The DNA Code
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:
Summarizing the state of the art in the study of the code evolution,
we cannot escape considerable skepticism. It seems that the
two-pronged fundamental question: "why is the genetic code the way
it is and how did it come to be?", that was asked over 50 years ago,
at the dawn of molecular biology, might remain pertinent even in
another 50 years.
Summarizing even further: they have no idea how it could possibly be
done. Well, yeah, if you understand the problem you know it can't be
done by random chance. Only intelligence could manage this task.
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.
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