11 minute read plus 1 video
The Information In DNA Has Meaning And Purpose
In the previous article, Information Implies Intelligence, we saw that DNA contains information like all other information we see in our daily lives today – except it’s stored, transmitted and used for communication at a cellular level. Furthermore, when we see such information, we know it came from an intelligent source. Dr. Stephen Meyer concisely makes this point in his book Signature In The Cell; DNA And The Evidence For Intelligent Design: “Indeed, our uniform [life] experience affirms that specified information … always arises from an intelligent source, from a mind and not a strictly material process.”
In this article we’ll further prove the points highlighted above by looking more deeply at the type of information contained in DNA.
DNA Information Is “Complex” & “Specified”
Watch this short 3 1/2 minute video of Dr. Meyers on the John Ankerberg Show. In it, Dr. Meyers describes the two types of information and shows how DNA contains information that’s both “complex” and “specified”.
Key Conclusions From The Video
- There are two types of “information”
- In mathematics, there’s a concept of “Shannon information” that calculates the probability a set of information will occur. This is called information “complexity”
- An example of Shannon information: “epqejgtiwenfisdqbmsd,asd c,earp”
- “Specified information” identifies whether the information is useful or has meaning
- An example of specified information: “Time and tide wait for no man”
- In mathematics, there’s a concept of “Shannon information” that calculates the probability a set of information will occur. This is called information “complexity”
- The Shannon information in the example is not “specified”; it’s gibberish, it has no meaning
- It’s improbable such a set of characters could occur by chance when compared to all other possible character strings but it is of little value because it has little meaning
More Conclusions From The Video
- DNA information is both types – specified and complex
- It’s both highly improbable and it has meaning. The string of bases in DNA matters because it’s arranged such that it can used to create a functioning protein
- Francis Crick, the most influential early DNA scientist, recognized “Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or on amino acid residues in the protein.”
- The DNA bases and amino acids strings must be arranged specifically in such a way to perform their functions within cells
Why is this important? Dr. Meyer draws the following conclusions in Signature In The Cell; DNA And The Evidence For Intelligent Design:
“Is this significant? In fact, it is profoundly mysterious. Apart from the molecules comprising the gene expression system and machinery of the cell, sequences and structures exhibiting such specified complexity or specified information are not found anywhere in the natural – that is, the nonhuman – world.”
He goes on to say:
“Sequences and structures exhibiting either redundant order [like a crystal with a repeated structure] or mere complexity [like the gibberish set of characters above] are common in the chemical substrate of nature. But structures exhibiting specified complexity are completely unknown there apart from DNA, RNA, and proteins.”
Furthermore, Meyer makes his point by quoting another scientist:
“As the origin-of-life biochemist Leslie Orgel observes: “Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals … fail to qualify as living because they lack specificity; mixtures of random polymers [chemical strings] fail to qualify because they lack specificity.”
It’s very important to recognize here that the complex and specified information found in DNA has meaning and purpose. This is not just random “gibberish” information that serves no purpose, has no function and can possibly be created by random chance. No, this is information that is used for a very specific purpose; this is information that has a function. It’s stored, transmitted and communicated to create proteins and other cellular components.
Can Information Be Created By Chance?
You’ve likely been told, at some point in your life, that if you have a room full of monkeys banging on a typewriter (or computer keyboard) for enough time one of them will eventually create a copy of a Shakespeare sonnets. The reality is – not so much.
It turns out that’s actually impossible. We’ll leave it to another article to prove that point in specific. For now, let’s consider this more specific case: How long would it take for a bunch of monkeys to type a meaningful 30 character string like this one – including the spaces: “time and tide waits for no man.”?
Let’s do the math. Randomly typing the first “t” is one chance in 27, times one chance in 27 to get the “i”, times one chance in 27 to get the “m” and so on for all 30 characters. That translates to 27x27x27… or 2730. That converts to ~ one chance in 1043. Recall from articles in the God Created The Universe thread, there are 1014 cells in your body and 1020 seconds since the universe began. Creating just that simple 30 character phrase by random chance would take 1023 monkeys creating one attempt every second since the beginning of the universe. That’s a mathematical way of saying “it’s impossible” to create even that simple 30 character string by chance.
