God: Fact or Fiction?: Exploring the Relationship Between Science Religion and the Origin of Life
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So if the sequence in one part of the DNA chain is ATAGGC then the complimentary chain, its partner must be TATCCG. If the combination result looks confusing, just recall the previous facts of the mutual attractions, so that A is attracted to T, and G is attracted to C. Therefore from ATAGGC, the only possible attractions would give the outcome, TATCCG. We have a match!
Once the bases have paired up the new strand twists into its twisted ladder shape, the double helix. The fascinating fact concerning this pairing is that it is not random but predetermined, so that the DNA remains in sequence and is not shuffled like a deck of cards (that would be catastrophic). The DNA bases help scientists to distinguish the DNA code for particular amino acids and proteins. If the code were letters of the alphabet then combinations of them would give us words and sentences. In fact genes, sections of DNA connected together on the DNA strand, can be understood when using a code to identify them. Remember, it takes a mind to understand another mind.
Human Genes Vs Monkey Genes We share 99.9% of the same order of DNA with other humans, but the 0.1% difference translates into several million unique spelling differences in each individual.17 Note the importance of that quote. In comparison the difference between a chimp’s genes and a human’s may only be 2.0 or 3.0%, but the length of the DNA is colossal; it is actually a chain of millions of nucleotides in length and several million unique spelling differences. For sequence specificity the nucleotides must be in a specific sequence or else the system will collapse and the processes will malfunction resulting in severe mutations. Try looking at the different combinations of the genes and without a computer and you will be tearing your hair out!
DNA is thus an information bearing code which is in fact highly integrated, complex, and specific. This inherent specified complexity and irreducible complexity reveal design.
Proteins – 3D Structure One of the smallest particles in existence is an atom, for example oxygen. And when two or more atoms combine you get a molecule, for example carbon and oxygen form carbon dioxide. Some molecules are proteins – an essential element which represents the building blocks – the foundation stones of life as they carry out most critical cell functions. Each protein molecule consists of a sequence of amino acids formed into a long chain; and most consist of several thousand atoms folded into an intricate and extremely complex 3-D structure determined by chemical interactions between amino acids. This precise 3D shape determines the function of the protein.
In order to bind to another protein the shape is paramount so that they will fit each other with a hand-in-glove fit. Additionally to combine there must be a positively charged amino acid on one protein, and a negatively charged amino acid on its partner. This complex folding into a 3D shape is like a paper folded in origami. These 3D proteins and the sequencing of amino acids in conjunction with the amazing complexity and specificity allow the probability of a powerful mind to be the cause. For example, the proteins histone 3 and 4 fold into ‘very well-defined 3D shapes with a precise distribution of positive charges around their exteriors’.18 This enables them to ‘form part of the spool-like nucleosomes that allow DNA to coil efficiently around itself and store information’.19
This hand-in-glove compatibility is like the kid’s game and educational tool where the object is to put specifically shaped toys into particular holes, but only one shape will actually match its corresponding hole. Alternatively, reflect on the fact that wrenches will only work with certain sized nuts. Without this complex compatibility the protein molecules would not function adequately; there would be no opportunity for the proteins to connect properly with the molecules and so your tissues, muscles or organs would not form at all. Therefore you would not exist.
Proteins are unique; here is yet another genetic fingerprint; no two individuals have identical sets of proteins because unique combinations of genes control their synthesis.20
There are at least 30,000 distinct types of proteins. Each is made of different combinations of the same 20 amino acids, which are arranged like letters to form chains of sequenced amino acids.
A very large number and variety of types and shapes of proteins exist, which are astonishingly versatile and undertake quite diverse and complex functions. However they can’t assemble themselves; the nucleic acid, a component of DNA is needed. Like the cell DNA has factory-like structures and processes. You may recall that the nucleus is like the factory Head Office which holds the blueprints. The nucleic acid molecules are those blueprints with each one containing the plans for constructing a particular protein.
Now check out this remarkable statement by Behe where he relates the low probability of a protein forming by chance: He compares the possibility of attaining correct sequencing in a 100 amino acid length protein to the odds of a blindfolded man finding a single marked grain of sand hidden in the Sahara Desert not once, but a staggering 3 times! (You can try this if you really want to, lol.)21
Proteins and Change Meyer illustrates the hurdles that must be overcome to construct even one small protein molecule of about one hundred amino acids in length:22
♦ The probability of building such a protein molecule in which all linkages of the amino acids involve peptide linkages is (1/2)99, or roughly 1 chance in 1030.
♦ In nature every amino acid has a distinct mirror image of itself, one left-handed version, or L-form, and one righthanded version, or D-form. Functioning proteins use only left-handed amino acids, yet the right-handed and lefthanded versions occur in nature with roughly equal frequency. Therefore the probability of building our small protein molecule in which all bonds are peptide bonds and all amino acids are L-form would be roughly 1 chance in 1060.
