Where Did the Information in Cells Come from? The DNA of a bacterium contains as much information as a 1000 page book! {Lee M. Spetner, Not by Chance, 1998, p. 30}. What is information? The principle definition in my dictionary is, “knowledge communicated or received….” {Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, 2000, p. 678} Philip Johnson illustrates his definition of information with an egg that becomes a baby something: “By information, I mean a message that conveys meaning, such as a book of instructions.… Information is not matter, though it is imprinted on matter.… Instructions in the fertilized egg control embryonic development from the beginning, and direct it to a specific outcome.”{Philip Johnson, The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism, 2000, p. 123, 134} Information is not produced by the material that carries it Information is not determined by the material it is written on, whether it be paper, a computer, or whatever. The same sheet of paper can be used to draw a comic strip or to write a chemical formula. The same stretch of DNA that carries the commands for brown hair can just as easily hold the commands that will make blond hair; or teeth for that matter! Information comes from minds. My old Encyclopedia Britannica was on a CD. Now I consult a copy on the Internet. The message is independent of the material it happens to be written on. Neither does information depend on the particular set of letters or code it is written in. If this booklet is translated into Chinese, the information will be the same. The information in DNA has been copied onto computers in the Human Genome Project, and printed out on paper. It is the same information no matter what it is written on, in, or with. Many atheists understand, but purposely side step the really difficult question which is, “Where does the information in cells come from?” They substitute made up stories about where one of the materials that caries information might have come from. But there is no way that chance, clay, “organic soup,” or natural selection could invent the chemical code of a first cell, and use it to write information instructing the cell to make just the right proteins, fold them properly, and send each one to the only place in the cell where it will fit. Professor Werner Gitt, who works in the field of information science writes: “There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is there any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.”{Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 1997, p. 79} This statement, if true, destroys the whole basis of the idea that no intelligent mind was involved in the formation of the first life. Is his statement true? All languages, alphabets, and codes that we know of, as well as the information spoken or written in them, originated in minds. The blind faith of the atheist that the first life was an exception is contrary to all known evidence. De Duve, a Nobel Prize winning scientist writes: “{In all modern organisms, DNA contains in encrypted form the instructions for the manufacture of proteins. More specifically, encoded within DNA is the exact order in which amino acids, selected at each step from 20 distinct varieties should be strung together to form all of the organism’s proteins.”{Christian de Duve, “The Beginning of Life on Earth,” American Scientist, Vol. 83, Sept-Oct. 1995, p. 430} Information never happens apart from intelligence, yet cells contain huge amounts of information. I believe this is the most important single evidence that life came from the mind of an intelligent Creator rather than from dumb chemicals. Can matter compose information? Many evolutionists claim that life arose from an “organic soup,” but how could the imagined “organic soup” know the precise order of each of the amino acids of even one protein, let alone that of the hundreds of proteins that a “primitive” cell would have needed to survive? Others claim that RNA came first, perhaps formed by contact with a clay template, and went on to produce the first cell. They imply that the clay passed on the basic information which natural selection later perfected. Neither soup nor clay has this or any other information, and if they did have information, what chance would there have been that it would have been just theinformation the first RNA would need? Why not something simpler, like the directions for repairing an airplane engine or for making more clay? Consider the odds against the right information popping up! Some claim that after the first RNA was formed, the rest of the information came about gradually, one step at a time by mutations. Since each part in a cell depends on other parts, none would work unless others were present. One step at a time would not do. Information always comes from a mind. Therefore the presence of large quantities of organized information in cells is evidence of an intelligent Creator. If clay had really produced a simple RNA, immediately capable of making copies of itself, and later of making proteins, that clay would have been more intelligent than all of today’s origin of life scientists put together. They can’t produce any RNA at all, {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 65, see also p. xix, 63-64, 60} let alone one with these special abilities. Out of millions of possible proteins, the “primitive” RNA would have to