There are a variety of subjects that theologians use to show the existence of God and defend their position. In the previous article, we looked at two I believe to be among the strongest and easiest to follow: Cosmology and Morality. With this article, we'll look at a third that while I believe to be among the strongest, it isn't necessarily one of the easiest to follow: Origin of life.
If you read my previous Hard Questions article on Am I Saved, you will be familiar with the 5 questions each religion and philosophy addresses and attempts to answer.
This article on the existence of God will again address, in part, the question of "Where did I come from".
Origin of Life
Evolutionary tenets propose that approximately 13.8 billion years ago the universe came into existence at the Big Bang event, our Milky Way galaxy formed roughly 13.6 billion years ago, our solar system including Earth formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago, and life arose around 3.5 billion years ago.
An incredibly elementary explanation of the prevailing hypothesis of the origin of life (which I imagine evolutionists will take exception to) involves gradual and complex, undirected, transitions within a habitable environment involving the prebiotic processes of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, autocatalysis, and many more. By those numbers of when the earth formed and when life first arose, it is presumed that for that approximate 1 billion years, a "prebiotic soup" on earth was acted on by both chemical attractions and environmental forces so that complex molecules formed into proteins among which are various amino acids.
This belief teaches that life arose through processes of random mutation acted on by natural selection.
At the detection of cells, they were believed to be simple protoplasmic globules like gelatin that contained small "gemmules", encased within a cellular membrane, and were the result of simple chemical reactions and which could be recreated by science. Today we know they are extraordinarily complex structures with extraordinarily complex components.
Such is the issue with the DNA molecules that life and replication of life is based on through the chromosomes found within the nucleus of the cell.
The estimated number of cells in a human body is around 30 trillion. Each human cell has 46 chromosomes divided into 23 pairs, 23 from each parent. The chromosomes contain that body's unique DNA strands.
Each DNA strand in the human body is 6 feet in length, and each one contains the entire instruction set to build that body. The DNA strand is a encoded instruction set made up of 4 nucleotides: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C).
The DNA molecule has two strands of sugar phosphate that make up the backbone of the gene which is twisted into a helix. Attached between those two strands are pairings of the 4 nucleotide bases. The A and T pair together between the backbone strands, and the G and C pair together between the backbone strands. These pairings make up the information of the genetic code of living organisms.
The DNA code is essentially a Base-4 code for an information system because it uses 4 values as mentioned above: A, T, G, and C. We use various encoded instruction sets every day.
Binary is an information system commonly used in the world of electronics. It is also known as Base 2 and is an information set using values of 0 or 1 which commonly are transposed to Off and On states (respectively).
Decimal is an information system we use daily. It is also known as Base 10 and is an information set using 10 values (0 through 9). If I told you I was born in the 1960's, you would understand what I meant. Would you understand if instead I told you I was born in the 11110101000's?
Alphabets operate in the same manner. Each letter represents a sound (or sounds) and their arrangement determines the correct, or incorrect, transmission of information.
Just having information itself is not enough. Not all information is usable or viable information. That information must have specificity, such as the length and arrangement of its values to determines its meaning or function.
There are differing levels of information:
Example 1:
't:- Fzh LVg0 LP->d) RZ&=nZ]' n;Q| kd?Y yg<8@+qn
fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr fr
d01j d01j d01j d01j d01j d01j
This is the lowest form of information. Each of these lines are technically information at increasing levels of difficulty, but they neither contain nor convey any meaning. Information at this level, however, can be repetitive patterns as the last two show.
Natural processes of chemistry or physics could create random generated sequences or simple patterns. An example would be something like the crystalline structure of snowflakes. They are built from unique and specific information, but not naturally repetitive as their whole.
This is not even close to what the type of information that DNA is.
Example 2:
grand the, eats letting
The next level of information. It has correct characters arranged in correct order with correct segregation. It has groups of information (words) that have meaning, but the whole of it does not have meaning. It lacks content. This level of information is improbable to achieve through natural processes, and even if it was possible, it is still meaningless as a whole.
Again, this is not at the level of DNA information.
Example 3:
grandpa is eating
This category of information is called semantics. Semantics is the study of literal meaning of words and sentences. This level of information that both its parts and its whole convey intelligible information. The words are in the precise order to convey the intended meaning. This level of information is not producible through natural processes.
And we are still not at DNA level of information.
Example 4:
Let's eat, grandpa!
