How the DNA evidence demonstrates the existence of the Creator
Signature of the Designer
By Vince
Latorre
Has someone taught you that science and belief in God just don’t mix? When you look at all the apparent complexity and design around you, do you take refuge in the idea that no intelligence was needed, but just random processes, to create what we see in nature? I invite you today to take a closer look at what science has uncovered recently about DNA and the origin of life on earth.
Let’s start with DNA, short for Deoxyribonucleic Acid. In this complex molecule is encoded all the information needed to build a complete organism, be it microbe or man. DNA is literally the instruction manual, and provides the instructions for constructing proteins, RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) and other molecules. DNA itself is a molecule which is a chain of building blocks called Nucleotides, which are chained together like rungs on a ladder, called a double helix. There are 4 kinds of bases in each DNA molecule, chained together along a sugar/phosphate backbone. These bases are called adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C) and Thymine (T). These 4 bases function like letters in a code, and a combination of three of these letters, called a codon, codes for one of 20 different kinds of amino acids, which themselves are the building blocks of proteins. So, the letters A, G, C, and T function much like computer codes consisting of 1’s and 0’s.
Protein Synthesis-a complex process
Now for many of you this is boring scientific review. You may also be familiar with the basic steps of how a protein is constructed in a cell, called protein synthesis. This is the process by which DNA instructions are translated in the cell to build different proteins and enzymes, which are critical in building the whole organism. Here is a very simplified version of the process of protein synthesis:
A sequence of DNA is unwound into single strands, which are then copied, called transcription, by a large protein molecule which is an enzyme called RNA polymerase. The DNA is transcribed into an identical copy but in an RNA configuration, RNA having the same bases as DNA except that Uracil (U) is substituted for Thymine (T). This RNA molecule that is the copy of the DNA is called Messenger RNA, or m-RNA, and after it is created, the DNA is reconnected, and the messenger RNA molecule moves from the chromosome where the DNA is located, out into the cell.
The next step in protein synthesis is called translation. This takes place in the ribosome, itself a complex molecular machine of over 50 separate proteins and three RNA molecules. A group of three RNA bases on another molecule called a transfer RNA (t-RNA) bind to complementary molecules on the messenger RNA that is attached to the ribosome. The other end of the Transfer RNA consists of an amino acid. As the transfer RNAs bond to the messenger RNA, the amino acids on the opposite ends of the transfer RNA line up, and they are linked together by yet more proteins that are enzymes, to form a growing protein chain. When the signal for termination of the protein chain is reached on the messenger RNA, the newly assembled protein is separated from the ribosome
.
This is an extremely simplified explanation of the process of how a cell constructs a protein. For a more complete explanation see (1)
The marvelous process of DNA replication
DNA also needs to be copied, or replicated, in a cell. In DNA replication more than 30 proteins are involved. The double stranded helix of the DNA molecule is unzipped to expose two single strands that are both individually copied. What is remarkable about this process is the speed and precision at which it occurs. DNA is a long, double stranded molecule, very long but very thin. To illustrate its dimensions, we will look at a cell in the human body. A single cell in our body is so small you could fit about 10,000 on a pinhead. Yet if you unwound all the DNA in that cell, it would stretch out to about 6 feet long! Or imagine that the cell were the size of a basketball. The DNA in that basketball size cell would be 125 miles long when stretched out! Now picture a process where this imaginary DNA strand that is 125 miles long is unzipped and unwound, copied, and then wrapped back up inside the basketball sized cell, many times a second, without tangling! Now, envision this process just happening to come about by random chance, instead of skillful design!
The unparalleled storage capacity of the DNA molecule
Let’s look further at the amazing information storage capacity of the DNA molecules in our bodies. I am following the specifications given by physicist Jay Seegert (2).
There are trillions of cells in the human body. If you string all the DNA in these cells end to end, it would reach around the circumference of the earth 14 million times, or about 473,000 times the distance from the earth to the moon ( which is about 240,000 miles). Yet all this DNA is so thin that the entire amount in the human body would fit inside the volume of about two aspirin tablets!
