On 21st century divination

Science as Astrology: A Gene for, or Rather Against, Virginity?
Evolution News & Views


As a kid we used to look forward to visits to the International House of Pancakes, where the highlights included not just pancakes but, just inside the entrance to the restaurant, a device like a gumball machine that dispensed horoscopes. For 25¢ the Starscroll device offered little scrolls the size of a cigarette, color-coded to the month and your sign. Scorpio was always orange.

The scroll, more detailed than what you'd find in a daily newspaper, included general prognostication and advice plus more specific forecasts as to your character, tendencies, challenges, etc. So this story from the world of science brings back unexpected fond memories.

Sometimes, in fact, it seems much of the most hyped research is about relieving us of the burden of personal moral responsibility. Except instead of it all being written into the stars, it's written into your genes. You couldn't ask for a better illustration than the hubbub around a paper out yesterday from Nature Genetics. A headline at Scientific American captures the gist: "Do Genes Time One's Loss of Virginity?"

Get that -- genes, not choice:

A person's age at the onset of sexual behavior matters, because early sexuality and becoming a parent at a young age are linked to many measures of health and economic success. "If you look in [scientific] literature, relatively early ages at first sex and first birth have been associated with lower educational achievement, poorer physical health, poorer mental health -- a complex web of negative stuff," says John Perry, a geneticist at Cambridge who led the research, published Monday in Nature Genetics. Perry says he was particularly intrigued by the idea that something people think of as purely a matter of free choice would have a large contribution from genetics.

Yes, intriguing. More:

The team found that 38 specific regions of the genome contributed to the age at which people first had sex. Those regions roughly fell into two groups, Perry says: genes that act on reproductive biological processes such as estrogen signaling and genes that appear to play a role in behavior and personality. One gene that the team associated with early sexual behavior, CADM2, influences risk-taking behavior, and another, MSRA, leads to irritability. "We weren't expecting to find this sort of thing when we started out," Perry says.

They weren't expecting it. They always have to say that, don't they? We looked up CADM2 and found:

This gene encodes a member of the synaptic cell adhesion molecule 1 (SynCAM) family which belongs to the immunoglobulin (Ig) superfamily. The encoded protein has three Ig-like domains and a cytosolic protein 4.1 binding site near the C-terminus. Proteins b elonging to the protein 4.1 family crosslink spectrin and interact with other cytoskeletal proteins. Multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene. [Provided by RefSeq, Feb. 2012.]

We're not sure how a variant of CADM2 could, as The Guardian puts it in another credulous article, "link an early start to one's sex life with risk-taking behaviour and having a large number of children."


It's utterly arbitrary, not less so than adducing the day of your birth to predict romantic, economic, and other fortunes. All of this reads exactly like a horoscope. For a more sober take on the relationship between genes and you, see our current podcast over at ID the Future, "Dr. Jonathan Wells: Biology's Quiet Revolution."

Another failed Darwinian prediction XIX

Altruism

In Origins, Darwin did not examine the question of altruistic behavior in great detail. But he did explain that natural selection could not result in destructive behavior. After all, evolution is driven by reproductive differentials and “every single organic being may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers.” (Darwin, 52)

But today we know of many examples of unambiguous altruism which are destructive to reproductive chances. It is not controversial that the evolutionary prediction Darwin issued has been falsified many times over. Indeed, a plethora of designs are “more injurious than beneficial” (Darwin, 162) to reproduction. They are found everywhere, from the mindless, single-cell bacteria to the many subtle behavior patterns of humans.

Consider those who choose to have few or no children. Such behavior is not uncommon, and it certainly harms one’s reproductive success. There are also many examples of altruism including giving blood and donating organs, giving to charities, helping the needy, and heroic wartime acts such as smothering a grenade or rescuing prisoners. Such acts of love and kindness falsify the evolutionary expectation that organisms should be oriented toward high levels of reproductive success.

Kin selection

In the last fifty years evolutionists have proposed several explanations for altruistic behavior. As a consequence the theory has become enormously more complex and incredible. First, the hypothesis of kin selection was proposed by William Hamilton in the early 1960s. (Hamilton) It has since become fundamental in evolutionary explanations of altruism. The idea is that altruistic behavior is a consequence of shared genes. For example, consider a genetic modification that encourages siblings to help each other. Such altruism increases the reproductive success of the sibling. If the sibling shares the genetic modification (as they well might), then the altruistic gene ends up helping to propagate a copy of itself. Thus the behavior is not quite so altruistic after all. From the evolutionary perspective of reproductive success, altruistic behavior makes sense where there are shared genes.