This category of information is called pragmatics. Pragmatics evaluates how context contributes to meaning, and how language is utilized in social interactions and between interpreter and interpreted. The emphasis of pragmatism is the meaning of the whole rather than each word.
One of my sisters spent time tracing our ancestry back in order to find a particular individual whose name had been lost to our family for several generations. This ancestor was of a particular significance to our heritage. Their last name, at one point in time, had been Lovette. My sister kept running into dead-end after dead-end. Then one day, she came upon the government census records of a person of the same area and era, but their last name was registered as Lorette rather than Lovette. Apparently the handwritten V looked like a lower-case R to the census typist. By comparing other known pieces of data (information) of our ancestor to this individual's data, it was confirmed to be the same person and after decades of ignorance, we gained the information we sought.
The change of just one character in my ancestor's name changed the information.
Example 5:
Let's eat grandpa!
This final category is called apobetics. Apobetics is the highest level of information where information conveyed is expected to lead to response or action. It deals with the purpose of information and the completion of that purpose.
In this example, removing the comma changes the entire meaning of the information. As apobetics is the response to a pragmatic prompt, instead of eating with grandpa, the listener is entreated to eat grandpa.
[Examples 2-5 taken from J. Warner Wallace's book, "Cold Case Christianity"]
DNA becomes "aware" of a need. It makes its request. The machinery of the cell responds to the request and fulfills the request.
Semantic: "Please close the door" would be a semanticly understood request to a listener.Pragmatic: The listener would close the door in response.Apobetic: The goal of the instruction is to stop a cold draft through the opened door.
Correct and ordered information is essential. A message sent as We the people holahu2897yahman,zdf upay has lost its specificity as well as its meaning.
"OEPITLHMIBSECIRIEN" is technically information, and in this case complete information. But it is meaningless gibberish. Only when the unordered letters are conveyed with specificity (order), it becomes "COMPREHENSIBLE".
Now, let's consider proteins. Protein molecules are created by the cell according to the instructions on the DNA molecule.
Proteins are made up of a chain of amino acids. Certain amino acids are the building blocks of life. Of the 500+ known amino acids, only 20 are those are found in living organisms. Of those 20, each one has two variants: a "right handed" variant and a "left handed" variant. Of those two variants, only the "left handed" variants are found in the life building proteins of living organisms.
These protein chains are not simply made up of the amino acids; the interaction between the amino acids affects the protein molecule itself. The effect is that the protein molecule is folded into an intricate three-dimensional shape based on those interactions of the amino acids. To achieve the proper 3D shape for the protein molecule, the amino acids must be ordered with specificity - in a very certain and particular order.
These very specific protein shapes are critical to their performance and interactions with other molecules. Proteins have a precise arrangement of amino acids that create a hand-and-glove fitting relationship (like jigsaw puzzle pieces) with their intended target molecule to bind and form structures or create chemical reactions.
If the amino acids are arranged incorrectly, you will get a misshapen protein and lose the functionality of that protein. For instance, if you have a misshapen enzyme that's purpose is to break down complex sugar molecules into simple sugar molecules, it's malformation would prevent bonding with the sugar molecule to perform its function.
In short, the function of the whole depends on the precise arrangement of the parts. As shown above, the same applies to such things as language and computer code.
So, how does the cell know in what order to sequence the amino acids? That's where DNA comes into play. Again, this is another over simplification that through the work of various different types of unique protein molecules (more than named here) the DNA is prepared, split, copied, and restored.
► A protein called a helicase attaches to the DNA strand and "unzips" it breaking its bonded nucleotide A, T, G, and C bases. A sequence of three bases is called a codon. Each codon provides the instructions for creating each amino acid.
► Unattached bases with their sugar phosphate within the nucleus are attracted to the separated DNA strand and assemble with their corresponding nucleotide bases along the strand to form the messenger RNA (mRNA) strand in a method referred to as transcription. When the transcription is complete, the mRNA strand is disconnected.
► The mRNA is then spliced to remove unnecessary portions of the chemical code.
► When it has been processed it leaves the nucleus and enters the cytoplasm of the cell where even more unique proteins finish the task.
► Ribosomes attach to the mRNA and reads the mRNA codons. It attracts unattached clover-shaped transfer RNA (tRNA) that each have corresponding unique codons and carry a specific amino acid. The amino acids are chained together in the ribosome.
► When the last amino acid is in place, the chain folds into its unique and complex three-dimension shape as a fully formed protein called for by the DNA.
That process, as dumbed down as it is, shows without a doubt that the concept of a simple gelatinous globule is vastly mistaken in the make-up and operation of a cell. Not only does the cell contain the most voluminous collection of information, it also has an entire system for processing that information.
