex from the simple, thus moving uphill, without violating the second law, as long as another interlocking part of the system — the sun, which delivers energy to the earth continually — moves downhill (as it does) at a much faster rate than evolution moves uphill. If the sun were to cease shining, evolution would stop and so, eventually, would life.

Unfortunately, the second law is a subtle concept which most people are not accustomed to dealing with, and it is not easy to see the fallacy in the creationists distortion.

There are many other "scientific" arguments used by creationists, some taking quite cleaver advantage of present areas of dispute in evolutionary theory, but every one of then is as disingenuous as the second-law argument.

The "scientific" arguments are organized into special creationist textbooks, which have all the surface appearance of the real thing, and which school systems are being heavily pressured to accept. They are written by people who have not made any mark as scientists, and, while they discuss geology, paleontology and biology with correct scientific terminology, they are devoted almost entirely to raising doubts over the legitimacy of the evidence and reasoning underlying evolutionary thinking on the assumption that this leaves creationism as the only possible alternative.

Evidence actually in favor of creationism is not presented, of course, because none exist other than the word of the Bible, which it is current creationist strategy not to use.

Some creationists putt all matters of scientific evidence to one side and consider all such things irrelevant. The Creator, they say, brought life and the earth and the entire universe into being 6,000 years ago or so, complete with all the evidence for eons-long evolutionary development. The fossil record, the decaying radio activity, the receding galaxies were all created as they are, and the evidence they present is an illusion.

Of course, this argument is itself irrelevant, for it can be neither proved nor disproved. it is not an argument, actually, but a statement. I can say that the entire universe was created two minutes age, complete with all its history books describing a nonexistent past in detail, and with every living person equipped with a full memory; you, for instance, in the process of reading this article in midstream with a memory of what you had read in the beginning—which you had not really read.

What kind of Creator would produce a universe containing so intricate an illusion? It would mean that the Creator formed a universe that contained human beings whom He had endowed with the faculty of curiosity and the ability to reason. He supplied those human beings with an enormous amount of subtle and cleverly consistent evidence designed to mislead them and cause them to be convinced that the universe was created 20 billion years ago and developed by evolutionary processes that include the creation and the development of life on Earth. Why?

Does the Creator take pleasure in fooling us? Does it amuse Him to watch us go wrong? Is it part of a test to see if human beings will deny their senses and their reason in order to cling to myth? Can it be that the Creator is a cruel and malicious prankster, with a vicious and adolescent sense of humor?

The Bible says that God created the world in six days, and the Bible is the inspired word of God. To the average creationist this is all that counts. All other arguments are merely a tedious way of countering the propaganda of all those wicked humanists, agnostics, an atheists who are not satisfied with the clear word of the Lord.

The creationist leaders do not actually use that argument because that would make their argument a religious one, and they would not be able to use it in fighting a secular school system. They have to borrow the clothing of science, no matter how badly it fits, and call themselves "scientific" creationists. They also speak only of the "Creator," and never mentioned that this Creator is the God of the Bible.

We cannot, however, take this sheep's clothing seriously. However much the creationist leaders might hammer away at in their "scientific" and "philosophical" points, they would be helpless and a laughing-stock if that were all they had.

It is religion that recruits their squadrons. Tens of millions of Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for or even against evolution, march in the army of the night with their Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason.

Even if I am right and the evolutionists' case is very strong, have not creationists, whatever the emptiness of their case, a right to be heard? if their case is empty, isn't it perfectly safe to discuss it since the emptiness would then be apparent? Why, then are evolutionists so reluctant to have creationism taught in the public schools on an equal basis with evolutionary theory? can it be that the evolutionists are not as confident of their case as they pretend. Are they afraid to allow youngsters a clear choice?

First, the creationists are somewhat less than honest in their demand for equal time. It is not their views that are repressed: schools are by no means the only place in which the dispute between creationism and evolutionary theory is played out. There are churches, for instance, which are a much more serious influence on most Americans than the schools are. To be sure, many churches are quite liberal, have made their peace with science and find it easy to live with scientific advance — even with evolution. But many of the less modish and citified churches are bastions of creationism.

