Early in our lives we recognize the importance of patterns. The pattern of our mother’s face distinguishes it from all others. Later, it becomes clear that the pattern of sounds spoken to us carries with it some meaning or idea (comfort, love, disapproval). Despite the increasing complexity of ideas expressed verbally to us as we grow, we learn our native language rapidly. Eventually written symbols can be substituted for the sounds of the spoken language and we learn that the sequence or pattern of the symbols (letters/words) represent the same ideas as spoken words. If we now look at the biological world of plants, animals, and people, we find that the directions for building and maintaining a living cell are “written” on the genetic material, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), using a precise and complicated genetic language.1 The evolutionary explanation for the existence of this genetic language and its use by all living things ignores recent developments in information theory and the nature of the requirements for the design of biological systems.2 Consideration of these developments leads to a much different conclusion regarding the origin of the genetic language (code) and also the origin of the massive amount of information (ideas) stored in living cells using that language.
The organization of atoms and molecules into the incredibly complex array of structures and delicately balanced chemical machinery of a living cell requires huge amounts of information, specific directions, and responsive control mechanisms. These directions are “written” on the genetic material (DNA) that is found within every living cell.3 When this store of information is “read” by the machinery of the cell, it is able to direct its many functions. Under the control of this information are the amazing processes that form the tissues, organs, and organ systems so familiar to us in the anatomy of plants, animals, and our own bodies. If the instructions from a single cell were to be written down on paper, it has been estimated that they could easily take up as much as 500,000 pages!4
The structure of DNA was deduced by Watson and Crick in the early 1950’s and is often described as a twisted ladder.5 What we now call a gene was found to be a sequence of chemical building blocks called nucleotides that could be thought of as one side of a ladder where the rungs were cut down the middle. It is the sequence of the cut rungs (chemical “bases” known as adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine) that represents the information of the gene.6
Each genetic “word” is composed of a set of three bases in order on one side of the DNA ladder. Genetic “words” (codons) strung together in the text of the gene correspond to the positions of particular amino acids in proteins which will be built by the machinery of the cell as it “reads” the DNA.7 Proteins function as structural elements of cells, as messengers (hormones) and as enzymes which regulate essentially all of the chemical reactions needed for living systems to survive.
Thus, a fully developed genetic language exists within a living cell. A language which has its own grammar and punctuation8 and which can be read and understood by the machinery of the cell. It must be emphasized that non-living chemicals do not generate ideas or information on their own, nor do they decide among themselves to agree upon a language convention. These activities are characteristics of intelligent beings and not dead chemicals. In other words, the chemicals of the paper and ink could not write the book! Language which communicates information is the product of intelligence and is based on agreed upon conventions of meaning. For example, the letters “AND” form a word used as a conjunction in English. But using a different language convention, say German, the same meaning is expressed as “UND.”
In the genetic language of life, the sequence “UUU” corresponds to the amino acid phenylalanine because the machinery of the cell is programmed to understand this triplet of DNA bases as directing the placement of phenylalanine at a particular point in the structure of a protein. Modern information theory (as well as reason) has concluded that language and written language agreements do not develop spontaneously apart from intelligence.9 It seems, then, less than rational to suggest that matter and energy, which have no inherent information content, when left over vast eons of time, will (and we are told did) spontaneously organize into an information storage (DNA), word processing system (mRNA, tRNA, ribosomes), and energy regulation system (chloroplasts, mitochondria, glycolysis, etc.).10 Despite the many attempts to experimentally show that it is possible, this idea of auto-organization of dead matter into living things is an article of faith in the evolutionary view of the world which excludes, a priori, the possibility of an intelligent Designer/Writer as the originator of the language of life and, indeed, of the very material of life as well.11
A huge amount of genetic information is carried by the chemistry of the DNA molecule, but it originated in the thoughts of the Designer who wrote those thoughts down in the chemical structure of DNA and who also imposed the language convention on the cellular machinery to enable it to properly read and interpret that information.
Long ago, William Paley suggested that the existence of a watch implied the existence of a watch-maker. Today we might say that the very existence of an airplane undoubtedly proves the existence of highly intelligent and skilled designers and engineers. Wilber and Orville Wright knew that the pieces of metal and wood in their bicycle shop would never put themselves together into something that could fly without their help. The same is true of the genetic material. Its structure and the ideas with which it is programmed do not come from the chemicals of which it is made, but rather they come from the mind of the Designer/Writer. The DNA mol-ecule carries the Designer’s ideas, using its chemical structure and a language of chemical “words” to enable those ideas to become real structures and functions in a cell or organism.
