| Creation Truth Outreach, Inc. Pamphlet |
| © 2007 Creation Truth Outreach, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This pamphlet may be freely copied provided it is copied in its entirety, its contents are not altered in any manner, and additional or tighter copyright restrictions than these are not imposed on it. Revised May 5, 2008 |
| Chapter 3. Sixteen Fatal Roadblocks against a Purely Natural Formation of Life. Fatal Roadblock Number 11. Information Content of DNA. There is an overwhelmingly huge quantity of information in the DNA, even in the simplest living cell capable of independent existence. Where did all this information come from? It is far too complicated and there is far too much of it to be generated by trial and error in an origin-of-life setting. This is particularly true considering the time limitations of Roadblock 14. DNA represents a storage medium, such as a blank CD purchased from the store. Burning information into a CD physically alters its structure. The manner in which the structure is altered represents recoverable information. Notice, though, the distinction. A CD is not information. It is a medium for storing and releasing information. This parallels DNA. DNA represents a storage medium. The ability of a cell to synthesize a long strand of DNA has nothing to do with its information content. That is a separate issue. It turns out that in life, the information is inserted into DNA at the time it is synthesized, like a high volume CD which has its information content stamped into it as part of the manufacturing process. An emerging cell’s ability to make DNA would not automatically mean that it also had useful information available to store in it. Shortly after James Watson and Francis Crick determined that DNA was built in the form of a double helix, Crick discovered what is called the Central Dogma of molecular biology. According to the Central Dogma, DNA makes RNA and RNA makes enzymes and proteins. It is frequently shortened to DNA makes RNA makes proteins. 15 Notice, this is a one way street. A cell has an extremely elaborate mechanism that it can use to read the information stored in DNA. However, there is no provision within a cell to systematically introduce new information into the DNA in a controlled manner. According to neo-Darwinian evolution, mutating the codons storing information in a cell’s DNA generates new information. However, this process is useless for creating the initial information stream of the first cell. It is useful only for modifying already existing information. As a minimum, the original DNA information must be of sufficient magnitude to provide a “blueprint” for building all of the required components to use the information. One cannot 1. start with a tiny amount of information, generated randomly, 2. gradually increase it over time by means of cycles of mutation and natural selection, and 3. gradually acquire enough information so that eventually it becomes possible to read the information. Yet, in real life, the starting point for this process requires over 100 cooperating enzymes to do this (55 for a bacterial ribosome, at least 20 for transfer RNA molecules, at least 20 transfer RNA synthetases, plus various control enzymes to recognize start bits and identifiers, etc.) It is obvious that if it takes over 100 cooperating, interrelated enzymes to read initial information, these enzymes need to appear at the same time as the information. One is useless without the other. This is actually represents a huge quantity of components for an initial minimum. This is discussed further in the next roadblock. The reality is that there is no rational, materialistic explanation of how to place into DNA initial information, particularly in the huge quantity required. Mutation and natural selection can only modify existing information; it cannot generate initial information. However, this would be a trivial task for a Creator God. |