It also highlights a difference between complexity and specified complexity. This is applicable to the information in the cell and the construction of the proteins.
Proteins generally come in lengths of around 100 to several hundred amino sites in length. Let's just consider a fictional protein that has only 10 sites for amino acids to assemble. But keep in mind, the longer the chain of amino acids, the greater number of combinations grows.
At each of these 10 sites of our fictional protein, there is a 1 in 20 chance of the correct amino acid to be at that site to create a growing protein.
► At site one, there's a 1 in 20 chance for the correct amino acid
► At site two, there's a 1 in 400 chance to have sites 1 and 2 correct
► At site three, there's a 1 in 8000 chance for site 1, 2, and 3 to be correct
► At site fourth, there's a 1 in 160,000 chance for all 4 sites to have the correct amino acid.
► At site 10, there's a 1 in 10 trillion chance for all 10 sites to have the correct amino acids in the correct sites.
"What about a modest length protein. I've chosen one about 150 amino acids long. That's short; that's not a long protein. It's a very modest length, but with 20 possibilities at each site there's a 150 to the 150 possibilities, or 1 in 10 to the 195th power. There's only 10 to the 80th elementary particles in the whole universe. There's only been 10 to the 17th seconds since the Big Bang. In my book, I go through the math and show that in essence searching for even a single gene or protein product of that gene by change alone is not plausible."- Stephen Meyer, book lecture, "Signature in the Cell"
Doug Axe, PhD, considered the question of how for every protein that perform a function, how common or rare were the combinations of amino acids are among all the possible combinations of amino acids. He calculated based on a 150 amino acid protein. His calculations conclude 1 in 1074 making randomly assembled functional sequences extraordinarily rare.
So for a moderately sized protein of 150 sites of only the 20 amino acids in living organisms, the chance of having them randomly assembled correctly at each site is 1 in 10195, or 1 in 10 followed by 195 0's.
To complicate the issue, recall that of those 20 amino acids, they come in two variants: "right handed" and "left handed", and only the "left handed" are in the proteins that build proteins for life. Even 1 "right handed" amino acid in the sequence will cause the protein to not form. So that is a 1 in 2 chance, or 1045, at each site for an amino acid to be at the correct site by pure chance.
To still complicate the assembly even further, each amino acid is bound to the next in the sequence by a peptide bond. Peptide bonds form in nature at about a 1 in 2 (50%) frequency. If a single non-peptide bond forms between the amino acids, it won't form the protein. So in a 150 amino acid length protein, you would have another 1 in 2 chance at the linkage points between the amino acids. That is 1 in 1045 chance for the correct bonds on top of the 10195 chance for the correct amino acids.
So the odds of odds of building a protein by chance alone is 1074 x 1045 x 1045 , for a total of 1 in 10164.
Here's another kink in the evolutionary theories. The cellular machines implemented in the creation of proteins are themselves proteins. This becomes a "chicken or the egg" conundrum. Which came first, the proteins or the protein makers?
Many evolutionary scientists don't agree on the original global conditions, or whether life originated in the atmosphere, the clay, the ocean, or pools of prebiotic goo. Many recognize the insufficiency of life originating on each purely by random chance, random mutations, and natural selection even with the 3 billion years on Earth they work with from their cosmological beliefs which leads to the introduction of theories that life began off-world and came from galactic distances on asteroids and comets. None of these theories have been witnessed, and none have been reproduced.
Again, this was a dumbed down explanation of how DNA and biochemistry creates proteins.
A DNA strand is unzipped by a protein, copied to mRNA, and re-zipped. mRNA is modified by a protein before leaving the nucleus. Another protein reads the mRNA code and assembles the requested amino acids which then create a protein strand which bends into its proper 3D shape.
But even at this simplified level, it is demonstrative of the degree of complexity and specificity of the information required to originate life. That is a sequence of pragmatic and apobetic information exchange of making a specific request with the expectation of its precise fulfillment to achieve a definitive purpose beyond the information itself. When dealing with information, and especially at that level, our lived experience individually and collectively is that information always has a singular source: a mind.
That takes us back to a source that is personal, powerful, intelligent, wise, and creative.
For that discussion, see the previous article in this series: Hard Questions: Is there a god? Does God exist?
Check out these books:
Signature in the Cell - Stephen Meyer
Undeniable - Doug Axe
Cold Case Christianity - J Warner Wallace,
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