A Review: Chemical barriers to life, no natural sources for life and information and powerful evidence for design.
Are there Chemical Barriers to the naturalistic materialistic development of life? Has the Law of Biogenesis been broken? First, a replay of an oldie but a goodie - the 5 Questions post!
Radaractive: 5 Questions Every Intelligent Atheist MUST Answer and ... Jul 5, 2010 ...
It seems as if I give atheistic naturalistic materialistic Darwinists a hard time on this blog. The reason I do so is that I have hopes that some of them will change their minds and come to their senses. The other prime reason for discussing Darwinism on this blog is to help Christians understand that science is actually on their side, even if there are thousands of scientists who are placing their metaphysical preferences above the evidence.
All evolutionists need to do is demonstrate how life can naturally come from non-life. But only experimental observations please. Leave your imaginations and dreams at the door."
Finally, to conclude:
The first was the successful ascent of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Sir Edmund Hillary and his guide, Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit that year, an accomplishment that's still considered the ultimate feat for mountain climbers. Since then, more than a thousand mountaineers have made it to the top, and each year hundreds more attempt it.
Yet the second great achievement of 1953 has had a greater impact on the world. Each year, many thousands join the ranks of those participating in this accomplishment, hoping to ascend to fame and fortune.
It was in 1953 that James Watson and Francis Crick achieved what appeared impossible—discovering the genetic structure deep inside the nucleus of our cells. We call this genetic material DNA, an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid.
The discovery of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule opened the floodgates for scientists to examine the code embedded within it. Now, more than half a century after the initial discovery, the DNA code has been deciphered—although many of its elements are still not well understood.
What has been found has profound implications regarding Darwinian evolution, the theory taught in schools all over the world that all living beings have evolved by natural processes through mutation and natural selection.
It is hard to fathom, but the amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica—an incredible 384 volumes" worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves!
Yet in their actual size—which is only two millionths of a millimeter thick—a teaspoon of DNA, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth, and "there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1996, p. 334).
Who or what could miniaturize such information and place this enormous number of 'letters' in their proper sequence as a genetic instruction manual? Could evolution have gradually come up with a system like this?
Scientists have found the genetic code has all of these key elements. "The coding regions of DNA," explains Dr. Stephen Meyer, "have exactly the same relevant properties as a computer code or language" (quoted by Strobel, p. 237, emphasis in original).
The only other codes found to be true languages are all of human origin. Although we do find that dogs bark when they perceive danger, bees dance to point other bees to a source and whales emit sounds, to name a few examples of other species' communication, none of these have the composition of a language. They are only considered low-level communication signals.
The only types of communication considered high-level are human languages, artificial languages such as computer and Morse codes and the genetic code. No other communication system has been found to contain the basic characteristics of a language.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, commented that "DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we've ever devised."
Can you imagine something more intricate than the most complex program running on a supercomputer being devised by accident through evolution—no matter how much time, how many mutations and how much natural selection are taken into account?
For instance, a book such as Homer's Iliad contains information, but is the physical book itself information? No, the materials of the book—the paper, ink and glue contain the contents, but they are only a means of transporting it.
If the information in the book was spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information does not suffer qualitatively from the means of transporting it. "In fact the content of the message," says professor Phillip Johnson, "is independent of the physical makeup of the medium" (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 1997, p. 71).
The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a compact disk or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.
As George Williams puts it: "The gene is a package of information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message" (quoted by Johnson, p. 70).
As Lee Strobel explains: "The data at the core of life is not disorganized, it's not simply orderly like salt crystals, but it's complex and specific information that can accomplish a bewildering task—the building of biological machines that far outstrip human technological capabilities" (p. 244).
For instance, the precision of this genetic language is such that the average mistake that is not caught turns out to be one error per 10 billion letters. If a mistake occurs in one of the most significant parts of the code, which is in the genes, it can cause a disease such as sickle-cell anemia. Yet even the best and most intelligent typist in the world couldn't come close to making only one mistake per 10 billion letters—far from it.
So to believe that the genetic code gradually evolved in Darwinian style would break all the known rules of how matter, energy and the laws of nature work. In fact, there has not been found in nature any example of one information system inside the cell gradually evolving into another functional information program.
Michael Behe, a biochemist and professor at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University, explains that genetic information is primarily an instruction manual and gives some examples.
He writes: "Consider a step-by-step list of [genetic] instructions. A mutation is a change in one of the lines of instructions. So instead of saying, "Take a 1/4-inch nut," a mutation might say, "Take a 3/8-inch nut." Or instead of "Place the round peg in the round hole," we might get "Place the round peg in the square hole" . . . What a mutation cannot do is change all the instructions in one step—say, [providing instructions] to build a fax machine instead of a radio" (Darwin's Black Box, 1996, p. 41).
We therefore have in the genetic code an immensely complex instruction manual that has been majestically designed by a more intelligent source than human beings.
Even one of the discoverers of the genetic code, the agnostic and recently deceased Francis Crick, after decades of work on deciphering it, admitted that "an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going" (Life Itself, 1981, p. 88, emphasis added).
Up to now, Darwinian evolutionists could try to counter their detractors with some possible explanations for the complexity of life. But now they have to face the information dilemma: How can meaningful, precise information be created by accident—by mutation and natural selection? None of these contain the mechanism of intelligence, a requirement for creating complex information such as that found in the genetic code.
Darwinian evolution is still taught in most schools as though it were fact. But it is increasingly being found wanting by a growing number of scientists. "As recently as twenty-five years ago," says former atheist Patrick Glynn, "a reasonable person weighing the purely scientific evidence on the issue would likely have come down on the side of skepticism [regarding a Creator]. That is no longer the case." He adds: "Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis. It is the simplest and most obvious solution . . ." (God: The Evidence, 1997, pp. 54-55, 53).
So what do we find about the genetic code? The same basic quality of information exists in a humble bacteria or a plant as in a person. A bacterium has a shorter genetic code, but qualitatively it gives instructions as precisely and exquisitely as that of a human being. We find the same prerequisites of a language—alphabet, grammar and semantics—in simple bacteria and algae as in man.
Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, consists of "artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction . . . [and a] capacity not equalled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours" (Denton, p. 329).
So how could the genetic information of bacteria gradually evolve into information for another type of being, when only one or a few minor mistakes in the millions of letters in that bacterium's DNA can kill it?
Again, evolutionists are uncharacteristically silent on the subject. They don't even have a working hypothesis about it. Lee Strobel writes: "The six feet of DNA coiled inside every one of our body's one hundred trillion cells contains a four-letter chemical alphabet that spells out precise assembly instructions for all the proteins from which our bodies are made . . . No hypothesis has come close to explaining how information got into biological matter by naturalistic means" (Strobel, p. 282).