The influence of the church is naturally felt in the home, in the newspapers, and in all of surrounding society. It makes itself felt in the nation as a whole, even in religiously liberal areas, in thousands of subtle ways: in the nature of holiday observance, in expressions of patriotic fervor, even in total irrelevancies. In 1968, for example, a team of astronomers circling the moon were instructed to read the first few verses of Genesis as though NASA felt it had to placate the public lest they rage against the violation of the firmament. At the present time, even the current President of the United States has expressed his creationist sympathies.

It is only in school that American youngsters in general are ever likely to hear any reasoned exposition of the evolutionary viewpiont. They might find such a viewpoint in books, magazines, newspapers, or even, on occasion, on television. But church and family can easily censor printed matter or television. Only the school is beyond their control.

But only just barely beyond. Even though schools are now allowed to teach evolution, teachers are beginning to be apologetic about it, knowing full well their jobs are at the mercy of school boards upon which creationists are a stronger and stronger influence.

Then, too, in schools, students are not required to believe what they learn about evolution—merely to parrot it back on test. If they fail to do so, their punishment is nothing more than the loss of a few points on a test or two.

In the creationist churches, however, the congregation is required to believe. Impressionable youngsters, taught that they will go to hell if they listen to the evolutionary doctrine, are not likely to listen in comfort or to believe if they do. Therefore, creationists, who control the church and the society they live in and to face the public-school as the only place where evolution is even briefly mentioned in a possible favorable way, find they cannot stand even so minuscule a competition and demand "equal time."

Do you suppose their devotion to "fairness" is such that they will give equal time to evolution in their churches?

Second, the real danger is the manner in which creationists want threir "equal time." In the scientific world, there is free and open competition of ideas, and even a scientist whose suggestions are not accepted is nevertheless free to continue to argue his case. In this free and open competition of ideas, creationism has clearly lost. It has been losing, in fact, since the time of Copernicus four and a half centuries ago. But creationism, placing myth above reason, refused to accept the decision and are now calling on the government to force their views on the schools in lieu of the free expression of ideas. Teachers must be forced to present creationism as though it had equal intellectual respectability with evolutionary doctrine.

If the government can mobilize its policemen and its prisons to make certain that teachers give creationism equal time, they can next use force to make sure that teachers declare creationism the victor so that evolution will be evicted from the classroom altogether. We will have established ground work, in other words, for legally enforced ignorance and for totalitarian thought control. And what if the creationists win? They might, you know, for there are millions who, faced with a choice between science and their interpretation of the Bible, will choose the Bible and reject science, regardless of the evidence.

This is not entirely because of the traditional and unthinking reverence for the literal words of the Bible; there is also a pervasive uneasiness—even an actual fear—of science that will drive even those who care little for fundamentalism into the arms of the creationists. For one thing, science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel among themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.

Second, science is complex and chilling. The mathematical language of science is understood by very few. The vistas it presents are scary—an enormous universe ruled by chance and impersonal rules, empty and uncaring, ungraspable and vertiginous. How comfortable to turn instead to a small world, only a few thousand years old, and under God's personal and immediate care; a world in which you are his particular concern and where He will not consign you to hell if you are careful to follow every word of the Bible as interpreted for you by your television preacher.

Third, science is dangerous. There is no question but that poison gas, genetic engineering, and nuclear weapons and power stations are terrifying. It may be that civilization is falling apart and the world we know is coming to an end. In that case, why not turn to religion and look forward to the Day of Judgment, in which you and your fellow believers will be lifted into eternal bliss and have the added joy of watching the scoffers and disbelievers writhe forever in torment.

There are numerous cases of societies in which the armies of the night have ridden triumphantly over minorities in order to establish a powerful orthodoxy which dictates official thought. Invariably, the triumphant ride is toward long-range disaster. Spain dominated Europe and the world in the 16th century, but in Spain orthodoxy came first, and all divergence of opinion was ruthlessly suppressed. The result was that Spain settled back into blankness and did not share in the scientific, technological and commercial ferment that bubbled up in other nations of Western Europe. Spain remained an intellectual backwater for centuries. In the late 17th century, France in the name of orthodoxy revoked the Edict of Nantes and drove out many thousands of Huguenots, who added their intellectual vigor to lands of refuge such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Prussia, while France was permanently weakened.