How much information can DNA store? Just from one cell, the DNA information if all written out, would fill about one thousand 500 page books. Here’s one more example. All the knowledge stored in all the libraries of the world is estimated to be about 10 to the 15th power bits of information. If this was stored on a DNA molecule, it could fit into a volume equal to 1% of a pinhead. A whole pinhead’s volume of DNA can store 40 million times the information that can be stored in an 100 gigabyte computer hard drive! Yet could such an unequaled information storage system, vastly superior to any man made system, have come about without any intelligence involved? That seems quite preposterous.
How did the information in the DNA molecule originate?
DNA has a storage capacity millions of times better than the best man- made storage devices. So, when and how did this remarkable molecule originate? First, we need to understand that the information in a DNA molecule is like the information in a book. There are three ways to approach this problem:
1. DNA was put together by chance processes coupled with some type of natural selection processes,
2. DNA was assembled according to chemical laws which make the DNA and protein building blocks bind together in a preferred order, without intelligent guidance, or
3. The information in DNA was created and designed by an intelligent being.
Let’s look at the plausibility of each of these options:
Could it be by chance plus natural selection?
Human genome printed
DNA is actually a sequence of chemical “letters” that act as a language convention that when translated yields proteins in very specific sequences. It has similar features to a computer language, and is an advanced digital code that is also error correcting, and has redundancy. These features are only found in intelligently designed computer languages, and do not come about by chance. Languages also never originate by chance with no intelligent minds involved. This is because there has to be a pre-arranged code as to which set of letters translate into a particular meaning, whether it be an English word and its meaning, or a DNA” word” translating into a particular amino acid or sequence of amino acids in a particular protein.
For example, if we have a machine that spits out English letters, we may by chance get the sequence DOG or CAT. So has chance here produced information? No, because if someone from China who hasn’t learned the English language looks at these words, they will be meaningless because they don’t know the pre-arranged English language convention where these words mean certain animals. Ask any information engineer, and they will tell you that language conventions absolutely do not originate by chance! Mathematician and information scientist Andrew McIntosh states:
“The major obstacle to evolutionary theories of origins is that information cannot be defined in terms of physics and chemistry. The ideas in a book are not the same as the paper and ink, which constitute the book…Meaning cannot spontaneously arise, since meaning presupposes intelligence and understanding. To argue that this {information in the DNA} came by chance is scientifically preposterous.” (3) So how can a DNA code sequence arise in nature which only is useful after it is translated into a completely different code sequence of amino acids in proteins?
How restricted are the possible functional sequences of DNA or proteins?
There is an even greater problem. We know that in a written language such as English, we can arrange the 26 letters of the alphabet in millions of ways, but only a very small minority of these letter sequences will actually result in a meaningful, grammatically correct sentence. The problem is that it turns out that for a protein to be functional, the amino acids have to be in very specific sequences to fold properly into 3-D configurations that will work in the cell. Just like the possible arrangements of English letters, only a very small percentage of them are the correct sequence, whether for a sentence, or a functional protein.
3 dimensional structure of proteins
Indeed, experiments have been done that show that the probability of getting a biologically functional amino acid sequence of even a very short chain of 100 amino acids is about 1/10 to the 63rd power (note that there are about 1/10 65th power atoms in our galaxy) Proteins can’t perform functions unless they first fold into stable structures. Scientist Douglas Axe did experiments to measure the ratio of the number of 150 amino acid sequences that would fold into stable structures, regardless of whether they are functional proteins, to the whole set of possible 150 amino acid sequences, and came up with a ratio of only 1 /10 to the 74th power! And most proteins typically have hundreds of amino acids, and need other associated protein chains as well, to function. (4)
But let’s be way too generous, and say that instead of a few, there are 100 billion (10 to the 11th power) 100 amino acid proteins that are functional. This in no way is close to reality, but assume it is possible for sake of illustration. There are 20 different kinds of amino acids, and they can be arranged in chains of 100 in 10 to the 130th power different ways. Now make the generous assumptions that 1 billion trillion (10 to the 21st power) of these proteins can be assembled every second, for 5 billion years (10 to the 17th power seconds). The chance of getting one of these chains that will work as an enzyme is 10 to the 21st x 10 to the 17th x 10 to the 11th/10 to the 130th power, or a probability of 1/10 to the 81st power. Most scientists set a probability of 1/10 to the 50th power or lower, as impossible!