Therefore, the hypothesis of kin selection implies that altruism will be greatest where gene sharing is greatest, such as between siblings and between parent and child, in human relationships. On the other hand, altruism will be weaker when there is less gene sharing (e.g., between cousins).

In addition to the degree of gene sharing, the hypothesis of kin selection also implies that altruism will depend on the number of individuals being helped. A person will be more inclined to aid multiple siblings, for there would be more shared genes at stake. As Hamilton put it, the hypothesis implies that while no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers, or four half-brothers, or eight first-cousins. (Hamilton)

A more complicated selection process

Within a few years kin selection was used to explain a wide range of behaviors in addition to altruism. (e.g., Trivers, 1971; Williams) But these explanations brought with them an enormously complex evolutionary process. Consider altruism between siblings. Evolution’s unguided genetic modifications must have somehow created this complex behavior. This new modification created a medium level of altruism toward people that could be recognized as sisters or brothers. It was not too much altruism or too little. It was not toward females rather than males, short people rather than tall people, or blondes rather than brunettes. Presumably all these, and many more, types of behavior would be just as likely to have arisen as was the needed sibling altruism. So evolution must have constructed, tested and selected from an enormous set of potential behaviors before finding the few, rare behaviors that fit the kin selection criteria.

And the testing of these behaviors would not be simple. Initially, a new behavior, such as sibling altruism, would not fit the kin selection criteria. This is because, initially, the genes for the new behavior are in only a single individual. Not until the next generation could the genes possibly be distributed amongst siblings. And when that time does come, there is the question of whether the altruistic behavior would actually enhance the reproductive chances of the sibling. Being kind to a sibling does not necessarily do the job the first time. Many generations might be needed, as kin selection can only occur when an altruistic act genuinely improves the reproductive success of the sibling.

Evolution’s creative powers

Even more of a problem for evolution is the creation of these complex behaviors. Somehow unguided genetic modifications must have resulted in genes for a wide range of attitudes and behaviors. The list is staggering. There are of course the obvious behaviors such as love, hate, guilt, retribution, social tendencies and habits, friendship, empathy, gratitude, trustworthiness, a sense of fulfillment at giving aid and guilt at not giving aid, high and low self esteem, competition, and so forth.

These behaviors are supposed to have evolved according to the kin selection criteria, along with many more nuanced behaviors. For instance, love not only evolved, but in varying degrees depending on the degree of shared genes. It is weaker within the extended family than within the family. Low self esteem behavior not only evolved, but the art of not hiding it can be advantageous and so also evolved. Sibling rivalries evolved, but only to a limited degree. In wealthy families, it is more advantageous for siblings to favor sisters while in poor families siblings ought to favor brothers. So those behaviors evolved. Mothers in poor physical condition ought to treat daughters as more valuable than sons. Likewise, socially or materially disadvantaged parents ought to treat daughters as more valuable than sons.

Evolutionists explain all these nuanced behaviors according to the calculus of kin selection. For instance, consider sympathy and compassion. According to evolution, compassion and sympathy are nothing more than cleverly disguised manipulations. For while we may like to think our sympathy is pure, in fact it comes at a price. The unspoken yet universal expectation is: “you owe me one.” As one science writer put it, “Exquisitely sensitive sympathy is just highly nuanced investment advice. Our deepest compassion is our best bargain hunting.” (Wright, 205) What such explanations fail to explain is the enormous complexity now added to the theory. Yes, the altruism is explained as advantageous, but such nuanced behaviors must somehow have arisen in the first place, in order to be later selected.

And, evolutionists warn, we should not be fooled by our intuition that certain behaviors are “obvious,” or “right.” For instance, love for one’s children and grief at the death of a child may seem to be natural reactions, but evolutionists explain that what seems to us to be common sense is, itself, merely a manifestation of our evolved behaviors. Yes we love our children, but only because such a behavior was selected. We have evolution to thank for our heartfelt emotions.

