Scientists also understand how airplanes fly. For that very reason, no scientist believes that airplanes are the result of time, chance, and the properties of aluminum and other materials that make up the airplane. Flying is a property of organization, not of substance. A Boeing 747, for example, is a collection of 4.5 million non-flying parts, but thanks to design and creation (and a continuous supply of energy and of repair services!), it flies.
Similarly, "life" is a property of
organization,
not of
substance.
A living cell is a collection of several billion non-living molecules, and death results when a shortage of energy or a flaw in the operational or repair mechanisms allows inherent chemical processes to destroy its biological order.
It's what we
do know
and
can explain
about aluminum and the laws of physics that would convince us that airplanes are the products of creation, even if we never saw the acts of creation. In the same way, it's what we
do know
and
can explain
about DNA and protein and the laws of chemistry which suggests that life itself is the result of special creation.
My point is not based on design
per se,
but on the
kind of design
we observe. As creationists point out, some kinds of design, such as snowflakes and wind-worn rock formations,
do
result from time and chance
— given
the properties of the materials involved. Even complex relationships, such as the oxygen-carbon dioxide balance in a sealed aquarium, can result from organisms "doing what comes naturally,"
given
the properties of living things. But just as clearly, other kinds of design, e.g., arrowheads and airplanes, are the direct result of creative design and organization giving matter properties it doesn't have and can't develop on its own. What
we know
about the DNA-protein relationship suggests that living cells have the
created kind
of design. It's not so much the molecular complexity as it is the
transcendent simplicity
.
In the well-known
Scientific American
book,
Evolution,
Dickerson
9
seems to support my point (without meaning to, I'm sure). After describing the problems in producing the right kinds of molecules for living systems, he says that those droplets that by "sheer chance" contained the right molecules survived longer. He continues, "This is not life, but it is getting close to it. The missing ingredient is…."
What will he say here? The "missing ingredient" is …one more protein? …a little more DNA? …an energy supply? …the right acid-base balance? No, he says: "The missing ingredient is an orderly mechanism…."
An orderly mechanism!
That's what's missing — but that's what life is all about! As I stated before, life is not a property of substance; it's a property of organization. The same kind of reasoning applies to the pyramids in Egypt, for example. The pyramids are made of stone, but studying the stone does not even begin to explain how the pyramids were built. Similarly, until evolutionists begin to explain the origin of the "orderly mechanism," they have not even
begun
to talk about the origin of life.
When it comes to the evolutionary origin of that orderly mechanism, Dickerson adds, we have "no laboratory models; hence one can speculate endlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts." With "no laboratory models" to provide data, the case for the
evolution
of life must be based on
imagination.
But, as Dickerson admits, "We [evolutionists] can only imagine what probably existed, and our imagination so far has not been very helpful."
The case for
creation,
however, is not based on imagination. Creation is based instead on
logical inference
from our
scientific observations,
and on simple acknowledgment that everyone, scientists and laymen alike, recognize that certain kinds of order imply creation.
Let me give you another example of the same sort of reasoning. Imagine that you have just finished reading a fabulous novel. Wanting to read another book like it, you exclaim to a friend, "Wow! That was quite a book. I wonder where I can get a bottle of that ink?" Of course not! You wouldn't give the ink and paper credit for writing the book. You'd praise the author, and look for another book by the same writer. By some twist of logic, though, many who read the fabulous DNA script want to give credit to the "ink (DNA base code) and paper (proteins)" for composing the code.
In a novel, the ink and paper are merely the means the author uses to express his or her thoughts. In the genetic code, the DNA bases and proteins are merely the means God uses to express His thoughts. The real credit for the message in a novel goes to the author, not the ink and paper, and the real credit for the genetic message in DNA goes to the Author of life, the Creator, not to the creature (Rom. 1:25).
The message conveyed by DNA is the kind called "
specified complexity
" in contrast to randomness or "mere" order. It takes only a simple program or algorithm, for example, to generate a random sequence of letters: (1) Print any letter; (2) Repeat step 1. An ordered, repeat pattern, such as ABCABCABC, could be generated by an algorithm nearly as simple: (1) Print ABC; (2) Repeat step 1. A program ENORMOUSLY larger and more sophisticated would be required to specify, for example, the letter sequence in the first volume of an encyclopedia set! The letter sequence is complex and specific ("specified complexity"), like the base letter sequence in human DNA — except that the DNA contains more information than a thousand volumes of literary works!
10
Occasionally, naïve evolutionists argue that crystal formation demonstrates that order can appear spontaneously, without "supernatural" help.
Crystal order, yes; specified complexity, no.
A crystal is a beautiful but simple repeat pattern produced by the shape and charge of its constituents. At 32°F (O°C), for example, the areas of partial plus and minus charges on water molecules attract them with a force greater than the thermal motion that keeps them apart at higher temperatures. The exquisite shape of the ice crystal is an automatic consequence of the shape and charge distribution ("design features") of the water molecules. (Incidentally, ice crystal formation is driven by decreasing electrostatic potential, an illustration — not a contradiction — of the famed second law of thermodynamics.)
The "specified complexity" in a DNA sequence is nothing like the "ordered simplicity" or repeat pattern in the ice crystal. Breaking a big ice crystal produces little ice crystals, each with structures and properties like the original. Breaking a DNA chain produces fragments that are dissimilar in structure and lose their function entirely. A child at home can make ice crystals; it takes a team of chemists using expensive equipment to produce a specific DNA sequence from scratch.