♦ Functioning proteins must link up in a specific sequence to be meaningful. On the assumption that all sites in a protein chain require one particular amino acid, the probability of obtaining our small protein would be (1/20)100, or roughly 1 chance in 10130.
So that’s pretty small odds. How can we say that nature continually managed to achieve this without the involvement of an Intelligent Designer? But this pales in comparison to what Meyer reveals as the probability of the most basic form of life happening by chance:
Recent theoretical and experimental work on the so-called ‘minimal complexity’ required to sustain the simplest possible living organism suggests a lower bound of some 250 to 400 genes and their corresponding proteins.23 The nucleotide sequence space corresponding to such a system of proteins exceeds 4300,000. The improbability corresponding to this measure of molecular complexity again vastly exceeds 1 chance in 10150, and thus the ‘probabilistic resources’ of the entire universe.24
Amino acids chemically hook together into a complex and specified chain of 50 to about 1,000 amino acid links in sequence which reveals its specified design and thus specified complexity:
Meyer reveals the problems inherent in such a theory as one that relies on chance. Since the theory of Natural Selection involves intention and neo-Darwinism assumes there is no Creator then once again the process is said to be run by chance.
Though the probability of chance is very remote, it is possible – just ask those who won the state lottery (odds for a winner in Mega Million in the US is 176 million to 1). But the probability of chance to continue to produce all the different amino acids, and for the cell to intricately operate with DNA too and thus to support life is even more unlikely merely by chance. It is important to note that those who promote Intelligent Design use this data as corroborative evidence. Taking specified complexity, irreducible complexity and obvious design, contingency and the mathematical probabilities involved then there is such compelling evidence for Intelligent Design.
Jacques Monod, Nobel laureate and molecular biologist reveals the importance of DNA and thus Intelligent Design when he says a code is absolutely needed to understand DNA. Therefore as any teenager will tell you, to have a code you must have a programmer who designed it.
Blood Clotting Another complex function of the protein mo
lecule is blood clotting which needs many interdependent protein parts in order to function – if any of the parts are lacking the process collapses and the blood does not clot at the right time, place or even at all. Hence this reveals irreducible complexity.
Behe analogously indicates that blood clotting is like the creation of patchwork. I like to use the image of a finely spun web, which traps the fly or unsuspecting insect. The protein meshwork entraps blood cells that form the clot. Moreover there is one protein, fibrinogen which makes the fibres for the web, while almost all the others control the timing and placement of the blood clot. Therefore if the clot is in the wrong place or forms at the wrong time then blood could be cut off from a major organ, such as the heart, and you would die. The location of the blood clot is thus critical.
Fibrinogen is one of the integral proteins that exists in blood plasma. Another protein, thrombin, slices off several pieces from two of the three pairs of protein chains in the fibrinogen. The new protein, fibrin2 has sticky patches on its surface like Velcro. The complementary shaped fibrins stick to the sticky patch with long threads forming, and crossing over each other like a fisherman’s net.25
So how does the system of blood clotting wind up without the entire animal solidifying? A plasma protein, antithrombin bonds only to the active forms of most clotting proteins and inactivates them.
We can thus identify processes which are likely to have been put into effect by a Creator, rather than purely flukes of nature – complementary shapes interact, the proteins are activated or deactivated and the blood clot is localised so as not to cause damage elsewhere. If the wrong protein was activated or deactivated, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Furthermore blood-clotting shows irreducible complexity because if just one of the components of fibrinogen, prothrombin, Stuart Factor and proaccelerin are missing then the blood does not clot and the system collapses.26
Leon Brillouin, the French-American physicist uses a great analogy to illustrate the fascinating fact that a living organism can heal its own wound, cure its sicknesses and rebuild large portions of its structure which have been accidentally destroyed:
Think of your own car, the day you had a flat tire, and imagine having simply to wait and smoke a cigar while the hole patched itself and the tire pumped itself to the proper pressure, and you could go on. This sounds incredible. It is, however, the way nature works when you ‘chip off’ while shaving in the morning. There is no inert matter possessing a similar property of repair.27
Shaky Chemical Evolution Theory With the discovery of complexity and specificity serious difficulties have emerged regarding chemical macroevolution without God and thus whether amino acids, cells, DNA and proteins evolved without any help from an Intelligent Designer.
Behe compares the sequencing of letters and human words by human minds with the sequencing of amino acids. Exploring the processes behind amino acids and the amazing complexity and specificity inherent in the processes causes us to ponder the likelihood of the involvement of a powerful mind. The complexity of the imbedded information is critical in its sequence, shape, size and is an integral part of the cell – it would cause the system to collapse if it were inhibited or removed.