Werner Gitt, professor of information systems, puts it succinctly: "The basic flaw of all evolutionary views is the origin of the information in living beings. It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself [through matter] . . . The information theorems predict that this will never be possible. A purely material origin of life is thus [ruled out]" (Gitt, p. 124).
Moreover, the copying mechanism of DNA, to meet maximum effectiveness, requires the number of letters in each word to be an even number. Of all possible mathematical combinations, the ideal number for storage and transcription has been calculated to be four letters.
This is exactly what has been found in the genes of every living thing on earth—a four-letter digital code. As Werner Gitt states: "The coding system used for living beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint. This fact strengthens the argument that it was a case of purposeful design rather that a [lucky] chance" (Gitt, p. 95).
"It was once expected," writes Professor Behe, "that the basis of life would be exceedingly simple. That expectation has been smashed. Vision, motion, and other biological functions have proven to be no less sophisticated than television cameras and automobiles. Science has made enormous progress in understanding how the chemistry of life works, but the elegance and complexity of biological systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science's attempt to explain their origins" (Behe, p. x).
Dr. Meyer considers the recent discoveries about DNA as the Achilles" heel of evolutionary theory. He observes: "Evolutionists are still trying to apply Darwin's nineteenth-century thinking to a twenty-first century reality, and it's not working ... I think the information revolution taking place in biology is sounding the death knell for Darwinism and chemical evolutionary theories" (quoted by Strobel, p. 243).
Dr. Meyer's conclusion? "I believe that the testimony of science supports theism. While there will always be points of tension or unresolved conflict, the major developments in science in the past five decades have been running in a strongly theistic direction" (ibid., p. 77).
Dean Kenyon, a biology professor who repudiated his earlier book on Darwinian evolution—mostly due to the discoveries of the information found in DNA—states: "This new realm of molecular genetics (is) where we see the most compelling evidence of design on the Earth" (ibid., p. 221).
Just recently, one of the world's most famous atheists, Professor Antony Flew, admitted he couldn't explain how DNA was created and developed through evolution. He now accepts the need for an intelligent source to have been involved in the making of the DNA code.
"What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinary diverse elements together," he said (quoted by Richard Ostling, "Leading Atheist Now Believes in God," Associated Press report, Dec. 9, 2004).
Where does all this leave evolution? Michael Denton, an agnostic scientist, concludes: "Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century" (Denton, p. 358).
All of this has enormous implications for our society and culture. Professor Johnson makes this clear when he states: "Every history of the twentieth century lists three thinkers as preeminent in influence: Darwin, Marx and Freud. All three were regarded as 'scientific' (and hence far more reliable than anything 'religious') in their heyday.
"Yet Marx and Freud have fallen, and even their dwindling bands of followers no longer claim that their insights were based on any methodology remotely comparable to that of experimental science. I am convinced that Darwin is next on the block. His fall will be by far the mightiest of the three" (Johnson, p. 113).
Evolution has had its run for almost 150 years in the schools and universities and in the press. But now, with the discovery of what the DNA code is all about, the complexity of the cell, and the fact that information is something vastly different from matter and energy, evolution can no longer dodge the ultimate outcome. The evidence certainly points to a resounding checkmate for evolution! GN
Why has evolution become so widely accepted? Why has the Bible come to be viewed with such hostility? What has changed?
Coming to a School Near You: Darwinism in the Classroom
If you believe the biblical account of creation and the origin of man, what strategies can you as parents and students use when confronted with the theory of evolution?
Drawings Faked to Support Evolution?
Ever since Darwin wrote his famous book on evolution, The Origin of Species, evolutionists have pointed to exam- ples they claim support the theory of evolution. But how good is that evidence?
Creation or Evolution: Did God Create Man?
This issue of The Good News begins a series on creation and evolution. Did God form the heavens and earth, or is the world and everything in it the result of mindless, random evolutionary forces?
Evolution: Fact or Fiction?
Are scientists quietly discarding Darwin's venerable theory of the origin of the species? The Good News continues its examination of creation and evolution. How solid is the evidence supporting natural selection and evolution? Can they be proven?
Creation and Evolution: The Bible Explanation
In this third and final installment, we examine the findings of modern science in the light of God's Word.
A Course on Evolution and Faith
What happens when a young person who believes in God studies evolution? Read this first-hand account to discover what happened to one college freshman.
Death of Darwinism
Did you realize that virtually every idea of evolution has been proved wrong by true, scientific discoveries? Learn more!
How Did Life Begin?
Science has long sought answers to several important questions: What is life? Where did it come from? How did it begin? You won't the answers by peering into a microscope, telescope or test tube.
Serious Problems With Dating Methods
Why do geologists so frequently fail to understand that the biblical Flood was the force that created some geologic formations? One important answer lies in the way they date these formations.
Creation and Evolution: An Interview With Philip Johnson
Law professor Phillip Johnson has examined the evidence for and against evolution in three books, including Darwin on Trial. He discusses the theory's underlying flaws and the impact on society of accepting evolution.
Here is a smattering of recent blog post excerpts that also deal directly or peripherally on that subject. One can read the entire post by clicking on the title link. Enjoy!
Radaractive: Thinking God's thoughts after Him? Or pretending God ... May 3, 2011 ...
The typical scientist of today cannot explain symbiotic amphibian/algae in terms of evolution without sounding like idiots. Or perhaps more like brainwashed automatons spitting out the same old stuff decade after decade! I have soldiered on in the blog world for several years and have seen that the majority of Darwinists have swallowed a staggeringly improbable and increasingly debunked hypothesis whole and will not have their intellectual stomachs pumped even upon threat of death because in actuality their adherence to Darwinism is metaphysical in nature. Science is so often not science at all, it is religion. The religion of Anything But God is big business. But is it in any way logical?..
Radaractive: No free lunch for Darwinists - no substance to false ... Dec 26, 2010 ...
Here is another common fallacy: "Everyone agrees that abiogeneis had to happen, that non-life developed somehow into life."
The primary difference between ID proponents and Creationists is that Creationists are willing to identify the Designer as the Creator God whereas many ID scientists do not take the findings of operational science and deduce anything but simply study the world using the actual scientific method that involves methodological investigation. Naturalism is not part of the scientific method...
Radaractive: Saturday Musings - Building Blocks, Actin and Acting ... Jan 29, 2011 ...
The RNA/DNA base cytosine is not produced in spark discharge experiments. The proposed prebiotic productions are chemically unrealistic because the alleged precursors are unlikely to be concentrated enough, and they would undergo side reactions with other organic compounds, or hydrolyse. Cytosine itself is too unstable to accumulate over alleged geological ‘deep time’, as its half life for deamination is 340 years at 25°C...
Radaractive: Refuting the Miller-Urey mythology. There is no hope ... Oct 20, 2010 ...
