The Information in DNA is Best Explained by a Creator

 

Dennis Edwards

Where does the information in the DNA come from? Option One: From a purely undirected, unguided, purposeless material process. Option Two: It is the product of some kind of designing intelligence.

Our bodies not only have irreducibly complex biological machines at work in each and every cell, but each cell has a DNA molecule which holds the information needed for the cell to reproduce itself, repair itself, etc. The DNA is an information code, the computer code of the cell. Where did the information, the computer code we find in the DNA molecule come from? Information Scientist Dr Werner Gitt in his book In the Beginning Was Information tells us,

"There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.” [1] 

Therefore, where does the information in the DNA come from? 

Dr Stephen Meyer, a proponent of the Intelligent Design hypothesis, has written extensively on the subject. In his book, The Signature in the Cell, he deals with the problem that specified information, the kind we find in DNA - which is specific and purposeful, gives to the Darwinian Theory of Evolution. He writes, 

“Our uniform experience affirms that specified information – whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book, encoded in a radio signal, or produced in a simulation experiment – always arises from an intelligent source, from a mind and not a strictly material process. So, the discovery of the specified digital information in the DNA molecule provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of DNA. Indeed, whenever we find specified information and we know the causal story of how that information arose, we always find that it arose from an intelligent source. It follows that the best, most causally adequate explanation for the origin of the specified, digitally encoded information in DNA is that it too had an intelligent source. Intelligent Design best explains the DNA enigma.”[2] 

The information encoded in the DNA molecule points decisively to an intelligent source, not an undirected natural process.

Nobel laureate and biochemist E.C. Kornfeld (1919-2012) had a similar thought on the complexity within the cell, when he observed the biological machines at work therein. He wrote,

“While labouring among the intricacies and definitely minute particles in a laboratory, I frequently have been overwhelmed by a sense of the infinite wisdom of God…One is rather amazed that a mechanism of such intricacy could ever function properly at all…The simplest man-made mechanism requires a planner and a maker; how a mechanism ten times more involved and intricate can be conceived as self-constructed and self-developed is completely beyond me.”

Astrophysicist and mathematician Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), who framed mathematically the Steady-State model of the universe and studied the mathematical probabilities of life forming randomly from non-life, made the following comments in his book The Intelligent Universe: 

“There is not a shred of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on earth. Indeed, Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, is one biophysicist who finds this theory unconvincing. So why do biologists indulge in unsubstantiated fantasies in order to deny what is so patently obvious, that 200,000 amino acid chains, and hence life, did not appear by chance. The answer lies in a Theory developed over a century ago, which sought to explain the development of life as an inevitable product of the purely local natural process. Its author, Charles Darwin, hesitated to challenge the Church´s doctrine on the creation, and publicly at least did not trace the implications of his ideas back to their bearing on the origin of life. However, he privately suggested that life itself may have been produced in “some warm little pond,” and to this day his followers have sought to explain the origin of terrestrial life in terms of a process of chemical evolution from the primordial soup. But, as we have seen, this theory simply does not fit the facts.”[3]

In Engineering and Science, he wrote,

“A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intelligence has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”[4]

With the help of his university students, Hoyle calculated the probability of life forming from non-life from some unknown natural process. In his book Evolution from Space he concluded, 

“The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 zeros after it. (Probability scientists consider one to a number with 50 zeros after it impossible, so thousands of zeros would dimmish impossible beyond our ability to imagine. - Dennis) It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole General Theory of Evolution. There was no primordial soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must, therefore, have been the product of purposeful intelligence.”[4]

“We must now admit to ourselves that the probability of life arising by chance by evolution is the same probability of throwing six in dice 5 million consecutive times.”

“Let’s be scientifically honest with ourselves, the probability of life arising to greater and greater complexity and organization by chance is the same probability of having a tornado tear through a junk-yard and form out the other end a Boeing 747.” 

The leaders of today’s scientific community are aware of these difficulties. Because of Hoyle’s vociferous attacks against the idea of life forming from non-life spontaneously, he was denied a Nobel Prize, though he was one of the most prominent astrophysicist and mathematician of his time. So why do scientists ignore the obvious? A Professor of Genetics for many years at Harvard University, Richard Lewontin (1929-2021), candidly reveals the secret.

“We take the side of evolutionary science (that life came from non-life spontaneously) in spite of the patent absurdities of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism, and that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”[6]

In other words, it is their prior belief system and commitment to only materialistic explanations that force the scientists to reject supernational explanations even though the physical evidence is best explained by metaphysical means. They do not want a Divine foot in the door of scholastic thinking. Students would not be so quick to abandon their faith and believe the unsubstantiated evolutionary stories. Richard Dawkins has agreed and said,

“Even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory, we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.”

As far as modern science is concerned, the supernatural does not exist, and should not be considered in a scientific theory. God is out of the question of science and cannot be considered as a mechanism in the search for origins. Even if the data seems to point to a metaphysical or supernatural cause, scientists will defer to an unsubstantiated natural cause, because they do not want to let that Divine foot in the door. Their house of cards might become obvious to everyone and come quickly tumbling down.

However, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) himself touched on the idea of Intelligent Design seen in the universe when he wrote the following:

“A scientist’s religious feelings take the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”[7]

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which, we with our modest powers must feel humble.” 

Some 300 years earlier Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) came to a similar conclusion, but went a bit further along in his thinking, which led him to the God of the Bible and not just the "Universal Consciousness," of Einstein, which Einstein had drawn from the philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677). Newton, considered the greatest scientist of all time in 2005 by the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, wrote,

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being…This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world (as the New Age and Eastern philosophies teach – Dennis), but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion He is wont to be called Lord God, or Universal Ruler.”[8] 

From the DNA, to the biologically complex machines, to the harmony of natural law, to the movement of the celestial bodies themselves, all the evidence points to a Divine Creator God of superior intelligence. God is the best explanation for the information in the DNA molecule and God is the best explanation for the world we see and live in. 

As the psalmist has written, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork,” Psalm 19:1. “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knows right well,” Psalm 139:14. Apostle Paul has similarly concluded, "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse," Romans 1:21.

Notes
[1] Gitt, Werner; In the Beginning Was Information; pg.107, 1994.
[2] Meyer, Stephen; Signature in the Cell, 2009.
[3] Hoyle, Fred; The Intelligent Universe; 1983; p.23.
[4] Hoyle, Fred; Engineering and Science, 1981, p8-12.
[5] Hoyle, Fred; Evolution from Space, 1984.
[6] Lewontin, Richard; Billions and Billions of Demons, 1997, p.97.
[7] Einstein, Albert; The World as I See It, 1922.
[8] Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687.