But do not many of our moral sentiments and behaviors reflect right and wrong? Are not loyalty, sacrifice, honor, our sense of justice, obligation and shame, remorse and moral indignation more than merely the result of mutations and selection? No, warn evolutionists, such appeals only reveal the power of evolution. As one writer put it, “It is amazing that a process as amoral and crassly pragmatic as natural selection could design a mental organ that makes us feel as if we’re in touch with higher truths. Truly a shameless ploy.” (Wright, 212)

In fact, evolutionists explain, evolution has constructed elaborate deception mechanisms. Children use temper tantrums to manipulate parents. Parents countered this with the ability to discern and children, in turn, refined their manipulation with heartfelt whining. All a result of the complexities of natural selection. Cheating, suspicion, exaggeration, embellishment, hypocrisy, displays of morality, false compliments, self-serving dishonesty, boasting and self-deprecation are all evolved behaviors in accordance with natural selection.

Deception is rampant and evolutionists believe it evolved in biology to enhance reproduction. In turn, the ability to recognize deception has evolved, which in turn spurred the evolution of some degree of self deception, to better fool the opponent. This self deception should not be underestimated. It really means that we are, to a certain degree, truly deceived about the world around us. Our brains did not evolve to know truth, but some skewed version of reality. As one evolutionist concluded, “the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naïve view of mental evolution.” (Trivers, 1976)

Here evolution aligns itself with radical skepticism. Nothing can be known to be true. If evolution is true, then not only are our minds nothing more than the product of unguided natural processes, but those very processes inbred a certain degree of falsehood. The evolutionist’s claim that evolution is a fact is self-refuting, for it leads to the conclusion that they cannot know that evolution is a fact.

Regardless of how deceived we are, we do know that evolution now calls for unguided genetic variation to create an incredible menagerie of complex and nuanced behavior. The enormous inventory of human behavior, which was selected, is only a tiny fraction of what must have been created. It would be swamped by the myriad behaviors which were not advantageous. In order to explain altruism, evolutionists now make a staggering claim about what must have arisen in nature. But the claim is a trade secret, as it is rarely discussed. Evolution has become a theory of seemingly endless speculation about behavior with little explanation of how the specific behaviors actually are supposed to have arisen. Evolutionists speculate at length about how behaviors could have been advantageous, with little consideration of the origin of such behaviors. Here is a representative example of this speculation, regarding an imagined behavioral strategy called “Selfish Punisher,” which exploits altruists and punishes other selfish individuals.

Individuals who behave altruistically are vulnerable to exploitation by more selfish individuals within their own group, but groups of altruists can robustly out-compete more selfish groups. Altruism can therefore evolve by natural selection as long as its collective advantage outweighs its more local disadvantage. All evolutionary theories of altruism reflect this basic conflict between levels of selection. It might seem that the local advantage of selfishness can be eliminated by punishment, but punishment is itself a form of altruism. For instance, if you pay to put a criminal in jail, all law-abiding citizens benefit but you paid the cost. If someone else pays you to put the criminal in jail, this action costs those individuals something that other law-abiding citizens didn’t have to pay. Economists call this the higher-order public goods problem. Rewards and punishments that enforce good behavior are themselves forms of good behavior that are vulnerable to subversion from within. (Binghamton University)

Sub hypotheses such as this are now rampant within evolutionary theory. They are required to explain the wide range of behaviors in biology, and they force evolution to unprecedented levels of complexity. Unguided genetic change must be capable of somehow generating a wide array of behaviors with incredible precision.

And not only must all these varied and nuanced behaviors have arisen via unguided genetic modifications, but orders of magnitude more behaviors, which were not advantageous, must also have arisen. If unguided genetic variations were able to generate such pinpoint behaviors from which selection could choose, then there must also have been a vast menagerie of bizarre behaviors that were not selected. For the genetic variations were unguided. There was no foreknowledge of which behaviors were advantageous and which were not. The latter vastly outnumber the former, and so any given variation was most likely selected against. Only the rare exceptions were advantageous and evolutionary history must be chocked full of never observed pathologies that would not pass evolution’s test.

Problem of non reciprocal altruism

In addition to the tremendous complexity that kin selection adds to the theory of evolution, there is the problem that it does not explain altruistic behaviors for which no advantage to the individual can be imagined. Why do soldiers smother grenades? Why do rescuers risk their lives? Why does Mother Theresa help the needy in far away countries? Kin selection does not explain altruistic acts where there is no advantage to one’s own genes.

To explain such altruism, evolutionists must turn to unlikely speculation. For instance, a popular explanation is that in earlier ages our ancestors lived in small clans and villages where blood relations where more common. If most everyone in the village was a relative of yours, then altruistic behaviors would be advantageous more often. By the time civilization expanded into cities and nations, the altruistic behavior had evolved. So now we give aid to unrelated people because our evolved genes consider all people to have at least some relation to us.