In more recent times, Germany hounded out the Jewish scientists of Europe. They arrived in the United States and contributed immeasurably to scientific advancement here, while Germany lost so heavily that there is no telling how long it will take it to regain its former scientific eminence. The Soviet Union, in its fascination with Lysenko, destroyed its geneticists, and set back its biological sciences for decades. China, during the Cultural Revolution, turned against Western science and is still laboring to overcome the devastation that resulted.

As we now, with all these examples before us, to ride backward into the past under the same tattered banner of orthodoxy? With creationism in the saddle, American science will wither. We will raise a generation of ignoramuses ill-equipped to run the industry of tomorrow, much less to generate the new advances of the days after tomorrow.

We will inevitably recede into the backwater of civilization, and those nations that retain opened scientific thought will take over the leadership of the world and the cutting edge of human advancement. I don't suppose that the creationists really plan the decline of the United States, but their loudly expressed patriotism is as simpleminded as their "science." If they succeed, they will, in their folly, achieve the opposite of what they say they wish.

( Isaac Asimov, "The 'Threat' of Creationism," New York Times Magazine, June 14, 1981; from Science and Creationism, Ashley Montagu, ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 182-193. )

Crystals do contain data that allows them to grow into complex forms. This makes a crystal an inorganic (well there are organic crystals also) equivalent to DNA. They do not contain genetic data they contain data which allows them to grow from less complex molecular chains to more complex formations.

In fact DNA chains may have formed inside early crystalline structures. mutinaite a naturally forming crystal is being studied as the early birth place of DNA. It is a crystal which has properties which would lend itself to aiding in the development of early amino acid compounds. It absorbs amino acids and contains structures within itself that would aid amino acids in forming complex proteins.

This is sort of off topic but at least it may be of interest to other on this board.

As my previous post relates the "crystal analogy" is more than analogy. Crystals are less complex but display many of the same basic chemical reactions as DNA does.

You are mistaken DNA does not sexually reproduce (at least that is what I think you mean when you suggest both parents contribute). Animals sexually reproduce by exchanging genetic information in the form of chromosomes not DNA. The DNA of each chromosome is intact and doesn't change it merely expresses it's own structure which reacts with other structures to create the final product. We must look at DNA as its own structure not as a part of the whole because so much more is going on. The DNA itself only changes through replication failure (radiation ,etc) or insertion of new genetic material from an outside force like a virus. Replication failures

to quote you "There are inputs (variable), a program (which sometimes crashes due to external modifications of code and/or data, and an output (living organism). Moreover, the DNA continues to perform computational functions over the life of the organism. I'll buy your "crystal as template" argument, but DNA is not that."

I agree DNA has inputs (Viral, mutational) I agree DNA has outputs or the express of its structure (animals,plants). DNA does not perform computational functions. DNA is a template just like a crystal.

"DNA doesn't process information. DNA crates other life forms when outside forces mutate, rearrange, or otherwise change the template of DNA. Processing does not happen. DNA is merely a template." - Sentis

No, that's completely wrong.

A true template will repeat itself without change. You can stamp out bricks with a brick template, for instance. Put 010101 in and you will get 010101 out (presuming that the proper chemicals are in the proper place at the proper time, at least for our purposes in this debate.

But DNA doesn't just repeat itself. DNA isn't blind. DNA actually PROCESSES the Base 2/Base 4 instruction sets that are represented in its mathematically represented sequences of nucleotides.

In the human software programming world, the "EXIT SUB" command is a useful way to illustrate DNA's radical processing power over and above mere "template" status.

With a template, the data:

Print "Hello"
EXIT SUB
Print "Goodbye" will always yield:
Print "Hello"
EXIT SUB
Print "Goodbye"

But when mathematical instruction sets are actually PROCESSED, a computer will merely output:
Hello

Likewise, when we are creating new medicines in the lab, we insert EXIT SUB commands into the beginning of particular genetic instruction sets in order to effectively "turn off" entire genes.

Now, a "template" doesn't know to turn off various portions of itself, but a DNA system DOES INDEED know to not process certain genes even though all of the actual data for each gene may physically pass through the genetic instruction processor.

Thus, DNA processes data, while templates merely replicate it.

And because this fact is true, Man can turn off various genes WITHOUT removing them from a person's DNA (an amazing achievement, actually).