So I am posting this follow-up to yesterday's treatise and then I will explain why this is so vital to each and every one of you...
Radaractive: What information is? Mar 14, 2010 ...
Illustrations from this site, with thanks!
How odd is has been to try to nail down Darwinists on the subject of information. They will not answer the question, "where did information come from?" They know what the question means and therefore dodge it in various ways. It does remind one of Bill Clinton trying to lie his way past his lies concerning a tawdry affair with an intern, especially his famous statement which is explained in this excerpt from a Slate article, below:
"Bill Clinton and the Meaning of "Is"
Radaractive: Darwinists have created a new set of Jim Crow laws ... Oct 11, 2010 ...
Defending Evolution?! Science is about defending an unproven hypothesis? Now, why do you suppose we have an organization that must do this? Stop and think, do we have sites that do the following?
Radaractive: Darwinism - a horse and buggy hypothesis trying to ... Oct 10, 2010 ...
"Why must we cling to an outmoded view of life that spun from minds eager to rid science of intelligent causes? We need a biology for the Information Age, where intelligent causes are well known. Intelligence, and only intelligence, explains codes, messages, software, error-correction routines, networks, and hierarchical systems of all the above. Step aside, Charlie. You had your day. You did your damage. We have a lot of repair work to do." (from an article linked below)
Citrate-eating bacteria? As Michael Behe mentioned:
"Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it's not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a "citrate permease" which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell's membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there. As Lenski put it, "The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions."
Bacteria evolving in the lab?
Nope. After over 30,000 generations, Citrate eating bacteria are apparently the result of a system failure or the recovery of a system previously displayed by the organism. No matter how Darwinists try to spin it, they cannot show that E. Coli actually added an information container with new information to the genome.
Much research has flowed from this discovery to elucidate the mechanism for the apparently novel ability of these bacteria.2 Three enzymes are involved in Flavobacterium K172: F-EI, F-EII and F-EIII, and two in Pseudomonas NK87: P-EI and P-EII. None of these have been found to have any catalytic activity towards naturally occurring amide compounds, suggesting that the enzymes are completely new, not just modified existing enzymes. Indeed no homology has been found with known enzymes. The genes for these enzymes are located on plasmids:3 plasmid pOAD2 in Flavobacterium and on two plasmids, pNAD2 and pNAD6, in Pseudomonas.
Apologists for materialism latched onto these findings as an example of evolution of new information by random mutations and natural selection, for example, Thwaites in 1985.4 Thwaites’ claims have been repeated by many, without updating or critical evaluation, since.
Evidence against the evolutionary explanation includes:
The chromosome of P. aeruginosa has 6.3 million base pairs, which makes it one of the largest bacterial genomes sequenced. Being a large genome means that only a relatively low mutation rate can be tolerated within the actual chromosome, otherwise error catastrophe would result. There is no way that normal mutations in the chromosome could generate a new enzyme in nine days and hypermutation of the chromosome itself would result in non-viable bacteria. Plasmids seem to be adaptive elements designed to make bacteria capable of adaptation to new situations while maintaining the integrity of the main chromosome.
It seems clear that plasmids are designed features of bacteria that enable adaptation to new food sources or the degradation of toxins. The details of just how they do this remains to be elucidated. The results so far clearly suggest that these adaptations did not come about by chance mutations, but by some designed mechanism. This mechanism might be analogous to the way that vertebrates rapidly generate novel effective antibodies with hypermutation in B-cell maturation, which does not lend credibility to the grand scheme of neo-Darwinian evolution.11 Further research will, I expect, show that there is a sophisticated, irreducibly complex, molecular system involved in plasmid-based adaptation—the evidence strongly suggests that such a system exists. This system will once again, as the black box becomes illuminated, speak of intelligent creation, not chance. Understanding this adaptation system could well lead to a breakthrough in disease control, because specific inhibitors of the adaptation machinery could protect antibiotics from the development of plasmid-based resistance in the target pathogenic microbes.
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The above are just a selection of posts from among the MANY I have shared with readers so that they can plainly see that Darwinism cannot account for existence, time, life, information or design. Darwinism in fact really cannot explain anything. It has become territory for science fiction writers to put on scientist hats and make up stories. So Tyrannosaurus Rex became a Robin? Some kind of cow decided to go back to the ocean and be a whale? In what way are such remarkable speculations considered science? Darwinists make fun of the Bible and the story of creation and the narrative surrounding Noah's Ark but the simple truth is that the evidence comes down on the side of the Bible. Take away the unsupported suppositions of Darwinism and, voila, like a magician we make it disappear. There is no "there" there.
It is time for science and academia to quit censoring ID findings and quit segregating creationists from scientific associations as if creationists were black and science was 1960's Mississippi. We've gone from "whites only" drinking fountains to "Darwinists only" colleges, scientific organizations and even government entities like NASA. Why do Darwinists try so hard to stifle dissent? For the same reason North Korea tries to keep news of the outside world away from its oppressed people. Creationism has the ring of truth and the force of evidence on their side so Darwinists cannot tolerate a level playing field because they know they will lose. I do hope it happens in my lifetime, the day that Darwinism cracks open like an egg and all the BS flows out. The day that the Berlin Wall of Censorship is broken down and free discourse and dissemination of information, evidence and ideas can again flow!
Let it flow!!!
Radaractive: 5 Questions Every Intelligent Atheist MUST Answer and ... Jul 5, 2010 ...
It seems as if I give atheistic naturalistic materialistic Darwinists a hard time on this blog. The reason I do so is that I have hopes that some of them will change their minds and come to their senses. The other prime reason for discussing Darwinism on this blog is to help Christians understand that science is actually on their side, even if there are thousands of scientists who are placing their metaphysical preferences above the evidence.
"Some lame defenders of evolutionism claim that one needs a degree in biology to refute the origins of life by chance.
All evolutionists need to do is demonstrate how life can naturally come from non-life. But only experimental observations please. Leave your imaginations and dreams at the door."
| Patrick D. McGuire, From an amazon.com review of 'Not by Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution' by Lee M. Spetner |
"The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."
| Vera Kistiakowsky, MIT physicist. Margenau, H and R.A. Varghese, ed. 1992. Cosmos, Bios, and Theos. La Salle, IL, Open Court, p. 52. |
Lee Strobel does what Darwinists cannot do, explain the source of information!
Strobel points out why scientists are turning away from Darwinism. Below, a summary of why the fossil record does NOT support Darwinism. Simply stated, organisms appear in the fossil record fully formed and other than some speciation (to varying degrees) have apparently remained in stasis ever since. A few kinds appear to have gone extinct but there is a kind of organism that fits into pretty much every crook and cranny of the Earth. This implies design as well.