In this model today’s examples of altruism that do not seem explainable using kin selection are viewed as vestigial behaviors. They were selected in the past, but now are operating outside the scope of kin selection. So although, as we saw above, evolution must have tremendous precision in creating finely tuned, nuanced behaviors, here evolution becomes a crude instrument. When needed, evolution can act with surgical precision. But when problems arise, evolution is suddenly clumsy. It is remarkable that, on the one hand Mother Theresa is left clueless that orphans on the other side of the world do not share her genes, yet on the other hand evolution can precisely construct detailed behaviors such as the Selfish Punisher strategy, the detailed altruism profiles between wealthy and poor families, and so forth. Mother Theresa falsifies the evolutionary expectations. As a consequence the theory is forced to adopt low probability, high complexity modifications. The theory is not explaining the data, it is adapting to the data.

Several other explanations have also been contemplated. For instance, perhaps aiding another individual enhance one’s status and attractiveness. Perhaps selection occurs at higher levels than the gene. (Wilson, Wilson; Bowles) Or perhaps what seems to be selfless altruism actually plays to self-centered motives. Yes, “Mother Theresa is an extraordinary person,” explained one evolutionist, “but it should not be forgotten that she is secure in service of Christ and the knowledge of her Church’s immortality.” (Wilson) Ultimately, even helping the poor on the other side of the world can be rationalized with natural selection. With these and other explanations, evolutionists are able to provide some sort of selection rationale for practically any behavior.

Conclusions

Darwin’s theory of evolution led him to several expectations and predictions, regarding behavior in general, and altruism in particular. We now know those predictions to be false. Furthermore, in order to explain many of the behaviors we find in biology, evolutionists have had to add substantial serendipity to their theory. The list of events that must have occurred to explain how evolution produced what we observe is incredible and the theory has become absurdly complex.

References

Binghamton University. 2008. “Selfishness May Be Altruism's Unexpected Ally.” ScienceDaily May 2.

Bowles, Samuel. 2006. “Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism.” Science 314:1569-1572.

Darwin, Charles. 1872. The Origin of Species. 6th ed. London: John Murray.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F391&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

Hamilton, William D. 1964. “The genetical evolution of social behavior.” J Theoretical Biology 1:1-52.

Trivers, Robert. 1971. “The evolution of reciprocal altruism.” Quarterly Review of Biology 46:35-56.

Trivers, Robert. 1976. In: Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Pres.

Williams, George. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wilson, Edward O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wilson, David Sloan, Edward O. Wilson. 2007. “Rethinking the theoretical foundation of sociobiology.” Quarterly Review of Biology 82:327-348.

Wright, Robert. 1994. The Moral Animal. New York: Vintage Books.

On the history of life a question worth asking:The watchtower Society's commentary III

Where Did the Instructions Come From?

Why do you look the way you do? What determines the color of your eyes, your hair, your skin? What about your height, your build, or your resemblance to one or both of your parents? What tells the ends of your fingers to grow soft pads on one side and hard, protective nails on the other?

In Charles Darwin’s day, the answers to such questions were shrouded in mystery. Darwin himself was fascinated by the way traits are passed along from one generation to the next, but he knew little about the laws of genetics and even less about the mechanisms within the cell that govern heredity. Now, however, biologists have spent decades studying human genetics and the detailed instructions that are embedded in the amazing molecule called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Of course, the big question is, Where did these instructions come from?

What do many scientists claim? Many biologists and other scientists feel that DNA and its coded instructions came about through undirected chance events that took place over the course of millions of years. They say that there is no evidence of design in the structure of this molecule nor in the information that it carries and transmits nor in the way that it functions.17

What does the Bible say? The Bible suggests that the formation of our different body parts—and even the timing of their formation—involves a figurative book that originates with God. Notice how King David was inspired to describe matters, saying of God: “Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing, as regards the days when they were formed and there was not yet one among them.”—Psalm 139:16.

What does the evidence reveal? If evolution is true, then it should seem at least reasonably possible that DNA could have come about by means of a series of chance events. If the Bible is true, then DNA should provide strong evidence that it is the product of an orderly, intelligent mind.