But alas, I hold out absolutely no hope for you to be able to comprehend how DNA works. You've demonstrated a complete and total misunderstanding of DNA in every single one of your posts to date, even after being corrected, so I expect little or no intellectual improvement in your future posts, either. Goodness, I guess you've been "processed" and found wanting...

I agree DNA has inputs (Viral, mutational) I agree DNA has outputs or the express of its structure (animals,plants). DNA does not perform computational functions. DNA is a template just like a crystal.

DNA involves control flow, instructions, and stored state to produce a highly complex output from basic inputs and a complex control program (i.e. the DNA sequences, which constitute software). DNA and its software expressed as sequences constitute a full Turing Machine, capable of arbitrary computation. Actually, DNA is far more capable than a basic Turing machine.

There is strong interest in DNA computation in areas of theoretical computer science because classes NP-complete problems can be solved in polynomial time using DNA.

By your definition, a word-processing program is "just a template" for production of a wide variety of documents stored in a common format, given a sequence of keyboard and mouse inputs. According to your definition, there is no actual computation.

Quote "A true template will repeat itself without change. You can stamp out bricks with a brick template, for instance" Not true the brick template will change over time as it wears. DNA does not change itself but is changed by outside forces. The brick template can be changed by outside forces to change it that doesn't mean the brick template processes the information to make itself change natural forces wear on the template changing it.

Quote "But DNA doesn't just repeat itself. DNA isn't blind. DNA actually PROCESSES the Base 2/Base 4 instruction sets that are represented in its mathematically represented sequences of nucleotides"

Now you are merely repeating something I have already debunked. DNA doesn't process it expresses you read the difference didn't you? Someone has given you some faulty information on DNA. What is it processing and why? What is the purpose of this processing. It replicates itself... yes. But replication is not processing. Replication is what any number of natural processes do and I used Crystals as an example of a natural replicating molecule DNA is another example of a natural replicating molecule.

Quote "Likewise, when we are creating new medicines in the lab, we insert EXIT SUB commands into the beginning of particular genetic instruction sets in order to effectively "turn off" entire genes"

Now you are discussing genes not DNA and genes while made up of DNA are a different animal entirely. If you want to move into how genes function we will have to change what we are arguing. Are genes the processing units or is DNA? If this is the case then you should look at a gene as the processing unit and the DNA as the Memory. In this your argument would have more merit but in the end it would be just as flawed. The Gene doesn't know to turn itself off the DNA does so because someone inserted a DNA marker that doesn't allow the gene to function any longer. The same can be done with any molecule which is self replicating (adding a new chemical signature into a crystal will turn off its growth (this is how computer scientists grow crystals for specific applications). This is not processing information this is merely cutting off the machine (in fact any human intervention in this way is actually intelligent design of Humans rather than evidence for a creator). Returning to your brick template if the brick maker were to insert a cap onto the brick template the template would no long be able to make bricks.

Does this mean that the Brick template is processing the fact it has been capped no. The brick template has been acted upon by an outside force changing its function.

Quote "Now, a "template" doesn't know to turn off various portions of itself, but a DNA system DOES INDEED"

The DNA knows nothing it is a complex chemical reaction, it is a complex template but it is not a computer or a processor it could be called an expresser for lack of another term. DNA reaches a portion of it's template that does not allow it to replicate further it is not processing it is merely following the information already present.

Your examples continue to involve humans changing DNA to act as tools that is merely human intervention and creation not a creator God. You should try to argue by finding natural ways DNA acts to change its template rather than trying to argue your point by saying humans do such and such. Example the fact that an man once invented a spear by cutting down a tree does not mean that the tree or the spear are evidence of the creator of the Man.

Your insults are ineffectual and they really make you look like your losing the argument at least to people reading this.

Quote "By your definition, a word-processing program is "just a template" ."

Yes it is a template the word processing program is a misnomer it processes nothing as it is merely a template it requires a computer processor to function. It also will not function without outside input nor will the program itself do the processing. Your DNA computers do not process the information they merely store information fed into them by human programmers. It takes human intervention to process this information.

