|
Feedback archive
→ Feedback
2009
Answering uninformed atheists on DNA complexity
Published: 28 February 2009(GMT+10)
A model of ATP synthase, which alone confounds attempts of atheists to deny DNA complexity.
First, Matthew S (Australia) asks us to answer some questions from a poorly informed
evolutionist, which allows CMI to explain the design of the DNA code. Then Patrick
A, USA, tells us how a CMI article on life’s complexity was very useful.
Matthew S (Australia):
Before I ask any questions I would just like to say how much I truly appreciate
your work. As a college science student in and away from the class room I am constantly
bombarded by evolution and your efforts go a long way to helping me to stand my
ground as a young earth creationist. Recently I was on Facebook and partaking in
a conversation about the creation of new information in the genome. This is what
one fellow said and I was hoping that you may be able to help me see where he went
wrong:
“On the first issue: changes simply to what information there is can create
‘new’ information. For example, let’s simplify: all genomes are
eight binary digits long (I know, massive). Conveniently all eight-digit binary
numbers can be represented as a number between 0 and 255 inclusive. So let’s
say all life is somewhere between 128 and 255 (i.e. it has a genome of 1xxxxxxx).
It’s possible for the first digit to ‘mutate’ to 0, causing a
completely new set of information—numbers 0–127. There is so much
information in DNA and it’s used in so many places in the body that growing
a new limb can happen indeed as interpreting x2 as x3; OR it could be a new TYPE
of limb generated because of a mutation to the ‘finger’ code that makes
it look like ‘tentacle’—or possibly even something we don’t
even have a name for.
On the question of first cause, it does need a base. The base for DNA is protein,
and the base for protein is amino acids and the base for amino acids is nitrogen.
[ctd…][ctd…] I’m not a biochemist but the formation of amino
acids by lightning (or similar) from natural minerals has been shown; as has the
formation of proteins from amino acids. Sure, nobody’s shown the formation
of DNA from proteins in the lab, but that’s can be a matter of chance. All
it takes is the right combination and sufficient energy. Early earth surely had
the energy—lightning, high-pressure high-temperature lava flows etc—and
evidently it had the right combination. The question is: why did that combination
appear here?
The answer to that question is generally given as the anthropic principle. Nitrogen
exists on probably every planet in the universe. There are hundreds of billions
of these; and on all of them, there is energy. And on whichever of them has the
right combination, so appears life, which may eventually grow to ask ‘why
here?’ The answer is: ‘because it was likely to happen somewhere, and
wherever it appears, that’s where we are, so that’s why we see it.’”
So that’s it. I would appreciate your input
Yours in Christ
Thanks Matthew
Glad you like our work. May I ask, what books of ours have you read? [Ed. note:
he responded that he has By Design
(among other things) but lent it to a friend before reading it.]
There is a lot of hand waving by this respondent.
An 8-bit genome is totally inadequate. So much information is needed for a self-replicating
cell that even the simplest one has over half a megabyte (that’s over 500,000
x 8 bits) of information in its DNA—see How Simple Can Life Be? For an example, consider the energy source alone,
ATP, made by the world s tiniest
motor.
Leading atheist Richard Dawkins himself admits:
“[T]here is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.” [The Blind Watchmaker, cited in my book
Refuting Evolution, ch.
9]
DNA information requires a complex decoding machine, the ribosome, but the instructions
to build ribosomes are on the DNA—‘vicious circles’ for any materialistic
origin theory.
Just as the Britannica had intelligent writers to produce its information,
so it is scientific to believe that the information in the living world
likewise had an original Writer. Furthermore, the DNA information requires a complex
decoding machine, the ribosome, but the instructions to build ribosomes
are on the DNA. And decoding requires energy from ATP, built by ATP-synthase motors,
built from instructions in the DNA decoded by ribosomes … “vicious
circles” for any materialistic origin theory, as leading philosopher of science
Karl Popper put it (see also
Self-replicating enzymes? A critique of some current evolutionary origin-of-life
models).
The non-Christian physicist Paul Davies points out:
“We now know that the secret of life lies not with the chemical ingredients
as such, but with the logical structure and organisational arrangement of the molecules….
Like a supercomputer, life is an information processing system…. It is the
software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware.”
He says:
“How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software? … Nobody
knows … ” [Life force, New Scientist 163(2204):27–30,
18 September 1999. See also
Huff and Bluff: Can quantum magic save chemical evolution?]