There is another hurdle for chance processes. All amino acids must form a chemical bond called a peptide bond with one another in order to fold into a protein. There are many other types of chemical bonds that can form between amino acids, so that there is about a 50/50 chance that the bond will be a peptide bond. So for a chain 150 amino acids long the chance of all the bonds that form being peptide bonds is 1/10 to the 45th power.
Optical isomers of amino acids
There is yet another obstacle to chance. Amino acids come in “right handed” and “left handed” forms, called optical isomers, which are equally likely to be incorporated into a growing protein chain. Yet only proteins with all “left- handed” amino acids are functional. (nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, also come in right and left handed forms, and in the case of DNA, only right handed forms are found in living cells) Again, a protein consisting of 150 amino acids with only “left handed” forms would have a chance of 1/10 to the 45th power of forming by chance. So that when you put all these together, to get a functional protein of 150 amino acids ends up being 1/ 10 to the 45th plus 45th plus 74th equals 1/10 to the 164th power!
But wait, couldn’t these 150 AA long chains have developed from shorter chains? Stephen Meyer in his book Signature in the Cell, lists the problems with this idea:
1.A protein needs to be at least 50 amino acids long to attain complex folding or “tertiary “structure.
2. There are physical reasons why proteins with small tertiary structure cannot be gradually transformed into ones with larger tertiary structure, as this would require many simultaneous amino acid changes, which present the same types of probability barriers.
The few shorter protein chains that have been found are dependent on larger folded proteins structures for their function. (5)
What about the Stanley Miller Experiment, and similar scenarios?
Another problem is that there are many environmental factors that make the origin of life scenarios such as the famous Stanley Miller Experiment totally unrealistic. Here are a few of those:
Origin of life experiment apparatus
A. These experiments assumed the wrong composition of the early atmosphere-they postulated a “reducing” atmosphere without oxygen, composed of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. But evidence now shows an early atmosphere of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water vapor, and free oxygen. The presence of the free oxygen would degrade any biomolecules. (6)
B. There is no evidence for the so-called “prebiotic soup”. Molecular biologist Michael Denton: “Rocks of great antiquity have been examined over the past two decades and in none of them has any trace of abiotically produced organic compounds been found… Considering the way the pre-biotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.” (7)
C. Most of the products made in Miller’s experiment would have been toxic to any cell with DNA and other biomolecules.
D. The chemical reaction for the formation of a chain of amino acids would go in the wrong direction in the presence of a lot of water. AA+AA=Protein chain +H2O is the equation, so water would drive this reaction to split rather than form a protein chain. (8)
So as we can see, random chance in any form could not produce DNA or proteins as we know them.
But what about natural selection? Doesn’t that take the products of chance and eliminate those that are not fit to function? Can DNA or proteins be formed by a process of chance plus natural selection?
For natural selection to operate, you need a self-replicating entity (in fact you need at least 2) so you can’t explain the creation of a self-replicating molecule or any other entity from natural selection-it already has to be there! Theodosius Dobzhansky, a well- known evolutionist, made a statement that is still valid today: “…Natural selection is differential reproduction, organism perpetuation. In order to have natural selection, you have to have self-reproduction or self-replication and at least two distinct self-replicating units or entities…I would like to plead with you, simply, realize you cannot use the words ‘natural selection’? loosely. Prebiological natural selection is a contradiction of terms.” (9, emphasis mine)
More on the idea of a self-replicating molecule later in this article when we get to the RNA world hypothesis.
DNA-a self-organizing molecule?