Finally, to conclude:
DNA: The Tiny Code That's Toppling Evolution
As scientists explore a new universe—the universe inside the cell—they are making startling discoveries of information systems more complex than anything ever devised by humanity's best minds. How did they get there, and what does it mean for the theory of evolution?
by Mario Seiglie
Two great achievements occurred in 1953, more than half a century ago.The first was the successful ascent of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Sir Edmund Hillary and his guide, Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit that year, an accomplishment that's still considered the ultimate feat for mountain climbers. Since then, more than a thousand mountaineers have made it to the top, and each year hundreds more attempt it.
Yet the second great achievement of 1953 has had a greater impact on the world. Each year, many thousands join the ranks of those participating in this accomplishment, hoping to ascend to fame and fortune.
It was in 1953 that James Watson and Francis Crick achieved what appeared impossible—discovering the genetic structure deep inside the nucleus of our cells. We call this genetic material DNA, an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid.
The discovery of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule opened the floodgates for scientists to examine the code embedded within it. Now, more than half a century after the initial discovery, the DNA code has been deciphered—although many of its elements are still not well understood.
What has been found has profound implications regarding Darwinian evolution, the theory taught in schools all over the world that all living beings have evolved by natural processes through mutation and natural selection.
Amazing revelations about DNA
As scientists began to decode the human DNA molecule, they found something quite unexpected—an exquisite 'language' composed of some 3 billion genetic letters. "One of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century," says Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., "was that DNA actually stores information—the detailed instructions for assembling proteins—in the form of a four-character digital code" (quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004, p. 224).It is hard to fathom, but the amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica—an incredible 384 volumes" worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves!
Yet in their actual size—which is only two millionths of a millimeter thick—a teaspoon of DNA, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth, and "there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1996, p. 334).
Who or what could miniaturize such information and place this enormous number of 'letters' in their proper sequence as a genetic instruction manual? Could evolution have gradually come up with a system like this?
DNA contains a genetic language
Let's first consider some of the characteristics of this genetic 'language.' For it to be rightly called a language, it must contain the following elements: an alphabet or coding system, correct spelling, grammar (a proper arrangement of the words), meaning (semantics) and an intended purpose.Scientists have found the genetic code has all of these key elements. "The coding regions of DNA," explains Dr. Stephen Meyer, "have exactly the same relevant properties as a computer code or language" (quoted by Strobel, p. 237, emphasis in original).
The only other codes found to be true languages are all of human origin. Although we do find that dogs bark when they perceive danger, bees dance to point other bees to a source and whales emit sounds, to name a few examples of other species' communication, none of these have the composition of a language. They are only considered low-level communication signals.
The only types of communication considered high-level are human languages, artificial languages such as computer and Morse codes and the genetic code. No other communication system has been found to contain the basic characteristics of a language.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, commented that "DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we've ever devised."
Can you imagine something more intricate than the most complex program running on a supercomputer being devised by accident through evolution—no matter how much time, how many mutations and how much natural selection are taken into account?
DNA language not the same as DNA molecule
Recent studies in information theory have come up with some astounding conclusions—namely, that information cannot be considered in the same category as matter and energy. It's true that matter or energy can carry information, but they are not the same as information itself.For instance, a book such as Homer's Iliad contains information, but is the physical book itself information? No, the materials of the book—the paper, ink and glue contain the contents, but they are only a means of transporting it.
If the information in the book was spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information does not suffer qualitatively from the means of transporting it. "In fact the content of the message," says professor Phillip Johnson, "is independent of the physical makeup of the medium" (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 1997, p. 71).
The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a compact disk or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.
As George Williams puts it: "The gene is a package of information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message" (quoted by Johnson, p. 70).
Information from an intelligent source
In addition, this type of high-level information has been found to originate only from an intelligent source.As Lee Strobel explains: "The data at the core of life is not disorganized, it's not simply orderly like salt crystals, but it's complex and specific information that can accomplish a bewildering task—the building of biological machines that far outstrip human technological capabilities" (p. 244).
For instance, the precision of this genetic language is such that the average mistake that is not caught turns out to be one error per 10 billion letters. If a mistake occurs in one of the most significant parts of the code, which is in the genes, it can cause a disease such as sickle-cell anemia. Yet even the best and most intelligent typist in the world couldn't come close to making only one mistake per 10 billion letters—far from it.
So to believe that the genetic code gradually evolved in Darwinian style would break all the known rules of how matter, energy and the laws of nature work. In fact, there has not been found in nature any example of one information system inside the cell gradually evolving into another functional information program.
Michael Behe, a biochemist and professor at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University, explains that genetic information is primarily an instruction manual and gives some examples.
He writes: "Consider a step-by-step list of [genetic] instructions. A mutation is a change in one of the lines of instructions. So instead of saying, "Take a 1/4-inch nut," a mutation might say, "Take a 3/8-inch nut." Or instead of "Place the round peg in the round hole," we might get "Place the round peg in the square hole" . . . What a mutation cannot do is change all the instructions in one step—say, [providing instructions] to build a fax machine instead of a radio" (Darwin's Black Box, 1996, p. 41).
We therefore have in the genetic code an immensely complex instruction manual that has been majestically designed by a more intelligent source than human beings.
Even one of the discoverers of the genetic code, the agnostic and recently deceased Francis Crick, after decades of work on deciphering it, admitted that "an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going" (Life Itself, 1981, p. 88, emphasis added).
Evolution fails to provide answers
It is good to remember that, in spite of all the efforts of all the scientific laboratories around the world working over many decades, they have not been able to produce so much as a single human hair. How much more difficult is it to produce an entire body consisting of some 100 trillion cells!Up to now, Darwinian evolutionists could try to counter their detractors with some possible explanations for the complexity of life. But now they have to face the information dilemma: How can meaningful, precise information be created by accident—by mutation and natural selection? None of these contain the mechanism of intelligence, a requirement for creating complex information such as that found in the genetic code.
Darwinian evolution is still taught in most schools as though it were fact. But it is increasingly being found wanting by a growing number of scientists. "As recently as twenty-five years ago," says former atheist Patrick Glynn, "a reasonable person weighing the purely scientific evidence on the issue would likely have come down on the side of skepticism [regarding a Creator]. That is no longer the case." He adds: "Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis. It is the simplest and most obvious solution . . ." (God: The Evidence, 1997, pp. 54-55, 53).
Quality of genetic information the same
Evolution tells us that through chance mutations and natural selection, living things evolve. Yet to evolve means to gradually change certain aspects of some living thing until it becomes another type of creature, and this can only be done by changing the genetic information.So what do we find about the genetic code? The same basic quality of information exists in a humble bacteria or a plant as in a person. A bacterium has a shorter genetic code, but qualitatively it gives instructions as precisely and exquisitely as that of a human being. We find the same prerequisites of a language—alphabet, grammar and semantics—in simple bacteria and algae as in man.
Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, consists of "artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction . . . [and a] capacity not equalled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours" (Denton, p. 329).
So how could the genetic information of bacteria gradually evolve into information for another type of being, when only one or a few minor mistakes in the millions of letters in that bacterium's DNA can kill it?
Again, evolutionists are uncharacteristically silent on the subject. They don't even have a working hypothesis about it. Lee Strobel writes: "The six feet of DNA coiled inside every one of our body's one hundred trillion cells contains a four-letter chemical alphabet that spells out precise assembly instructions for all the proteins from which our bodies are made . . . No hypothesis has come close to explaining how information got into biological matter by naturalistic means" (Strobel, p. 282).
Werner Gitt, professor of information systems, puts it succinctly: "The basic flaw of all evolutionary views is the origin of the information in living beings. It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself [through matter] . . . The information theorems predict that this will never be possible. A purely material origin of life is thus [ruled out]" (Gitt, p. 124).
The clincher
Besides all the evidence we have covered for the intelligent design of DNA information, there is still one amazing fact remaining—the ideal number of genetic letters in the DNA code for storage and translation.Moreover, the copying mechanism of DNA, to meet maximum effectiveness, requires the number of letters in each word to be an even number. Of all possible mathematical combinations, the ideal number for storage and transcription has been calculated to be four letters.
This is exactly what has been found in the genes of every living thing on earth—a four-letter digital code. As Werner Gitt states: "The coding system used for living beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint. This fact strengthens the argument that it was a case of purposeful design rather that a [lucky] chance" (Gitt, p. 95).
More witnesses
Back in Darwin's day, when his book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, life appeared much simpler. Viewed through the primitive microscopes of the day, the cell appeared to be but a simple blob of jelly or uncomplicated protoplasm. Now, almost 150 years later, that view has changed dramatically as science has discovered a virtual universe inside the cell."It was once expected," writes Professor Behe, "that the basis of life would be exceedingly simple. That expectation has been smashed. Vision, motion, and other biological functions have proven to be no less sophisticated than television cameras and automobiles. Science has made enormous progress in understanding how the chemistry of life works, but the elegance and complexity of biological systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science's attempt to explain their origins" (Behe, p. x).
Dr. Meyer considers the recent discoveries about DNA as the Achilles" heel of evolutionary theory. He observes: "Evolutionists are still trying to apply Darwin's nineteenth-century thinking to a twenty-first century reality, and it's not working ... I think the information revolution taking place in biology is sounding the death knell for Darwinism and chemical evolutionary theories" (quoted by Strobel, p. 243).
Dr. Meyer's conclusion? "I believe that the testimony of science supports theism. While there will always be points of tension or unresolved conflict, the major developments in science in the past five decades have been running in a strongly theistic direction" (ibid., p. 77).
Dean Kenyon, a biology professor who repudiated his earlier book on Darwinian evolution—mostly due to the discoveries of the information found in DNA—states: "This new realm of molecular genetics (is) where we see the most compelling evidence of design on the Earth" (ibid., p. 221).
Just recently, one of the world's most famous atheists, Professor Antony Flew, admitted he couldn't explain how DNA was created and developed through evolution. He now accepts the need for an intelligent source to have been involved in the making of the DNA code.
"What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinary diverse elements together," he said (quoted by Richard Ostling, "Leading Atheist Now Believes in God," Associated Press report, Dec. 9, 2004).
"Fearfully and wonderfully made"
Although written thousands of years ago, King David's words about our marvelous human bodies still ring true. He wrote: "For You formed my inward parts, You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . . My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought. . ." (Psalm 139:13-15, emphasis added).Where does all this leave evolution? Michael Denton, an agnostic scientist, concludes: "Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century" (Denton, p. 358).
All of this has enormous implications for our society and culture. Professor Johnson makes this clear when he states: "Every history of the twentieth century lists three thinkers as preeminent in influence: Darwin, Marx and Freud. All three were regarded as 'scientific' (and hence far more reliable than anything 'religious') in their heyday.
"Yet Marx and Freud have fallen, and even their dwindling bands of followers no longer claim that their insights were based on any methodology remotely comparable to that of experimental science. I am convinced that Darwin is next on the block. His fall will be by far the mightiest of the three" (Johnson, p. 113).
Evolution has had its run for almost 150 years in the schools and universities and in the press. But now, with the discovery of what the DNA code is all about, the complexity of the cell, and the fact that information is something vastly different from matter and energy, evolution can no longer dodge the ultimate outcome. The evidence certainly points to a resounding checkmate for evolution! GN
Related Resources
Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe?Why has evolution become so widely accepted? Why has the Bible come to be viewed with such hostility? What has changed?
Coming to a School Near You: Darwinism in the Classroom
If you believe the biblical account of creation and the origin of man, what strategies can you as parents and students use when confronted with the theory of evolution?
Drawings Faked to Support Evolution?
Ever since Darwin wrote his famous book on evolution, The Origin of Species, evolutionists have pointed to exam- ples they claim support the theory of evolution. But how good is that evidence?
Creation or Evolution: Did God Create Man?
This issue of The Good News begins a series on creation and evolution. Did God form the heavens and earth, or is the world and everything in it the result of mindless, random evolutionary forces?
Evolution: Fact or Fiction?
Are scientists quietly discarding Darwin's venerable theory of the origin of the species? The Good News continues its examination of creation and evolution. How solid is the evidence supporting natural selection and evolution? Can they be proven?
Creation and Evolution: The Bible Explanation
In this third and final installment, we examine the findings of modern science in the light of God's Word.
A Course on Evolution and Faith
What happens when a young person who believes in God studies evolution? Read this first-hand account to discover what happened to one college freshman.
Death of Darwinism
Did you realize that virtually every idea of evolution has been proved wrong by true, scientific discoveries? Learn more!
How Did Life Begin?
Science has long sought answers to several important questions: What is life? Where did it come from? How did it begin? You won't the answers by peering into a microscope, telescope or test tube.
Serious Problems With Dating Methods
Why do geologists so frequently fail to understand that the biblical Flood was the force that created some geologic formations? One important answer lies in the way they date these formations.
Creation and Evolution: An Interview With Philip Johnson
Law professor Phillip Johnson has examined the evidence for and against evolution in three books, including Darwin on Trial. He discusses the theory's underlying flaws and the impact on society of accepting evolution.
Here is a smattering of recent blog post excerpts that also deal directly or peripherally on that subject. One can read the entire post by clicking on the title link. Enjoy!
Radaractive: Thinking God's thoughts after Him? Or pretending God ... May 3, 2011 ...