I met dozens of people [at an American Atheists conference] who were dead sure that
evolutionary theory was correct though they didn’t know a thing about adaptive
radiation, genetic drift, or even plain old natural selection. They came to their
Darwinism via a commitment to naturalism and atheism not through the study of science.—evolutionist
Gordy Slack
The critic is clueless about biochemistry when he says “The base for DNA is
protein”. DNA is made from nucleotides, not amino acids (which make
up proteins). There are numerous chemical problems with the origin of life from
non-living chemicals; see for example “Loopholes
in the evolutionary theory of the origin of life: Summary”, or for
something more advanced, see these
evolutionary criticisms of the RNA-world hypothesis. My
By Design book has a whole chapter on the origin of life, refuting all
notions of chemical evolution.
Certainly there are gene switches that control the expression of other genes, called
Hox genes. However, there is obviously more to the differences between
different animals than just switches. Evolution requires some way of generating
the new information that’s to be switched on or off. The information needed
to build a fish fin is vastly different from that needed to build a leg or arm.
By analogy, the same switch on an electric outlet/power socket can turn
on a light or a laptop, but this hardly proves that a light evolved into a laptop!
Indeed, actual mutations in Hox genes have been shown to be harmful. Even
in articles and TV programs touting Hox changes as proof of evolution, they could
only come up with an extra functionless pair of wings on flies, or a functionless
leg where the antenna should be (antennapedia). (See also
Argument: Some mutations are beneficial from
Refuting Evolution 2.
The anthropic principle is vacuous as stated. It’s like being the only survivor
in your town of a deadly plague epidemic; someone asked you how you were the only
survivor, and you reply, “Well, if I didn’t survive, I wouldn’t
be here to talk about it.” That is not an explanation of anything.
The 2007 article ‘Life’s Irreducible Structure’ by Alex Williams
was one of the most lucid I’ve ever read on the subject.
The whole approach of the critic reminds me of an honest statement by the evolutionary
science writer Gordy Slack in
What neo-creationists get right: An evolutionist shares lessons he’s learned from
the Intelligent Design camp [The Scientist, June 2008]
Which leads me to a final concession to my ID foes: When they say that some proponents
of evolution are blind followers, they’re right. A few years ago I covered
a conference of the American Atheists in Las Vegas. I met dozens of people there
who were dead sure that evolutionary theory was correct though they didn’t
know a thing about adaptive radiation, genetic drift, or even plain old natural
selection. They came to their Darwinism via a commitment to naturalism and atheism
not through the study of science. They’re still correct when they say evolution
happens. But I’m afraid they’re wrong to call themselves skeptics unencumbered
by ideology. Many of them are best described as zealots. Ideological zeal isn’t
incompatible with good science; its coincidence with a theory proves nothing about
that theory’s explanatory power.
This was after he had admitted:
I think it is disingenuous to argue that the origin of life is irrelevant to evolution.
It is no less relevant than the Big Bang is to physics or cosmology. Evolution should
be able to explain, in theory at least, all the way back to the very first organism
that could replicate itself through biological or chemical processes. And to understand
that organism fully, we would simply have to know what came before it. And right
now we are nowhere close. I believe a material explanation will be found, but that
confidence comes from my faith that science is up to the task of explaining, in
purely material or naturalistic terms, the whole history of life. My faith is well
founded, but it is still faith.
In Christ
Jonathan Sarfati,
Ph.D.
Patrick A, USA:
Someone gave me a recording of a scientist (a creationist whose name I don’t
recall) giving a lecture on DNA, mutations, etc., which forever convinced me that
evolution is an untenable theory. However, it was almost thirty years ago that I
listened to that lecture. So last year I thought I would get on the web and see
if there was any new information out there from the evolution camp…well,
there was nothing—no kidding. So I read every book I could get my
hands on regarding the current state of affairs from the creationist viewpoint and
was blown away by the wealth of data that was coming in support of biblical truth.
Now more than ever creationists should be getting a hearing … yet, strangely,
evolutionists are making more noise than ever. I really believe that Darwinian (neo
or otherwise) evolution is one of the most spectacular delusions ever foisted on
mankind—the Devil has done some fine work. Thank you all for taking up the
fight and giving me and many others hope. And, by the way the 2007 article “Life’s
Irreducible Structure” by Alex Williams was one of the most lucid I’ve
ever read on the subject—including
Behe.
[Ed. Note: see Part 1: autopoiesis
and Part
2: naturalistic objections from Journal of Creation]
Related articles
Further reading
Related resources
|