Let’s explore another proposed explanation besides chance. Could it be that existing chemical laws make the building blocks of DNA bind together in a preferred order, to produce the complex code and decoding machinery we see in living cells today? In other words, are information- packed DNA molecules self-organizing, so that the information in them results from chemical laws, such as the structure of a crystal, or a snowflake’s design?
It turns out that the kind of information that we see in DNA is not the repetitive pattern that we see in a crystal or the invariably six- pointed design of a snowflake. Crystals and snowflakes form their patterns because of fixed chemical laws, but the information in a DNA molecule is very complex and more importantly, non-repetitive and specific. This kind of information does not form spontaneously any more than words of the English language form when we splash ink onto a piece of paper. Leslie Orgel, one of the leading origin- of- life researchers of the 20th century, states: “Living things are distinguished by their specific complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.” (10)
Physicist Paul Davies: “ We now know that the secret of life lies not with the chemical ingredients as such, but with the logical structure and organizational arrangement of the molecules…it is the software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware…How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software? Nobody knows… There is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing.” (11).
DNA structure
If you look at the structure of DNA, it is a double stranded molecule with a sugar/phosphate backbone, like a ladder. The four types of bases that comprise the “letters” of DNA are across from each other and weakly bonded together. But on the long axis, where the information is distributed, there are no connecting bonds at all! As science writer Dr. Stephen Meyer states: “Note that no chemical bonds link the nucleotide bases in the longitudinal message-bearing axis of the molecule. Note also that the same kind of chemical bonds link the different nucleotide bases to the sugar-phosphate backbone of the molecule. These two features of the molecule ensure that any nucleotide base can attach to the backbone at any site with equal ease, thus showing that the properties of the chemical constituents of DNA do not determine its base sequences.” (12) And of course, these base sequences are exactly where the information to build an organism lies.
Meyer uses the examples of magnetic letters that stick to a metal board to illustrate the concept in his classes. He would bring a magnetic board to class with a message spelled out on it with the magnetic letters. Meyers comments on this teaching tool: “I would point out that the magnetic forces between the letters and the metallic surface of the chalkboard explain why the letters stick to the board, just as forces of chemical attraction explain why the nucleotides stick to the sugar-phosphate backbone of the DNA. But I would also point out that there are no significant forces of attraction between the individual letters that determine their arrangement, just are there are no significant forces of attraction between the bases on the information-bearing axis of the DNA molecule. Instead, the magnetic forces between the letters and the chalkboard allow numerous possible letter combinations, some of which convey functional or meaningful information and most of which do not.” (13)
Meyer cites scientist Michael Polyanyi concerning what would happen if the DNA letters bonded in a sequence determined by their chemical properties: “He argued that if the bonding properties of nucleotides determined their arrangement, the capacity of DNA to convey information would be destroyed. In that case, the bonding properties of each nucleotide would determine each subsequent nucleotide and thus, in turn, the sequence of the molecular chain. Under these conditions, a rigidly ordered pattern would emerge as required by their bonding properties and then repeat endlessly, forming something like a crystal. If DNA manifested such redundancy, it would be impossible for it to store or convey much information.” (14)
Which came first, the “chicken or the egg?”
One of the major evidences that refutes both chance and self- organization theories for the origin of life, and demands design, are the many “chicken and egg” scenarios that are found in living cells. By “chicken and egg” scenarios, I mean there is no explanation for their existence unless they were present together always, rather than coming into existence one at a time. The first obvious example is that in the process of protein synthesis, you need protein enzymes to translated and decode the DNA information, but the information to build those protein enzymes is itself encoded in the DNA. So, you need proteins to translate DNA, but you need DNA information translated to get those proteins. Which came first, proteins, or DNA? They both had to be there at the same time. In a moment we will look at a theory that attempts to get around this conundrum, called the RNA world. But in addition, for protein synthesis you also need energy in the form of a molecule called ATP, an energy –rich molecule that provide energy for the process. But this ATP molecule is also produced by an enzyme called ATP synthetase, again needing the translation of more DNA instructions to make this enzyme. But this is only the beginning.