The typical scientist of today cannot explain symbiotic amphibian/algae in terms of evolution without sounding like idiots. Or perhaps more like brainwashed automatons spitting out the same old stuff decade after decade! I have soldiered on in the blog world for several years and have seen that the majority of Darwinists have swallowed a staggeringly improbable and increasingly debunked hypothesis whole and will not have their intellectual stomachs pumped even upon threat of death because in actuality their adherence to Darwinism is metaphysical in nature. Science is so often not science at all, it is religion. The religion of Anything But God is big business. But is it in any way logical?..
Radaractive: No free lunch for Darwinists - no substance to false ... Dec 26, 2010 ...
Here is another common fallacy: "Everyone agrees that abiogeneis had to happen, that non-life developed somehow into life."
No, the Law of Biogenesis remains unchallenged. Never has life come from non-life and real scientists are throwing up their hands at the thought of finding a natural means of producing life. It is the same situation with the Laws of Thermodynamic. Naturalism is helpless to explain existence, information and life.
Only a supernatural Creator can explain these things.
Radaractive: Saturday Musings - Building Blocks, Actin and Acting ... Jan 29, 2011 ...
Warning! This is a blog. It is written by the blogger. The blogger is in charge of the blog. Commenters are welcome as long as they are not profane but the content of the posts and whether or not the blogger engages with commenters for any length of time is entirely up to the author. The blog is like a ship at sea with a course to follow with many ports of call but it will not come to full stop at the whim of a passenger. Welcome aboard!
A short commentary about this blog follows today's articles concerning life at the microscopic level...
Origin of life: instability of building blocks
Evolutionary propaganda often understates the difficulty of a naturalistic origin of life. Production of traces of ‘building blocks’ is commonly equated with proving that they could have built up the required complicated molecules under natural conditions. The instability of ‘building blocks’ in non-biotic environments is usually glossed over.The RNA/DNA base cytosine is not produced in spark discharge experiments. The proposed prebiotic productions are chemically unrealistic because the alleged precursors are unlikely to be concentrated enough, and they would undergo side reactions with other organic compounds, or hydrolyse. Cytosine itself is too unstable to accumulate over alleged geological ‘deep time’, as its half life for deamination is 340 years at 25°C...
Radaractive: Refuting the Miller-Urey mythology. There is no hope ... Oct 20, 2010 ...
So I am posting this follow-up to yesterday's treatise and then I will explain why this is so vital to each and every one of you...
Why the Miller–Urey research argues against abiogenesis
Summary
Abiogenesis is the theory that under the proper conditions life can arise spontaneously from non-living molecules. One of the most widely cited studies used to support this conclusion is the famous Miller–Urey experiment. Surveys of textbooks find that the Miller–Urey study is the major (or only) research cited to prove abiogenesis. Although widely heralded for decades by the popular press as ‘proving’ that life originated on the early earth entirely under natural conditions, we now realize the experiment actually provided compelling evidence for the opposite conclusion. It is now recognized that this set of experiments has done more to show that abiogenesis on Earth is not possible than to indicate how it could be possible. This paper reviews some of the many problems with this research, which attempted to demonstrate a feasible method of abiogenesis on the early earth.
Contemporary research has failed to provide a viable explanation as to how abiogenesis could have occurred on Earth. The abiogenesis problem is now so serious that most evolutionists today tend to shun the entire field because they are ‘uneasy about stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they freely admit that they are baffled’ because ‘it opens the door to religious fundamentalists and their god-of-the-gaps pseudo-explanations’ and they worry that a ‘frank admission of ignorance will undermine funding’.Radaractive: What information is? Mar 14, 2010 ...
What information is?
Illustrations from this site, with thanks!
How odd is has been to try to nail down Darwinists on the subject of information. They will not answer the question, "where did information come from?" They know what the question means and therefore dodge it in various ways. It does remind one of Bill Clinton trying to lie his way past his lies concerning a tawdry affair with an intern, especially his famous statement which is explained in this excerpt from a Slate article, below:
"Bill Clinton and the Meaning of "Is"
Posted Sunday, Sept. 13, 1998, at 9:14 PM ET
Years from now, when we look back on Bill Clinton's presidency, its defining moment may well be Clinton's rationalization to the grand jury about why he wasn't lying when he said to his top aides that with respect to Monica Lewinsky, "there's nothing going on between us." How can this be? Here's what Clinton told the grand jury (according to footnote 1,128 in Starr's report):
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
~
That Bill Clinton was able to quadruple-talk his way around an outright lie and in fact managed to retain his Presidency is a credit to his ability to BS and also the fact that politicians have a lot of empathy for fellow politicians. But no one believes that Bill Clinton was successfully arguing his point.
For that reason I am lambasting commenters who continue to dodge the question of where information comes from. My standard commenter is playing leap-question by trying to take the discussion elsewhere. I will tell you readers why. Darwinists have no answer for the information found in organisms.
They also claim that speciation is not information loss. But that way is very problematic for them. It is true that if we look at the "speciation" of dogs that we can recombine different dog populations and probably discover that the genetic information found in the total population has suffered little, if any, loss. But I challenge these commenters to find the specific genetic information necessary to reconstitute a Dodo Bird.
Furthermore, the inability for Darwinists to look "under the hood" of organisms and see what is truly happening leads them to give examples that undermine their asserted positions. Here is an example:
"The various Ensatina salamanders of the Pacific coast all descended from a common ancestral population. As the species spread southward from Oregon and Washington, subpopulations adapted to their local environments on either side of the San Joaquin Valley. From one population to the next, in a circular pattern, these salamanders are still able to interbreed successfully. However, where the circle closes -- in the black zone on the map in Southern California -- the salamanders no longer interbreed successfully. The variation within a single species has produced differences as large as those between two separate species. "
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
~
That Bill Clinton was able to quadruple-talk his way around an outright lie and in fact managed to retain his Presidency is a credit to his ability to BS and also the fact that politicians have a lot of empathy for fellow politicians. But no one believes that Bill Clinton was successfully arguing his point.
For that reason I am lambasting commenters who continue to dodge the question of where information comes from. My standard commenter is playing leap-question by trying to take the discussion elsewhere. I will tell you readers why. Darwinists have no answer for the information found in organisms.
They also claim that speciation is not information loss. But that way is very problematic for them. It is true that if we look at the "speciation" of dogs that we can recombine different dog populations and probably discover that the genetic information found in the total population has suffered little, if any, loss. But I challenge these commenters to find the specific genetic information necessary to reconstitute a Dodo Bird.
Furthermore, the inability for Darwinists to look "under the hood" of organisms and see what is truly happening leads them to give examples that undermine their asserted positions. Here is an example:
"The various Ensatina salamanders of the Pacific coast all descended from a common ancestral population. As the species spread southward from Oregon and Washington, subpopulations adapted to their local environments on either side of the San Joaquin Valley. From one population to the next, in a circular pattern, these salamanders are still able to interbreed successfully. However, where the circle closes -- in the black zone on the map in Southern California -- the salamanders no longer interbreed successfully. The variation within a single species has produced differences as large as those between two separate species. "
Radaractive: Darwinists have created a new set of Jim Crow laws ... Oct 11, 2010 ...