have made exactly the proteins a cell would need; properly folded, addressed, regulated, and enclosed in a membrane. The codes which carry the information in DNA and RNA use four nucleotides which work like a four letter alphabet. If that doesn’t sound like enough letters, remember that any message can be written with computers or in Morse Code. Both have alphabets of only two letters. The four nucleotide bases that form the “letters” of the DNA code, can be arranged to spell out the instructions for making all the different proteins. All available evidence indicates that it takes intelligence to devise letters or code, and arrange them into instructions. Some argue that monkeys beating at random on a typewriter or computer keyboard might eventually produce a few recognizable words and that these words would be information. How many words would the monkeys type if no intelligence had invented any language, alphabet, keyboard or computer, and they had to beat on the dirt? Others pretend their computers can make meaningful messages by random processes. Why theirs and not yours or mine? Their computers choose the right letters because they used their intelligence to write a program that chooses letters. Others have claimed that the amount of information depends only on the number of letters; that if you add random letters, instead of creating typographical errors, you increase the information. But not in the book they wrote! Neither would sprinkling ink here and there in their book produce more information. The more ink is sprinkled, the more information is covered up. Those who claim chance occurrences add information confuse static with message in a desperate attempt to save their atheistic faith. Scientists use information as a proof of intelligence Speaking of static, scientists with the SETI institute are using huge radio telescopes to search for messages from “intelligent beings in space.” (The letters “SETI” mean Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.) The first step in their search is to separate between static and message. So far all they have found is static, but if they find a message from space, they say they will have shown that there are intelligent beings out there somewhere because intelligent messages are created only by intelligent beings. If exceptions existed, and intelligent messages could be sent out without any intelligence involved, their whole search would be useless. Dr. Charles Thaxton hits the nail on the head: “If the inference for an intelligent cause for DNA (and for life too, if DNA is truly necessary for life) is in error, then we would likewise be in error to infer the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence upon receipt of intelligible radio messages from deep space. More important, our knowledge of past civilizations provided by archaeologists would be in jeopardy. These supposed “Artifacts” might be, after all, the result of unknown natural causes. Cave paintings, for example…may not be the result of early humans.…Indeed, excavated ancient libraries could not be trusted to contain the works of intelligent men and women.” {24 Charles B. Thaxton, “In Pursuit of Intelligent Causes” Origins & Design, Summer 2001, p. 28-29} Scientists use information as a proof of intelligence because the evidence overwhelmingly supports this position. The information in ancient libraries came from real minds of real people. The far more complex information in cells came from the far more intelligent mind of God. Modern people put symbols in their spacecraft to try to send a message into space that there are intelligent beings on earth. God built cells out of materials so hard to make that in all of nature these materials never form apart from living cells. Into these cells He put information which can only have come from a mind. In doing so, He sent a strong message to all who have minds; a message which helps pry open our stubborn hearts to know Him who said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). For greater detail, see my book, How Life Began. Miniaturization The evidence that an intelligent Creator made the information in DNA is reinforced by the fact that this information takes up the least space possible.{Andrzej Stasiak and John H. Maddocks, “Best packing in proteins and DNA,” Nature, Vol. 406, July 20, 2000, p. 251-252. See also Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 1997, p. 195} This is true not only of human DNA, but also of that in “primitive” cells. After a number of intelligent scientists had worked for many years developing ever better microfilm they fit the entire Bible on one 32 X 33 mm film. Amazing! However, that same space covered with DNA would hold information equivalent to 7.7 million Bibles! {Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 1997, p. 192-194} If DNA was formed with no intelligent input as biology books often imply, why did it take generations of intelligent scientists thousands of man hours to develop the millions of times less efficient microfilm? No matter how strong the atheist’s faith may be, his belief that the information in cells formed with no mind involved is contrary to the evidence. The evidence indicates that the information in DNA was put there by a Creator who is so intelligent that we should listen to everything He has to say.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 18:56:19 +0000