When considered in the simplest of terms, the subject of DNA is quite understandable—and fascinating. So let us take another trip to the inside of a cell. This time, though, we will visit a human cell. Imagine that you are going to a museum designed to teach you about how such a cell works. The whole museum is a model of a typical human cell—but magnified some 13,000,000 times. It is the size of a giant sports arena, the kind that can seat an audience of about 70,000 people.

You enter the museum and stare awestruck at this wondrous place full of strange forms and structures. Near the center of the cell stands the nucleus, a sphere about 20 stories tall. You make your way there.

You go through a door in the nucleus’ outer skin, or membrane, and look around you. Dominating this chamber are 46 chromosomes. Arranged in identical pairs, they vary in height, but the pair nearest you is about 12 stories tall (1). Each chromosome has a pinched place near the middle, so it looks a bit like a link sausage but is as thick as a massive tree trunk. You see a variety of bands running across the model chromosomes. As you draw closer, you see that each horizontal band is divided by vertical lines. Between those are shorter horizontal lines (2). Are they stacks of books? No; they are the outer edges of loops, packed tightly in columns. You pull at one of them, and it comes free. You are amazed to see that the loop is composed of smaller coils (3), also neatly arranged. Within those coils is the main feature of all of this—something resembling a long, long rope. What is it?

THE STRUCTURE OF AN AMAZING MOLECULE
Let us simply call this part of the model chromosome a rope. It is about an inch [2.6 cm] thick. It is looped tightly around spools (4), which help to form the coils within coils. These coils are attached to a kind of scaffold that holds them in place. A sign on the display explains that the rope is packed very efficiently. If you were to pull the rope from each of these model chromosomes and lay it all out, from end to end it would stretch about halfway around the earth!*

One science book calls this efficient packaging system “an extraordinary feat of engineering.”18 Does the suggestion that there was no engineer behind this feat sound credible to you? If this museum had a huge store with millions of items for sale and they were all so tidily arranged that you could easily find any item you needed, would you assume that no one had organized the place? Of course not! But such order would be a simple feat by comparison.

In the museum display, a sign invites you to take a length of this rope in your hands for a closer look (5). As you run it between your fingers, you see that this is no ordinary rope. It is composed of two strands twisted around each other. The strands are connected by tiny bars, evenly spaced. The rope looks like a ladder that has been twisted until it resembles a spiral staircase (6). Then it hits you: You are holding a model of the DNA molecule—one of the great mysteries of life!

A single DNA molecule, tidily packaged with its spools and scaffold, makes up a chromosome. The rungs of the ladder are known as base pairs (7). What do they do? What is all of this for? A display sign offers a simplified explanation.

THE ULTIMATE INFORMATION STORAGE SYSTEM
The key to the DNA, the sign says, lies in those rungs, the bars connecting the two sides of the ladder. Imagine the ladder split apart. Each side has partial rungs sticking out. They come in only four types. Scientists dub them A, T, G, and C. Scientists were amazed to discover that the order of those letters conveys information in a sort of code.

You may know that Morse code was invented in the 19th century so that people could communicate by telegraph. That code had only two “letters”—a dot and a dash. Yet, it could be used to spell out countless words or sentences. Well, DNA has a four-letter code. The order in which those letters—A, T, G, and C—appear forms “words” called codons. Codons are arranged in “stories” called genes. Each gene contains, on average, 27,000 letters. These genes and the long stretches between them are compiled into chapters of a sort—the individual chromosomes. It takes 23 chromosomes to form the complete “book”—the genome, or total of genetic information about an organism.*

The genome would be a huge book. How much information would it hold? All told, the human genome is made up of about three billion base pairs, or rungs, on the DNA ladder.19 Imagine a set of encyclopedias in which each volume is over a thousand pages long. The genome would fill 428 of such volumes. Adding the second copy that is found in each cell would make that 856 volumes. If you were to type out the genome by yourself, it would be a full-time job—with no vacations—lasting some 80 years!

Of course, what you would end up with after all that typing would be useless to your body. How would you fit hundreds of bulky volumes into each of your 100 trillion microscopic cells? To compress so much information so greatly is far beyond us.