Meyer explains that every naturalistic model of the origin of information has failed, and so we need to relook at the first principal: Thus mind or intelligence or what philosophers call ‘agent causation’ now stands as the only cause known to be capable of creating an information-rich system, including the coding regions of DNA, functional proteins and the cell as a whole.28
Mascot of Intelligent Design – Flagellum One tiny part of nature, which can only be viewed under a microscope, has become a mascot to the Intelligent Design movement. Behe believes enticing design is inherent in the bacteria. He emphasises the flagellum’s components including the outboard motor which has a long tail which acts like a propeller, a drive shaft, and a stator to keep the structure fixed in membrane plane while allowing the propeller to turn.29
Some of the flagellum motors run at a phenomenal speed of 100,000 rpm. Moreover, it only takes a quarter turn to stop, shift direction, and turn 100,000 rpm in the other direction! The complexity, specification and irreducible complexity inherent is obvious. This even hints at the combustible engine being an invention that humanity was meant to discover to enjoy the splendour of land, the oceans, the skies and the universe. Moreover, it’s as if such knowledge has been mechanically cloned from nature, without even knowing it.
Behe argues that with the absence of any part of the rotary device and most of the forty different proteins needed for construction of the flagellum irreducible complexity is evident.30 He also lists problems for giving a purely naturalistic explanation, which excludes God, for the origin of this motor-like mechanism:31
♦ A cilium contains over two hundred different kinds of proteins.
♦ The bacterial flagellum, in addition to the proteins already discussed, requires about forty other proteins for function.
♦ The exact roles of most of the proteins are not known, but they include signals to turn the motor on and off.
♦ As the number of required parts increases, the difficulty of gradually putting the system together skyrockets.
Scientists have argued that for something to be irreducibly complex individual parts must not have any function on their own. But they also successfully demonstrated that almost all the proteins in the flagellum are strongly homologous to proteins that have other functions in the cell.
The Human Brain You thought that computers were amazing creations, but in fact in comparison our brains are truly sensational! You are able to think and will through your intellect and with the aid of electrical or chemical impulses you can move limbs. This is how the information is passed from your brain to your muscles, for example you will that your fingers move. But what is truly scintillating is the amount of neurons, also known as nerve cells within your brain, of which an estimated 100 billion communicate and transfer information to each other. Moreover it is estimated that there are over 1,000,000,000,000,000 connections in the brain (this is more than the estimated stars in the universe).32
Morton Jenkins explains that although scientists are still trying to explore, duplicate or manipulate the workings of the body, they can’t match from scratch, the intricacies of the human body: ‘The laboratory chemist will take months to synthesize relatively simple organic compounds. By contrast, a single bacterium can synthesize all the chemicals that it needs to make a copy of itself in twenty minutes!’33
Astounding! Scientists rack their brains, stressing out for months, and yet phenomenally, in 20 minutes a single bacterium does it naturally. This inherent pre-programming baffles those scientists who attribute the bacteria’s origin purely to materialism.
Conclusion In this chapter we have seen how the components of the cell reveal such intricate systems that reveal irreducible complexity and specificity and thus point to Intelligent Design. We have also looked at flaws of the irreducible complexity argument.
Do you really believe that by pure chance, i.e. only via purely material causes, without a Being creating the processes or laws, that complex amino acids and proteins evolved allowing blood clots with the precise congealing of blood without letting the rest of the organism’s blood clot? Remember what would happen to an animal if it did not have this complex act of order and purpose within its proteins; it would die. From the evidence we have explored so far, especially this awe-inspiring process of blood clotting, we are pointed towards a designer, a Creator who instilled the process in order that we could survive and thrive.
This whole field of today’s Biochemistry leads one to query whether Darwin would have been more likely to believe in a Creator if he had access to the knowledge that we have today of the cell and DNA. It’s very likely that tremendous complexity, wonderful order and inherent evidence for design would have led him to seriously doubt macroevolution by chance and thus void of a Creator, while remainin
g open to God creating the laws regarding micro and macroevolution. Thus his agnosticism may have been transformed to faith in a Creator.
The make-up of your physicality is via your DNA. What you look like – muscles, organs, facial features – is determined by your DNA. And yet your DNA is a staggeringly, mouth-watering complexity. It bears an information rich system which reveals Intelligent Design. If someone played scrabble with the nucleotides on your DNA as you were forming in your mother’s womb, not only would they have torn out their hair trying to put them back into sequence, but you would not have formed past a blob.
It’s so easy to isolate components of the cell and forget the overall complexity and specificity of the interacting components of the system which work elaborately in unity relying upon each other. Remember that proteins and DNA nucleotides must be in a specific sequence to be meaningful. There are not enough probabilistic resources in the universe for the most basic form of life to come into existence by chance. As Neil Broom says, ‘…each individual step in the entire molecular process, whether it be making of a particular protein, or the replication of the gene itself, is not a result of the gene’s isolated activity, but arises from the functioning of an entire living cell or organism’.34
DNA reveals a complex and specified system, a code. The incredible amount of coded information that can be stored in DNA flies in the face of atheistic evolution. Evolution does not have to exclude a Creator setting up the processes of change so that the cells can store vast amounts of information, as well as being able to transmit, transport and replicate information too.
When we explore DNA we encounter a labyrinth-type complexity – one which is information rich showing mindlike originality and purpose. DNA reveals the imprint of a Creator.