To believe, as many do, that living cells developed from non-living chemicals by random chemical reactions powered by uncontrolled energy over unsearchable past millennia seems rather foolish in the face of the realization that language, complicated ideas, and fully functional designs for biochemical machines could come only from an intelligent being. The DNA molecule and the genetic language is not compelling evidence of a common evolutionary heritage for all living things, but rather is compelling evidence of the power of the one true God and His consummate skill and power. We think it best to respond to those who ask for proof of the reality of the Creator God in the same way as Jesus did, by simply saying, “It is written…” (Mt. 4:3-4).
Endnotes
1. Often called the genetic “code,” this language consists of 64 three-letter “words” or codons found as a continuous sequence in the DNA molecule. The sequence can be “read” in one of three reading “frames” depending on which of the three positions in the first codon is used as a starting point. Thus three different “sentences” can be read from the same sequence of codons. No other language known has the ability to overlap or condense information in this way. See: Molecular Cell Biology, second edition. J. Darnell, H. Lodish, D. Baltimore, Editors. Scientific American Books, New York, 1990, pp. 88-90.
2. For an explanation of how difficult it is to account for biological information only by reductions in entropy and how living systems differ from newly developed “artificially” intelligent computers see: The Creation of Life: a cybernetic approach to evolution. A.E. Wilder-Smith, Master Books, San Diego, CA, 1981.
3. DNA is found in bacteria (procaryotes) and cells with a nucleus (eucaryotes) as well as in certain types of viral particles. Though viruses contain DNA they are not normally considered alive because they must infect a living cell to reproduce. Certain cells like red blood cells (RBCs) lose their nucleus when they become mature and thus have no way to renew or repair themselves so their life span is limited to around 100 days. Some viruses contain only RNA and upon infection of a cell create DNA from the RNA by reverse transcription. In living cells RNA is made from DNA as an intermediary information transfer molecule. Many evolutionary scientists believe RNA may have developed first though no living cell today uses only RNA for its information storage system. See: Molecular Cell Biology, second edition. J. Darnell, H. Lodish, D. Baltimore, Editors. Scientific American Books, New York, 1990, ch. 26.
4. See the amusing but perceptive account of a group of primitive, but logical, neanderthals when they encounter the beliefs and practices of modern man, in: He Who Thinks Has to Believe. A.E. Wilder-Smith. Master Books, San Diego, CA, 1981, pp. 38.
5. More precisely DNA is a double alpha helix composed of anti-parallel strands of nucleotides held together by hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. The ladder analogy is helpful in visualizing the chemical structure of DNA and in following the flow of information as it is encoded in the sequence of nucleotide bases along one strand of the molecule. See: Any general biology text for details or Molecular Cell Biology. second edition. J. Darnell, H. Lodish, D. Baltimore, Editors. Scientific American Books, New York, 1990, pp. 68-74.
6. Some genes have coding sequences that are continuous, as in bacterial genes. Other genes may be broken up into sections (exons) between which are DNA sequences which are not essential to the gene (introns) as in eucaryotic genes. See: Biochemistry, third edition. G. Zubay, Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA, 1993, chs. 30 and 31.
7. “Reading” is the process of transcribing and translating the information in the sequence of nucleotide bases first into a molecule of RNA (ribonucleic acid) which acts as a messenger between the DNA and the protein-making machinery of the cell and then into a functional protein. These are unintelligent biochemical structures which are functioning to recognize and interpret chemical structure according to a language system. See: Biochemistry, third edition. G. Zubay. Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA, 1993, chapter 29.
8. There are specific codes to pinpoint the start of transcription “AUG” and the end of transcription “UGA” much as a capital letter begins a sentence and a period completes it. As mentioned earlier there are three different possible reading frames or rules of grammar which can be followed during the reading process. If a shift in the reading frame occurs during the reading process, all information content may be lost and a non-functional protein may be produced. See: Biochemistry, third ed., G. Zubay, Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA, 1993, ch. 29.
9. An excellent discussion of the implications of information theory and language agreements with respect to evolution can be found in: The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution. A. E. Wilder-Smith. Master Books, San Diego, CA, 1981, chapter 4.
10. To make matters worse for the evolutionary cause, the existence and function of the cells’ own DNA depends on enzymes and chemical machinery which themselves are made only at the direction of pre-existing, pre-programmed DNA. So the question of how one could have developed without the other becomes rather circular until the existence of a Designer/Writer is taken into consideration. This problem is compounded by the evolutionary requirement for the continual development over time of increasingly complex information, indeed, completely new information for new organs, new appendages and new regulatory processes that do not reduce the likelihood of survival. Genetic mechanisms such as inversion, deletion, and reshuffling of information by transposons or viruses have never been shown to create such information. See: The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution. A.E. Wilder-Smith. Master Books, San Diego, CA, 1981, ch. 4.
11. For a critical review of the experimental evidence behind the theories of biochemical evolution see: The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories. C. B. Thaxton, W. L. Bradley, R. L. Olsen. Philosophical Library, New York, 1984.