The ribosome which is the site of protein synthesis is composed of at least 50 proteins and three different kinds of RNA. The instructions to build the ribosome are also encoded in the DNA. The ribosome has to have the right configuration and geometry for the transfer RNA with the amino acid attached to bind to the messenger RNA and have the amino acids on the other end of the transfer RNA line up correctly. Physical chemist Dr. Jonathan Sarfati comments: “The tRNA adaptor molecules must have exactly the right geometry to 1) hold the amino acids in a position where they can form a peptide bond and 2) place the anticodon in the right place on the mRNA. Correct geometry of the adaptors only works in the context of the ribosome (they either had to evolve together, which is problematic to the point of being impossible, or they were engineered together by a brilliant Designer).” (15) (emphasis mine)
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York, an atheist and anti-creationist, nevertheless admits there is a “chicken and egg” problem: “…we are indeed facing a classic chicken-egg problem. If the proteins appeared first and …could eventually catalyze the formation of nucleic acids, how was the information {that was} necessary to produce the proteins themselves coded? On the other hand, if nucleic acids came first, thereby embodying the information necessary to obtain proteins, by what means were the acids replicated and translated into proteins?” (16)
Chaperonins
When a protein chain is finished, it must fold correctly to function. Cellular machinery called chaperonins enable this. But these chaperonins are also proteins that are specified by DNA instructions. These chaperonins also reject mis-folded proteins. So how would protein evolution take place? How did the first chaperonins fold correctly, without other chaperonins already there?
Two more conundrums: DNA synthesis and Histidine
DNA itself is synthesized by sophisticated cellular protein machinery, but the DNA contains the instructions for building that cellular machinery. Which came first, the DNA, or the cell? Each depends on the other. Author Dave Hunt give a further example: “the enzymes that make the amino acid histidine themselves contain histidine. Which came first-the histidine, or the enzymes that manufacture it (which themselves contain histidine)?” (17)
Enzyme catalysts
Protein enzymes are also needed to speed up the creation of DNA and RNA building blocks. Without the enzymes, the chemical reactions to create these would be too slow for life to exist. For example, an enzyme that speeds up the reaction creating the building blocks of DNA and RNA by 10 to the 18th power times. Without this very specifically structured enzyme, the reactions would take 78 million years! Yet these enzymes must be there in the very first cell for that cell to survive and pass along its DNA (18)
DNA proofreading machinery
When DNA is copied, called replication, as mentioned above, this requires sophisticated protein machinery. This process needs to be highly accurate for the cell to survive, and is aided by proteins that proof-read and make corrections to the DNA. Yet again, these editing proteins are themselves built from the DNA instructions. How would the information for the editing machinery be transmitted accurately before the editing machinery existed?
Oxygen/Ozone problem
There is yet another chicken- and egg – problem with the early earth scenarios for the making of the building blocks of proteins, such as in the Miller experiment. This is the oxygen/ozone dilemma. If there was free oxygen in the early atmosphere, it would have destroyed any building blocks that formed. But if there were no free oxygen, there would have been no protective ozone layer, and so ultraviolet radiation from the sun would also have destroyed the protein building blocks. Another “Catch 22” situation!
The Cell and its components
Finally, which came first, the cell or its parts? Biologist Dr. Jerry Bergman comments, speaking of a cell and its parts: “ The parts could not evolve separately…Even if they existed, the many parts needed for life could not sit idle waiting for other parts to evolve, because the existing ones would usually deteriorate very quickly…For this reason, only an instantaneous creation of all the necessary parts as a functioning unit can produce life.. A cell can come only from a functioning cell and cannot be built up piecemeal…” (19) (emphasis mine)
The RNA World hypothesis
As I mentioned above, one proposed solution to the chicken/egg problem that seems to be the most popular is called the “RNA World”. It supposedly gets around the problem of needed both DNA and proteins by taking advantage of the fact that the RNA molecule has been found to have some ability to act as a catalyst. What this means is that the RNA world scenario has RNA as both the information-bearing molecule like DNA, and also has RNA taking the place of protein enzymes to catalyze protein synthesis. While this may sound plausible at first, when you go to the laboratory there are multiple problems.