DNA nor crystals need this sort of processor to function as they are not computer programs but merely natural chemical reactions acting in accordance to natural stimuli. If they resemble programs it is because any system that encodes information within itself must to it within the rules of this physical universe. Therefore information must be coded in a uniform way. In DNA information is coded by 4 amino acids in crystals the information is encoded into strings of carbon molecules. You may use DNA as a computational tool but that is not what it is.

"DNA doesn't process it expresses you read the difference didn't you? ... The Gene doesn't know to turn itself off the DNA does so because someone inserted a DNA marker that doesn't allow the gene to function any longer."

Although I seriously doubt that you are capable of seeing your own contradiction above, I will spell it out for the lurkers.

DNA does process instruction sets and data, and it is BECAUSE DNA is processing, rather than merely repeating as would a blind template, that DNA knows to ignore an entire gene when we place a genetic marker (in this case the computer programming equivilent of EXIT SUB) at the beginning of the gene's data.

No, of course the gene per se doesn't know to turn itself off. The gene is merely data (and commands, of course). But the DNA system reads, processes, and acts on the commands and data contained inside the gene, thus when it sees the EXIT SUB genetic marker, it knows to ignore the rest of the data in that subroutine/gene.

And this is ONLY possible because DNA processes data/commands, contrary to your bizarre and borderline Luddite claims above. Such processing simply DOES NOT OCCUR in mere templates!

You really don't get it, even though I've shown you examples that contradict your poor misunderstandinds as well as posted other sources to further illustrate your own contradictions (heck, I've even quoted you contradicting yourself).

So let me guess, you are just going to endlessly post about how you are right but that no one else understands you?!

What a riot!

Nope I'm not going to endlessly post I am getting tired of your insults. You haven't a clue how DNA or computers work. You are spouting nonsense and continue spouting it even after I have explained why it is wrong a hundred times. You give us alot of techno babble but you haven't explained anything. I have endeavored to make my explanation simple enough that anyone reading can understand them. As such I will state for the record DNA is a self replicating Informational set or template. If you change that template from the outside it will change how it replicates and what it does this is not processing. You ignore that crystals exhibit every trait of computational function you have ascribed to DNA because I can show how crystalline structures arise spontaneously. You merely state Humans can do this or that with DNA to make it function as a computational machine and I have stated making a tool does not make the tool evidence for a God. Humans can also make silicon act as a computational machine does that make the structure of silicon evidence for a creator god?

Unlike you I have a life and need to go away and live it so I can't continue to try to enlighten you as to your short comings. I am sorry you must resort to name calling and personal assaults to make your point but what can I say.

"You haven't a clue how DNA or computers work. You are spouting nonsense and continue spouting it even after I have explained why it is wrong a hundred times."

You haven't been correct yet.

You have posted the bizarre claim (above - this thread) that DNA doesn't process information or commands in genetic data.

That's simply wrong.

If what you said was true, then to completely turn off a gene one would have to remove/erase ALL of the genetic code in said gene.

But we don't have to.

We can (and do) leave the entire gene essentially intact, yet we can still turn it off by adding a single genetic instruction at the beginning of the gene in order to instruct the DNA processor to ignore the remaining commands/data in whatever gene we wish to turn off.

Thus, we can completely turn off a gene without erasing it from the DNA system, and this is ONLY POSSIBLE because DNA processes commands/data/information.

There is no other explanation. You are welcome to babble on about how DNA doesn't process anything, but get real, you aren't fooling anyone but yourself.

What I've posted above is logically infallable. You can't touch it. There is simply no way for you to explain how a gene can be turned off without either erasing or deleting it, EXCEPT to say what I've been saying all along, that DNA processes data/commands (including commands that tell the DNA to skip the rest of the gene).

It's a proven Turing Machine (and more), for crying out loud!

Come on man, snap out of your funk! This is science! This is how DNA works!

". . . the Greeks worked out the Earth was round more than 2000 years ago."

You mean Eratosthenes of Cyrene, that old "fool" who believed in Zeus?

By his won inscription: "Happy art thou, Ptolemy, in that, as a father the equal of his son in youthful vigour, thou hast thyself given him all that is dear to muses and Kings, and may be in the future, O Zeus, god of heaven, also receive the sceptre at thy hands. Thus may it be, and let any one who sees this offering say 'This is the gift of Eratosthenes of Cyrene'."

Man. Anyone who invokes the name of a god must be a real "threat" to science.

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