The
specified complexity
in a DNA gene sequence has very
high information content
. Scientists know two things about information. First, information is independent of the material that carries it. The phrase "In God We Trust" can be written in pen or pencil, typed onto paper or a computer screen, embroidered in lace, etched in stone, impressed on American coins, etc. The message is the same in any case, and it is obviously not produced by the material that conveys it. In other words, informational messages — including genetic messages — have the "exherent" kind of design, reflecting plan, purpose, and special acts of creation. Thus, the
meaning of a message lies with its Creator, not its carrier
.
Second, information comes only from pre-existing information. Much more information on information can be found in the landmark
11
book by internationally respected information theorist Werner Gitt,
In the Beginning Was Information
. Biblically, that concept is expressed as "In the beginning, God . . ." (Gen. 1:1) and as "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). The word "Word," identified as Jesus Christ in John 1:14, is the Greek word "
Logos
." Logos is a grand word in Greek, connoting divine plan, reason for being, etc., and means "study of" as the suffix "ology" attached to the various academic disciplines. Wow! Our DNA ties us back to the ultimate source of meaning and purpose for the whole universe!
Creation thus stands between the classic extremes of mechanism and vitalism. Mechanists, including evolutionists, believe that both the
operation
and
origin
of living things are the result of the laws of chemistry which reflect the inherent properties of matter. Vitalists believe that both the operation and origin of living systems depend on mysterious forces that lie beyond scientific description. According to creation, living things, including their DNA codes,
operate
in understandable ways that can be described in terms of scientific laws, but such observations include properties of organization that logically imply a created origin of life.
In this sense, the Bible proved to be, as it often has, far ahead of its time. Into the 1800s, most scientists and philosophers believed living things were made of something fundamentally different from non-living. Genesis 1–2 tells us living things, human beings included, were just made of "dust of the ground." Indeed, scientists now recognize that living cells are composed of only a few simple elements. It's not the stuff ("dust") we're made of that makes us special; it's the
way
we're put together. It's not the metal and glass that make an airplane fly, nor the ink and paper that write a novel. Similarly, it's not the "dust" that makes life, but the way it's put together with creative design and organization. When that organization is lost, we return to "dust," the simple elements that we are made of, just as other created objects break down into their simpler parts when left to the ravages of time, chance, and chemistry.
The creationist, then, recognizes the orderliness that the vitalist doesn't see, but he doesn't limit himself to only those kinds of order that result from time, chance, and the properties of matter, as the evolutionist does. Creation introduces levels of order and organization that greatly enrich the range of explorable hypotheses and turn the study of life into a
scientist's delight.
Science requires an orderliness in nature. One of the real emotional thrills of my changing from evolution to creation was realizing both that there are many more levels of order than I had once imagined and that order in nature, and a mind in tune with it, were guaranteed by God himself. It's no wonder that explicit biblical faith gave initial success to the founding fathers of modern experimental science (a couple of centuries before evolution came along to shift the basis toward time and chance).
If the evidence for the creation of life is as clear as I say it is, then other scientists, even those who are evolutionists, ought to see it — and they do.
I once took my students to hear Francis Crick, who shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA's structure. After explaining why life could not and did not evolve on earth, he argued instead for "directed panspermia," his belief that life reached earth in a rocket fired by intelligent life on some other planet. Crick admitted that his view only moved the creation-evolution question back to another time and place, but he argued that different conditions (which he did
not
specify) might have given life a chance to evolve that it did not have on earth.
12
Creationists are pleased that Crick recognized the same fatal flaws in chemical evolution that they have cited for years, but creationists also point out that the differences between "chemical chemistry" and "biological chemistry" are wrapped up with the fundamental nature of matter and energy and would apply on other planets as well as on earth.
13
That opinion seems to be shared in part by famed astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle,
14
who made the news under the heading: "There
must
be a God." Hoyle and his colleague, Chandra Wickramasinghe, independently reached that conclusion after their mathematical analyses showed that believing that life could result from time, chance, and the properties of matter was like believing that "a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein."
Drawing the logical inference from our scientific knowledge, both scientists concluded that "it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect
deliberate"
(emphasis Hoyle's). Both were surprised by their results. Hoyle called himself an agnostic, and, in the same article, Wickramasinghe said he was an atheistic Buddhist who "was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation."
My purpose in quoting these scientists (and others later on) is not, of course, to suggest that they are creationists who would endorse all my views.
15
Rather, it is simply to show that experts in the field, even when they have no preference for creationist thinking, at least agree with the creationists on the facts, and when people with different viewpoints agree, we can be pretty sure what the facts are. I also want to show that scientists who are not creationists are able to see that creation is a legitimate scientific concept, whose merits deserve to be compared with those of evolution.
In that light, I'd like to call your attention to a fascinating and revolutionary book,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,
by a prominent molecular biologist, Dr. Michael Denton.
16
In a television program we did together, and in our extensive personal conversations, Dr. Denton describes himself as a child of the secular age who desires naturalistic explanations when he can find them. When it comes to the origin of life, Dr. Denton explains with authority and stark clarity that evolutionists are nowhere near a
naturalistic
explanation at present. After comparing the genetic programs in living things to a library of a thousand volumes encoding a billion bits of information and all the mathematically intricate algorithms for coordinating them, Dr. Denton refers to the chemical evolution scenario as "simply an affront to reason," i.e., an insult to the intelligence! (p. 351).