Physical chemist s Dr. Jonathan Sarfati spells out some of them:
A. The building blocks of RNA are very unstable outside the cell. The most stable, ribose, has a half-life of 44 years in cold temperatures such as zero degrees C, and only 73 minutes at 100 degrees C. Adenosine and guanine have half- lives of about a year, uracil about 12 years, and cytosine 19 days. (20) They are also destroyed quickly in 100-degree water, which is a problem for the “warm little pond” theories.
B. All the difficulties with DNA formation, such as the presence of water driving the polymerization reaction the wrong way, needing to have RNA nucleotides that are all “right-handed” to have a functional molecule (note that for proteins, it is the opposite, the amino acid building blocks need to be all “left handed”), and competing reactions.
C. Even if an RNA polymer could form, it would need to be able to replicate without a pre-existing templates or enzymes, as in modern experiments, and without error-correcting proteins, which are necessary to get the kind of replication accuracy needed for survival of the cell.
D. RNA has only very limited catalytic properties, and could not perform the functions needed that only protein enzymes with their specialized active sites, can provide.
E. How could the RNA based organism transition to give rise to the DNA and protein coding machinery we see in cells today?
F. The same problem as with DNA- where does the specified information come from? Especially before replication could happen?
This is only a sample of the many problems with the RNA world scenario, which prompted origin-of -life RNA world leading researcher Dr. Gerald Joyce to state: “ The most reasonable assumption is that life did not start with RNA…The transition to an RNA world, like the origins of life in general , is fraught with uncertainty and is plagued by a lack of experimental data.” (21)
For a more detailed discussion of the RNA world hypothesis and its problems, see Meyer- Signature in the Cell, pages 299-321.
The multidimensionality of DNA demands a designer
It really seems that DNA and proteins demand a designer. We are finding out that DNA is not just a linear, one-dimensional code. Instead what we have in DNA are multiple overlapping codes, more sophisticated than any human- designed software. Here is an illustration to help us appreciate what has been discovered about the DNA instructions:
Imagine your boss at work asks you to write out a set of instructions for building a complex machine, say, a car. But that isn’t enough, this same set of instructions, when read backward, must specify how to build an airplane. And, if you take only every other letter in the same set of instructions, they must specify how to build a copy machine. But your project also demands that you work with other sets of instructions, and so if you take a particular section in the middle of your original instructions and combine them with a section of a separate procedure, the result must be instructions for building a hotel. And each letter in your instructions must also stand for another symbol, so that when the encrypted sequence of these other symbols is put together, they specify instructions for building a television. And on it goes. You are expected to have one set of instructions do all these things and more simultaneously! Still want that job?
Yet this is the kind of complexity scientists are finding in DNA. Multiple overlapping codes and alternative splicing allow a single sequence of DNA to specify multiple functions. Biologist Dr. Robert Carter comments on the ENCODE project: “The ENCODE project was a multi-university, multimillion-dollar, multi-year study designed to determine how much of the human genome was transcribed (turned into RNA, a measure of function). This project demonstrated that, on average, any given letter of the genome is used in six different RNA transcripts…”
“The ENCODE project gave us strong hints that the human genome has a huge amount of alternate splicing. Each part of a ‘gene’, we have learned, can be used in multiple different proteins. Somehow, the body knows how to create different combinations of what were thought to be distinct protein-coding genes and splice them together to create several hundred thousand unique proteins. Not only that, but different cell types can create different proteins from that complicated process. Not only that, but different proteins are produced at different times and, somehow, the cells know what to produce, when to produced it, and under what conditions.” (22) (emphasis mine)
DNA illustration of alternate splicing
Furthermore, what I have referenced above is only the first, or linear dimension. There is a second dimension where one part of the genome affects another part, either directly or through intermediate molecules such as RNA or proteins. This functions like a vast series of internet connections within each cell.