A professor of molecular biology and computer science noted: “One gram of DNA, which when dry would occupy a volume of approximately one cubic centimeter, can store as much information as approximately one trillion CDs [compact discs].”20 What does that mean? Remember, the DNA contains the genes, the instructions for building a unique human body. Each cell has a complete set of instructions. DNA is so dense with information that a single teaspoonful of it could carry the instructions for building about 350 times the number of humans alive today! The DNA required for the seven billion people living on earth now would barely make a film on the surface of that teaspoon.21

A BOOK WITH NO AUTHOR?
Despite advances in miniaturization, no man-made information storage device can approach such a capacity. Yet, the compact disc offers an apt comparison. Consider this: A compact disc may impress us with its symmetrical shape, its gleaming surface, its efficient design. We see clear evidence that intelligent people made it. But what if it is embedded with information—not random gibberish, but coherent, detailed instructions for building, maintaining, and repairing complex machinery? That information does not perceptibly change the weight or the size of the disc. Yet, it is the most important feature of that disc. Would not those written instructions convince you that there must be some intelligent mind at work here? Does not writing require a writer?

It is not far-fetched to compare DNA to a compact disc or to a book. In fact, one book about the genome notes: “The idea of the genome as a book is not, strictly speaking, even a metaphor. It is literally true. A book is a piece of digital information . . . So is a genome.” The author adds: “The genome is a very clever book, because in the right conditions it can both photocopy itself and read itself.”22 That brings up another important aspect of DNA.

MACHINES IN MOTION
As you stand there in the quiet, you find yourself wondering if the nucleus of a cell is really as still as a museum. Then you notice another display. Above a glass case containing a length of model DNA is a sign that reads: “Push Button for Demonstration.” You push the button, and a narrator explains: “DNA has at least two very important jobs. The first is called replication. DNA has to be copied so that every new cell will have a complete copy of the same genetic information. Please watch this simulation.”

Through a door at one end of the display comes a complex-looking machine. It is actually a cluster of robots closely linked together. The machine goes to the DNA, attaches itself, and begins to move along the DNA as a train might follow a track. It moves a little too fast for you to see exactly what it is doing, but you can easily see that behind it, there are now two complete DNA ropes instead of one.

The narrator explains: “This is a greatly simplified version of what goes on when DNA is replicated. A group of molecular machines called enzymes travel along the DNA, first splitting it in two, then using each strand as a template to make a new, complementary strand. We cannot show you all the parts involved—such as the tiny device that runs ahead of the replication machine and snips one side of the DNA so that it can twirl around freely instead of getting wound up too tight. Nor can we show you how the DNA is ‘proofread’ several times. Errors are detected and corrected to an amazing degree of accuracy.”—See the diagram on pages 16 and 17.

The narrator continues: “What we can show you clearly is the speed. You noticed this robot moving at a pretty good clip, didn’t you? Well, the actual enzyme machinery moves along the DNA ‘track’ at a rate of about 100 rungs, or base pairs, every second.23 If the ‘track’ were the size of a railroad track, this ‘engine’ would be barreling along at the rate of over 50 miles [80 km] per hour. In bacteria, these little replication machines can move ten times faster than that! In the human cell, armies of hundreds of these replication machines go to work at different spots along the DNA ‘track.’ They copy the entire genome in just eight hours.”24 (See the box “A Molecule That Can Be Read and Copied,” on page 20.)

“READING” DNA
The DNA-replicating robots trundle off the scene. Another machine appears. It too moves along a stretch of DNA, but more slowly. You see the DNA rope entering one end of this machine and emerging from the other—unchanged. But a single strand, a new one, is coming out of a separate opening in the machine, like a growing tail. What is going on?

Again the narrator provides an explanation: “DNA’s second job is called transcription. The DNA never leaves the safe shelter of the nucleus. So how can its genes—the recipes for all the proteins your body is made of—ever be read and used? Well, this enzyme machine finds a spot along the DNA where a gene has been switched on by chemical signals coming in from outside the cell nucleus. Then this machine uses a molecule called RNA (ribonucleic acid) to make a copy of that gene. RNA looks a lot like a single strand of DNA, but it is different. Its job is to pick up the information coded in the genes. The RNA gets that information while in the enzyme machine, then exits the nucleus and heads to one of the ribosomes, where the information will be used to build a protein.”

As you watch the demonstration, you are filled with wonder. You are deeply impressed by this museum and the ingenuity of those who designed and built its machines. But what if this entire place with all its exhibits could be set in motion, demonstrating all the thousands upon thousands of tasks that go on in the human cell at the same time? What an awe-inspiring spectacle that would be!