Darwinists have created a new set of Jim Crow laws. ID and creationist scientists are segregated from jobs and grants.
Censorship. Should it happen in the 21st Century? Wrong question. The question SHOULD be, how long has it been happening? Because censorship has been going on for several decades. I can prove it.
Take the NCSE. The motto as appearing on the Google page for the organization reads as follows:
"ncse.com Defending Evolution in Public Schools since 1981. Learn more now!"
Defending Evolution?! Science is about defending an unproven hypothesis? Now, why do you suppose we have an organization that must do this? Stop and think, do we have sites that do the following?
Defending The Atomic Numbering System?
Defending Geometry?
Defending Gravity?
Defending E=Mc2?
Defending Thermodynamics?
Uhm, no, I don't think so. Here is another Google motto for the NCSE and how they present themselves:
"Oct 11, 2010 ... National organization devoted to defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, and keeping creationism out."
Public schools? In other words, your school system that is funded by your taxes, right? The place your kids go to learn and reason and prepare for life and also to be a useful citizen and a mature adult? There is an organization devoted to censor these kids from creationism?
Really? Did we have an organization funded in part by the US Government that was formed to defend Newtonian physics against Einstein's Relativity Theory? Do we have a group of Einstein followers who are devoted to wipe out any and all mention of Quantum Mechanics?
Darwinism - a horse and buggy hypothesis trying to navigate the digital highway!
"Why must we cling to an outmoded view of life that spun from minds eager to rid science of intelligent causes? We need a biology for the Information Age, where intelligent causes are well known. Intelligence, and only intelligence, explains codes, messages, software, error-correction routines, networks, and hierarchical systems of all the above. Step aside, Charlie. You had your day. You did your damage. We have a lot of repair work to do." (from an article linked below)
Citrate-eating bacteria? As Michael Behe mentioned:
"Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it's not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a "citrate permease" which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell's membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there. As Lenski put it, "The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions."
Bacteria evolving in the lab?
Nope. After over 30,000 generations, Citrate eating bacteria are apparently the result of a system failure or the recovery of a system previously displayed by the organism. No matter how Darwinists try to spin it, they cannot show that E. Coli actually added an information container with new information to the genome.
Nylon-eating bacteria? The evidence shows that the organism was designed to adjust to severe conditions and to "eat" a wide variety of substance not normally metabolized. New discoveries of how the cell reproduces have shown us that the mother controls the child and therefore guarantees that a different kind of organism cannot be made. However, there are switching mechanisms within the genome that allow for speciation of many kinds to take place more rapidly. The research required to locate and understand all of these switching mechanisms will take science many decades as we learn more about DNA and the cell.
The adaptation of bacteria to feeding on nylon waste
In 1975, Japanese scientists discovered bacteria that could live on the waste products of nylon manufacture as their only source of carbon and nitrogen.1 Two species, Flavobacterium sp. K172 and Pseudomonas sp. NK87, were identified that degrade nylon compounds.Much research has flowed from this discovery to elucidate the mechanism for the apparently novel ability of these bacteria.2 Three enzymes are involved in Flavobacterium K172: F-EI, F-EII and F-EIII, and two in Pseudomonas NK87: P-EI and P-EII. None of these have been found to have any catalytic activity towards naturally occurring amide compounds, suggesting that the enzymes are completely new, not just modified existing enzymes. Indeed no homology has been found with known enzymes. The genes for these enzymes are located on plasmids:3 plasmid pOAD2 in Flavobacterium and on two plasmids, pNAD2 and pNAD6, in Pseudomonas.
Apologists for materialism latched onto these findings as an example of evolution of new information by random mutations and natural selection, for example, Thwaites in 1985.4 Thwaites’ claims have been repeated by many, without updating or critical evaluation, since.
Is the evidence consistent with random mutations generating the new genes?
Thwaites claimed that the new enzyme arose through a frame shift mutation. He based this on a research paper published the previous year where this was suggested.5 If this were the case, the production of an enzyme would indeed be a fortuitous result, attributable to ‘pure chance’. However, there are good reasons to doubt the claim that this is an example of random mutations and natural selection generating new enzymes, quite aside from the extreme improbability of such coming about by chance.6Evidence against the evolutionary explanation includes:
- There are five transposable elements on the pOAD2 plasmid. When activated, transposase enzymes coded therein cause genetic recombination. Externally imposed stress such as high temperature, exposure to a poison, or starvation can activate transposases. The presence of the transposases in such numbers on the plasmid suggests that the plasmid is designed to adapt when the bacterium is under stress.
- All five transposable elements are identical, with 764 base pairs (bp) each. This comprises over eight percent of the plasmid. How could random mutations produce three new catalytic/degradative genes (coding for EI, EII and EIII) without at least some changes being made to the transposable elements? Negoro speculated that the transposable elements must have been a ‘late addition’ to the plasmids to not have changed. But there is no evidence for this, other than the circular reasoning that supposedly random mutations generated the three enzymes and so they would have changed the transposase genes if they had been in the plasmid all along. Furthermore, the adaptation to nylon digestion does not take very long (see point 5 below), so the addition of the transposable elements afterwards cannot be seriously entertained.
- All three types of nylon degrading genes appear on plasmids and only on plasmids. None appear on the main bacterial chromosomes of either Flavobacterium or Pseudomonas. This does not look like some random origin of these genes—the chance of this happening is low. If the genome of Flavobacterium is about two million bp,7 and the pOAD2 plasmid comprises 45,519 bp, and if there were say 5 pOAD2 plasmids per cell (~10% of the total chromosomal DNA), then the chance of getting all three of the genes on the pOAD2 plasmid would be about 0.0015. If we add the probability of the nylon degrading genes of Pseudomonas also only being on plasmids, the probability falls to 2.3 x 10-6. If the enzymes developed in the independent laboratory-controlled adaptation experiments (see point 5, below) also resulted in enzyme activity on plasmids (almost certainly, but not yet determined), then attributing the development of the adaptive enzymes purely to chance mutations becomes even more implausible.
- The antisense DNA strand of the four nylon genes investigated in Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas lacks any stop codons.8 This is most remarkable in a total of 1,535 bases. The probability of this happening by chance in all four antisense sequences is about 1 in 1012. Furthermore, the EII gene in Pseudomonas is clearly not phylogenetically related to the EII genes of Flavobacterium, so the lack of stop codons in the antisense strands of all genes cannot be due to any commonality in the genes themselves (or in their ancestry). Also, the wild-type pOAD2 plasmid is not necessary for the normal growth of Flavobacterium, so functionality in the wild-type parent DNA sequences would appear not to be a factor in keeping the reading frames open in the genes themselves, let alone the antisense strands.