There is a third dimension, and that is in 3- dimensional space. At this level, genes that work together may not be close to each other in the chromosome in 2-dimensional space, but when the chromosome folds, these genes often come close together in 3-dimensional space.
Finally, there is yet a fourth dimension, which is time. This dimension involves changes to the other three dimensions: “The chromosomes are in a particular shape in the nucleus, but that shape changes during development because different cell types need different complements of genes and other genetic instructions. The shape can change in the short term as cells respond to stimuli and unwrap portions of DNA in order to get at buried genes, only to re-wrap that section when the gene is no longer needed.” (23)
Could the existence of such a complex network be explained by chance and a mindless natural selection process? Robert Carter answers: “Hardly, for a simple process of error accumulation and selection could not create a complex, interleaved, four-dimensional system with an amazing amount of data compression and flexibility. And, once that system is in place, it will be seriously threatened by future random changes through mutation….it is fine to imagine small changes to an already-existing, complex system. To use those small changes as an explanation for the origin of the system itself, however, is tantamount to saying there was no intelligence involved in the production of the latest computer operating systems. Yet the genome far surpasses in complexity and efficiency any operating system in the world today.” (24)
Commenting on the RNA world scenario described above, Leslie Orgel and Gerald Joyce, two of the leading origin-of –life researchers , see the problem also: “Without evolution {I. e., prebiotic natural selection}, it appears unlikely that a self-replicating ribozyme could arise, but without some form of self-replication there is no way to conduct and evolutionary search for the first primitive self-replicating ribozyme. “(25)
So, we return to a simple illustration: If I presented you with a book, what would you think of me if I told you that the book just wrote itself, without any intelligence involved? Of course you wouldn’t buy that, and would think me insane! How is that different from thinking that the information in DNA put itself together?
Did mindless energy do it? Author Dave Hunt comments; “Atheists say that belief in God is irrational…What do they offer instead? Something even more incredible and outrageous. Their “god” is energy that operates by “natural selection.” If this is true, energy logically must have all of the qualities of the God of the Bible: it must be self-existent, without beginning or end, and it must be free from all laws-from the lawmaker that put in place the law of gravity and all of the other laws of chemistry and physics. Energy must have been able to plan the atomic weights and structure of the elements, put together the chemical periodic table, impose the rules from chemical bonding upon matter, and organize every elementary particle in such a way that atoms produce molecules that can form themselves into living cells. Though lifeless itself, energy… must be the source of all life. It must conceive and put down in writing on DNA the “architects plans”, as {atheist Richard} Dawkins calls them, for construction and operating every incredible nano-chemical machine within every functioning cell- ‘information and complexity which surpass human understanding’…programmed into a space smaller than an invisible speck of dust’ Though impersonal and incapable of thought, the god “energy” must have created personal beings who can reason about it, though it cannot reason about them. These are only some of the personal, thinking qualities that energy must have in order to qualify as the originator of the universe and life. Obviously, energy can do none of this.”(26)
“One cannot bring truth and meaning out of a mindless expansion of energy.” (27)
Antony Flew, who at one time was one of the world’s most famous atheists, stunned everyone at his last public debate by declaring his belief in God! He explained what prompted his change of mind in a book: “What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce {life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily divers elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the way they work together… which looked to me like the work of intelligence. “(28) (emphasis mine)
So how do we relate to this amazing intelligent Creator? How can we “make our peace” with God? The Bible tells us how:
Our predicament
God is holy, all-knowing and pure. To be in His presence therefore requires perfect purity and sinlessness (Matthew 5:48), because His very presence would destroy anything less, much as the bright sun can’t help eliminating darkness. This means the best of us, based on our own imperfect merits and record of deeds, would not be allowed to live in His presence for eternity (Romans 3:23).