You realize, though, that all these processes carried out by tiny, complex machines are actually going on right now in your own 100 trillion cells! Your DNA is being read, providing directions to build the hundreds of thousands of different proteins that make up your body—its enzymes, tissues, organs, and so on. Right now your DNA is being copied and proofread for errors so that a fresh set of directions is there to be read in each new cell.

WHY DO THESE FACTS MATTER?
Again, let us ask ourselves, ‘Where did all these instructions come from?’ The Bible suggests that this “book” and its writing originate with a superhuman Author. Is that conclusion really out-of-date or unscientific?

Consider this: Could humans even build the museum just described? They would run into real difficulty if they tried. Much about the human genome and how it functions is little understood as yet. Scientists are still trying to figure out where all the genes are and what they do. And the genes comprise only a small part of the DNA strand. What about all those long stretches that do not contain genes? Scientists have called those parts junk DNA, but more recently they have been modifying that stance. Those parts may control how and to what extent the genes are used. And even if scientists could create a full model of the DNA and the machines that copy and proofread it, could they make it actually function as the real one does?

Famous scientist Richard Feynman left this note on a blackboard shortly before his death: “What I cannot create, I do not understand.”25 His candid humility is refreshing, and his statement, obviously true in the case of DNA. Scientists cannot create DNA with all its replication and transcription machinery; nor can they fully understand it. Yet, some assert that they know that it all came about by undirected chance and accidents. Does the evidence that you have considered really support such a conclusion?

Some learned men have decided that the evidence points the other way. For example, Francis Crick, a scientist who helped to discover DNA’s double-helix structure, decided that this molecule is far too organized to have come about through undirected events. He proposed that intelligent extraterrestrials may have sent DNA to the earth to help get life started here.26

More recently, noted philosopher Antony Flew, who advocated atheism for 50 years, did an about-face of sorts. At 81 years of age, he began to express a belief that some intelligence must have been at work in the creation of life. Why the change? A study of DNA. When asked if his new line of thought might prove unpopular among scientists, Flew reportedly answered: “That’s too bad. My whole life has been guided by the principle . . . [to] follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”27


What do you think? Where does the evidence lead? Imagine that you found a computer room in the heart of a factory. The computer is running a complex master program that directs all the workings of that factory. What is more, that program is constantly sending out instructions on how to build and maintain every machine there, and it is making copies of itself and proofreading them. What would that evidence lead you to conclude? That the computer and its program must have made themselves or that they were produced by orderly, intelligent minds? Really, the evidence speaks for itself.

(The textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell uses a different scale. It says that trying to pack these long strands into a cell nucleus would be like trying to pack 24 miles [40 km] of very fine thread into a tennis ball—but in such a neat, organized way that each part of the thread remains easily accessible.

Each cell contains two complete copies of the genome, 46 chromosomes in all.
  A MOLECULE THAT CAN BE READ AND COPIED
How can DNA be read and copied so reliably? The four chemical bases used in the DNA ladder—A, T, G, and C—form the ladder’s individual rungs by always pairing in the same way: A with T, and G with C. If one side of a rung is A, the other side is always T; G always meets C. Therefore, if you have one side of the ladder, you know the other side of the ladder. Where one side of the ladder reads GTCA, the other side must read CAGT. The partial rungs differ in length, but when they pair up with their complements, they make complete rungs of one uniform length.

Discovering that fact led scientists to another breakthrough about this remarkable molecule: DNA is perfectly suited for being copied over and over. The enzyme machine that replicates DNA takes in free-floating units of those four chemicals from the environment in the nucleus. Then it uses them to complete each rung on the split DNA strand.


So a DNA molecule really is like a book that is read and copied over and over again. In the average life span of a human, DNA is copied some 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, with amazing fidelity.28
FACTS AND QUESTIONS
▪ Fact: DNA is packaged within the chromosomes in a manner so efficient that it has been called a “feat of engineering.”

Question: How could such order and organization arise by undirected chance events?

▪ Fact: DNA’s capacity to store information still has no equal in today’s computer age.

Question: If human computer technicians cannot achieve such results, how could mindless matter do so on its own?

▪ Fact: DNA contains all the instructions needed to build a unique human body and maintain it throughout life.

Question: How could such writing come about without a writer, such programming without a programmer?

▪ Fact: For DNA to work, it has to be copied, read, and proofread by a swarm of complex molecular machines called enzymes, which must work together with precision and split-second timing.


Question: Do you believe that highly complex, highly reliable machinery can come about by chance? Without solid proof, would not such a belief amount to blind faith?