The DNA Code
Beta Version from February 9, 2024
Copyright 2017-2024 by Donald R. Tveter, don@dontveter.com

This document may be freely distributed provided it is complete and unchanged.


It is very difficult to reach atheists with scientific truth. If you start in on how evolution by chance can't possibly produce the structures and changes you see in complex life forms the atheist will simply say something like "Look at the theory of population genetics, that explains it all.". Well, it doesn't (see the essay, The Failure of Macro-Evolution), but atheists close their minds at this point and assume all is well and any critic must be a creationist idiot.

There is a better weak point in the atheist creation myth. It's the idea there was a primordial/pre-biotic soup that magically turned into the first living cell. This is as ridiculous the creation myths that you find in primitive cultures. For instance, one day I ran into the Norse creation myth. (You can find a description of the Norse creation myth in a little article on the net: The Creation of the Cosmos.) At the start of this myth, there was only fire and ice. The fire and ice crept toward each other and drops of water formed. The drops of water turned into the first of the god-like giants. Ah, sure.

Once the DNA code was discovered in the 1950s, anyone without any bias would immediately recognize that it could never happen by chance. The DNA code and the DNA itself is way too complicated to have happened by chance. To see this, take a look at DNA. DNA consists of two strands that are linked together that contain genes. The genes are used to make proteins. In the beginning, it was thought that each gene only produced one protein but as it turns out, some genes can be read different ways and then many different proteins can be made from a single gene. (This is such a complicated arrangement that it is another reason to think that DNA could never happen by chance.) The DNA is unzipped into two strands. Each strand is a long molecule called mRNA. The mRNA is submitted to a complicated molecule called a ribosome. The ribosome "reads" these codes and assembles a protein. For each gene there is a stop code and when the ribosome finds the stop code, it releases the protein it has been making.

So now, just how likely is it that a strip of mRNA is going to form and accidentally produce the instructions necessary to build a ribosome? It's just not going to happen by chance. And if it did happen you would also need a ribosome floating around that could interpret the mRNA to make more ribosomes. What are the odds of that? It's the old, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" problem. And the mRNA would also have to just happen to contain the codes for all the other proteins that make up the cell. It's never going to happen. Atheists fall back on the idea that there was some simpler machinery that evolved into the current system. OK, but whatever series of simpler systems you come up with is still not going to get a strand of mRNA that can do anything at all without a ribosome-type molecule to interpret the mRNA and make a ribosome. Please, atheists, do something to show it can really work. Maybe put together a computer program that will do a simpler version of this problem, for instance. Then you'll finally realize it is never going to work. Then you'll finally realize creating the DNA code and life can only be done by intelligence.

There is a second issue involved with DNA that is another roadblock. Once that DNA code was discovered in the 1950s, everyone assumed that that ONE code is present in every living thing. In other words, they thought that the code was universal. They would say that it would be impossible for one living thing to change its code into a different code. If you tried, you would get instant disaster. Richard Dawkins, in a moment of unusual honesty (that I am sure he regrets) said why the code must be universal:
The reason is interesting. Any mutation in the genetic code itself (as opposed to mutations in the genes that it encodes) would have an instantly catastrophic effect, not just in one place but throughout the whole organism. If any word in the 64-word dictionary changed its meaning, so that it came to specify a different amino acid, just about every protein in the body would instantaneously change, probably in many places along its length. Unlike an ordinary mutation ... this would spell disaster. (2009, p. 409-10)
This quote came from the webpage: Venter vs. Dawkins on the Tree of Life - and Another Dawkins Whopper. I'm going to use an example in this webpage to, hopefully, make it really clear to everyone, that life needs a Creator. Life cannot happen by chance. The fact is there isn't just one genetic code. As it turns out at the moment, there are at least 25 different genetic codes. It is generally thought that more will be found in the future. For a listing, see the page, The Genetic Codes.

DNA has a sequence of four different bases: cytosine (C), guanine (G), adenine (A) and thymine (T). DNA is split into two strands of messenger RNA (mRNA) where thymine is replaced by uracil (U). In the human mRNA code, there is a sequence of three bases, UGA, that form the stop code. Again, when the ribosome finds the stop code, it stops making the protein and it releases it before it goes on to make more proteins. But there is another DNA code, a code used by a group of bacteria called the Mycoplasmas. In this code, the sequence UGA is not the stop code. Instead, it is the code for inserting a molecule of tryptophan. You can't take a strand of the Mycoplasma mRNA and submit it to a human ribosome and expect it to work. The human ribosome will stop when it hits UGA. It won't insert tryptophan as it would when a Mycoplasma ribosome processes the mRNA. Likewise, if you took a strand of human mRNA and gave it to a Mycoplasma ribosome, when it hits the UGA sequence, it won't stop making the protein, instead it will insert a tryptophan molecule. Nothing is made properly. This is really bad news for the cell! This is why Dawkins says there would be an "instantly catastrophic effect".

Now look at the problem of starting with the human DNA code and trying to change it (evolve it) into the Mycoplasma DNA code. Suppose, just suppose, that a mutation occurs in the DNA that changes the ribosome from the human ribosome into a Mycoplasma ribosome. Of course this is pretty unlikely. Any mutation is likely to produce a ribosome-like protein that won't process the mRNA strand properly. It's likely to produce a piece of junk. But let's suppose a miracle takes place and the mutation results in a ribosome that actually properly processes the code for the Mycoplasma ribosome. But now, all those UGA sequences in the human DNA have to be replaced with some new sequence that represents the stop code of Mycoplasma DNA. Chance mutations would have to do the job. DNA typically contains thousands or tens of thousands of genes. What is the probability that all those thousands of UGAs AND ONLY THE UGAs will be changed by random mutations? If you know any probability theory you already know it is NEVER going to happen. (Although someone might like to try the calculations just for the fun of it!)

So in the web page mentioned above, Venter destroys the idea that all living things have that one common ancestor, the original cell. Instead, there would have to be many different ancestors because one code will never turn into another code. Atheists have typically said that there could only be one common ancestor (cell) because the formation of one cell is unlikely in itself, the formation of two cells with two different codes is EXTREMELY unlikely. If you're an atheist you can try to get around this problem by saying that there were at least 25 original cells, each with a slightly different DNA code. But wait! If making one simple change is impossible, how are you going to evolve that starting piece of DNA in the first place?

For more on the "difficulties" involved in producing the DNA code there is this article: Origin and Evolution of the Genetic Code: the Universal Enigma. Here is the bottom line from the end of the article:
PS: Take a look at the 25 codes: The Genetic Codes. Notice that the vertebrate mitochondrial code is different from the invertebrate mitochondrial code. Now the standard evolutionary belief is that invertebrates evolved into vertebrates. But wait: since you can't change the code, you can't have invertebrates evolve into vertebrates.