God’s solution and our response
But the whole Bible demonstrates how God solved our dilemma for us. God solved our sin problem in the person of Jesus Christ, by His dying on the cross, and rising from the dead, to pay the penalty for our sins and to purchase a place in heaven for us (Isaiah 53:6). We can be completely forgiven and made blameless and fit for heaven by trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ (Acts 16:30). We don’t get to heaven by trying to perfect ourselves by our own efforts―which we cannot do―but by our trusting solely in the redemption provided by Jesus Christ, who is both God and perfect man. He offered himself on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2). Therefore, our subsequent good deeds are done not to earn heaven, but in gratitude for what God has already done for us (Ephesians 2:8-10).
The Bible is complex, but the message is simple
We are in need of God’s forgiveness, and we need to acknowledge our unworthiness. We have broken God’s laws and fallen short of His perfect standard. We need to be willing to turn from whatever God shows us is wrong in our lives (this is called repentance) and put our trust in the finished work of Christ on the cross to save us (Romans 3:20-28). It is praying a prayer, confessing to Him that we are sinners, transferring our trust from ourselves and our own works to Jesus Christ alone and His finished work of atonement on the cross for us. It is inviting Him into our hearts and lives, in our own words (Romans 10:8-10). There is no other way to be able to live in the presence of a loving, just, holy God. To be away from His presence for eternity is called hell―the only state of existence left for those who choose to exclude God from their lives. God will give each of us our choice.
Don’t wait, change your mind and trust Jesus as your Savior today, while that amazing heart God created in you is still beating!
Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY 2009, pp.120-131.
Jay Seegert, Creation & Evolution-Compatible or in Conflict, Master Books, Green Forest, AZ, 2014, pp.100-101.
McIntosh, Andrew- essay in In Six Days-why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, edited by John Ashton, Sydney, New Holland, 2000.
Axe, Douglas, Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting functional Enzyme Folds, Journal of Molecular Biology, 341 (2004) 1295-315.
Meyer, Stephen, Signature in the Cell, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY 2009, p527-528
Ibid., p224.
Denton, Michael, Evolution, a Theory in Crisis, Adler and Adler, Bethesda, MD, 1985, p. 261.
Meyer, p 224-226.
T. Dobzhansky, quoted in Schramm, G, Discussion of Synthesis of Nucleosides…., The Origins of Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices, pp.309-310, New York, NY 1963.
Orgel, Leslie, The Origins of Life, John Wiley, New York, p 189, 1973.
Davies, Paul, Life Force, New Scientist, 163(2204):27-30, 1999.
Meyer, p 242.
Meyer, p. 244.
Meyer, p. 240.
Quote from Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Evolution’s Achilles Heels, Edited by Robert Carter, PHD, Creation Book Publishers, Powder Springs, GA, 2014, p. 89.
Massimo Pigliucci, Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science (Sunderland, MA Sinauer Assoc., 2002, p. 209.
Dave Hunt, Cosmos, Creator, and Human Destiny, -Answering Darwin, Dawkins, and the New Atheists, The Berean Call, Bend, OR, 2010, p. 171.
Jonathan Sarfati, Evolution’s Achilles Heels, pp. 93-94.
Dr. Jerry Bergman, essay in In Six Days-why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, edited by John Ashton, Sydney, New Holland, pp17-20.
Jonathan Sarfati, Evolution’s Achilles Heels, p. 99-101, see also reference 71-Levy & Miller, the Stability of the RNA Bases, Proc Nat. Acad. Sci, USA 95 (14) 7933-7938, 1998.
Joyce, G. F. RNA evolution and the origins of life, Nature, 338:217-224, 1989.
Robert Carter, Evolution’s Achilles Heels, pp 57, 59.
A new look at how genes unfold to enable their expression, PhysOrg.com, 14 July 2008, as quoted in Evolution’s Achilles Heels, page 62.
Robert Carter, Evolution’ s Achilles Heels, p. 63.
Joyce, Gerald, and Leslie Orgel, Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1993.
Dave Hunt, Cosmos, Creator, and Human Destiny, -Answering Darwin, Dawkins, and the New Atheists, The Berean Call, Bend, OR, 2010, p.147-148.
Ibid., p. 163.
Antony Flew, There is A God; How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, New York: Harper One, 2007, p. 75.