Some statements by Yomo et al., express their consternation:
‘These results imply that there may be some unknown mechanism behind the evolution of these genes for nylon oligomer-degrading enzymes.
‘The presence of a long NSF (non-stop frame) in the antisense strand seems to be a rare case, but it may be due to the unusual characteristics of the genes or plasmids for nylon oligomer degradation.
‘Accordingly, the actual existence of these NSFs leads us to speculate that some special mechanism exists in the regions of these genes.’
It looks like recombination of codons (base pair triplets), not single base pairs, has occurred between the start and stop codons for each sequence. This would be about the simplest way that the antisense strand could be protected from stop codon generation. The mechanism for such a recombination is unknown, but it is highly likely that the transposase genes are involved.
Interestingly, Yomo et al. also show that it is highly unlikely that any of these genes arose through a frame shift mutation, because such mutations (forward or reverse) would have generated lots of stop codons. This nullifies the claim of Thwaites that a functional gene arose from a purely random process (an accident).
- The Japanese researchers demonstrated that nylon degrading ability can be obtained de novo in laboratory cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa [strain] POA, which initially had no enzymes capable of degrading nylon oligomers.9 This was achieved in a mere nine days! The rapidity of this adaptation suggests a special mechanism for such adaptation, not something as haphazard as random mutations and selection.
- The researchers have not been able to ascertain any putative ancestral gene to the nylon-degrading genes. They represent a new gene family. This seems to rule out gene duplications as a source of the raw material for the new genes.8
The chromosome of P. aeruginosa has 6.3 million base pairs, which makes it one of the largest bacterial genomes sequenced. Being a large genome means that only a relatively low mutation rate can be tolerated within the actual chromosome, otherwise error catastrophe would result. There is no way that normal mutations in the chromosome could generate a new enzyme in nine days and hypermutation of the chromosome itself would result in non-viable bacteria. Plasmids seem to be adaptive elements designed to make bacteria capable of adaptation to new situations while maintaining the integrity of the main chromosome.
Stasis in bacteria
P. aeruginosa was first named by Schroeter in 1872.10 It still has the same features that identify it as such. So, in spite of being so ubiquitous, so prolific and so rapidly adaptable, this bacterium has not evolved into a different type of bacterium. Note that the number of bacterial generations possible in over 130 years is huge—equivalent to tens of millions of years of human generations, encompassing the origin of the putative common ancestor of ape and man, according to the evolutionary story, indeed perhaps even all primates. And yet the bacterium shows no evidence of directional change—stasis rules, not progressive evolution. This alone should cast doubt on the evolutionary paradigm. Flavobacterium was first named in 1889 and it likewise still has the same characteristics as originally described.It seems clear that plasmids are designed features of bacteria that enable adaptation to new food sources or the degradation of toxins. The details of just how they do this remains to be elucidated. The results so far clearly suggest that these adaptations did not come about by chance mutations, but by some designed mechanism. This mechanism might be analogous to the way that vertebrates rapidly generate novel effective antibodies with hypermutation in B-cell maturation, which does not lend credibility to the grand scheme of neo-Darwinian evolution.11 Further research will, I expect, show that there is a sophisticated, irreducibly complex, molecular system involved in plasmid-based adaptation—the evidence strongly suggests that such a system exists. This system will once again, as the black box becomes illuminated, speak of intelligent creation, not chance. Understanding this adaptation system could well lead to a breakthrough in disease control, because specific inhibitors of the adaptation machinery could protect antibiotics from the development of plasmid-based resistance in the target pathogenic microbes.
References
- Kinoshita, S., Kageyama, S., Iba, K., Yamada, Y. and Okada, H., Utilization of a cyclic dimer and linear oligomers of ε-aminocapronoic acid by Achromobacter guttatus K172, Agric. Biol. Chem. 39(6):1219–1223, 1975. Note: A. guttatus K172 syn. Flavobacterium sp. K172. Return to text.
- Negoro, S., Biodegradation of nylon oligomers [review], Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 54:461–466, 2000. Return to text.
- A plasmid is an extra-chromosomal loop of DNA in a bacterium. Such loops of DNA, unlike the chromosomal DNA, can be swapped between different species of bacteria. An individual bacterium can have several types of plasmid, and multiple copies of each. Return to text.
- Thwaites, W.M., New proteins without God’s help, Creation/Evolution 5(2):1–3 (issue XVI), 1985. Return to text.
- Ohno, S., Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the preexisted, internally repetitious coding sequence, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 81:2421–2425, 1984. Return to text.
- Truman, R., Protein mutational context dependence: a challenge to neo-Darwinism theory: part 1, Journal of Creation 17(1):117–127; Truman, R. and Heisig, M., Protein families: chance or design? Journal of Creation 15(3):115–127. Return to text.
- As of the date of writing, no Flavobacterium sp. genome has been sequenced. Return to text.
- Yomo, T., Urabe, I. and Okada, H., No stop codons in the antisense strands of the genes for nylon oligomer degradation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 89:3780–3784, 1992. Return to text.
- Prijambada, I.D., Negoro, S., Yomo, T. and Urabe, I., Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 61(5):2020–2022, 1995. Return to text.
- Bacterial Nomenclature Up-to-date, Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany. , 18 September 2003. Return to text.
- Truman, R., The unsuitability of B-cell maturation as an analogy for neo-Darwinian Theory, March 2002; , 22 August 2003. Return to text.
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The above are just a selection of posts from among the MANY I have shared with readers so that they can plainly see that Darwinism cannot account for existence, time, life, information or design. Darwinism in fact really cannot explain anything. It has become territory for science fiction writers to put on scientist hats and make up stories. So Tyrannosaurus Rex became a Robin? Some kind of cow decided to go back to the ocean and be a whale? In what way are such remarkable speculations considered science? Darwinists make fun of the Bible and the story of creation and the narrative surrounding Noah's Ark but the simple truth is that the evidence comes down on the side of the Bible. Take away the unsupported suppositions of Darwinism and, voila, like a magician we make it disappear. There is no "there" there.
It is time for science and academia to quit censoring ID findings and quit segregating creationists from scientific associations as if creationists were black and science was 1960's Mississippi. We've gone from "whites only" drinking fountains to "Darwinists only" colleges, scientific organizations and even government entities like NASA. Why do Darwinists try so hard to stifle dissent? For the same reason North Korea tries to keep news of the outside world away from its oppressed people. Creationism has the ring of truth and the force of evidence on their side so Darwinists cannot tolerate a level playing field because they know they will lose. I do hope it happens in my lifetime, the day that Darwinism cracks open like an egg and all the BS flows out. The day that the Berlin Wall of Censorship is broken down and free discourse and dissemination of information, evidence and ideas can again flow!
Let it flow!!!