At this point you might be saying, “Okay, so what?” Bear with us.
What are the monkeys providing in this example? Clearly, it’s not intelligence other than knowing how to press keys on a typewriter or keyboard. No, the monkeys are simply providing the energy required to randomly press those keys. That’s it. Just random movement around the keyboard plus down and up motion to hit the keys.
We can use this analogy to further assess our DNA-to-protein process. More specifically, we can ask, “how much energy is required to create the specified information content found in DNA and proteins?” Well, it turns out, experts in the study of energy, called thermodynamics, have assessed this.
How Much Energy Is Needed To Create Specified Information?
Recall from the God Created Life thread, creating the first cell by chance is said to require some form of energy, be it from lightening, solar radiation, thermal volcanic vent and some other source. Yet now we know DNA includes a large amount of complex and specified information. So how much information would be needed to create that kind of information by chance in the early earth?
In The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy, by Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen and others, Dr Walter Bradley documents his detailed assessment of this question. Dr. Bradley is an emeritus professor of metallurgical and mechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, Texas A&M and Baylor University. During his 24 years at Texas A&M, Dr. Bradley served as Department Head of Mechanical Engineering as well as the Director of two polymer and composite material centers. He has published more than 150 journal articles and is now a Distinguished Fellow at the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence at the Discovery Institute.
In the book, Dr. Bradley analyzed the energy needed to create the chemical bonds in DNA and the protein, the energy needed to overcome dissipation forces that naturally work to break up molecules AND the energy needed to create the specified information content in DNA and the protein. Based on this assessment, it turns out it doesn’t take much energy to create strings of amino acids, for instance. But that’s just for random strings containing no specified information. Similarly, the energy needed to overcome dissipation effects is also modest. The greatest challenge, as you might imagine, is the energy required for form long strings of specified information.
Bradley’s assessment, based on experimental data and insights from other scientists, concludes that the probability of creating just one protein of 101 amino acids in 5 billion years is one chance in 1045. As noted above and as a good reference point there have been 1020 seconds since the universe was created in the Big Bang so 1045 is equivalent to saying it was impossible to create by chance just one relatively short string of amino acids containing the specified information required to produce just one protein.
In the summary chapter of the book, the authors point out:
It it this unmet configurational entropy [energy needed for specified information] work requirement which is the central problem in developing essential macromolecules such as DNA and protein, let alone the more complex cellular structures.
God Created The Complex And Specified Information In The Cell
The key take-away here is this: DNA and resultant proteins contain highly complex and specified information in every cell in every living organism. While we take for granted the complex and specified information that we use every day to communicate with one another, it is impossible to create that complex and specified information with meaning and purpose within every cell by chance.
Furthermore, we know, based on all uniform and repeated experience, that information always comes from an intelligent source. The best explanation for the origin of the complex and specified information with meaning and purpose included in DNA and the protein is intelligence. There’s no known physics, chemistry or biology that can explain how complex and specified information was first created on the early earth yet we know, when we see signs of finely tuned information, it was created by an intelligent agent. The only intelligence that can create such finely tuned information with meaning and purpose at a molecular level within every cell within every living organism is God.
Conclusion
- There are two types of information: complex “Shannon” information and specified information with meaning and purpose
- DNA information is both complex and specified
- Per Dr. Stephen Meyer, “…specified complexity or specified information are not found anywhere in the natural – that is, the nonhuman – world”
- It’s very important to recognize here that the complex and specified information found in DNA has meaning and purpose
- This is information that is used for a very specific purpose; this is information that has a function
- It’s stored, transmitted and communicated to create proteins and other cellular components
- Dr. Walter Bradley analyzed the energy needed to create the chemical bonds in DNA and the protein, the energy needed to overcome dissipation forces that naturally work to break up molecules AND the energy needed to create the specified information content in DNA and the protein
- Bradley’s assessment concludes the probability of creating just one protein of 101 amino acids in 5 billion years is one chance in 1045
- That’s equivalent to saying it was impossible to create by chance just one relatively short string of amino acids containing the specified information required to produce just one protein
- DNA and resultant proteins contain highly complex and specified information in every cell in every living organism
- It is impossible to create that complex and specified information with meaning and purpose within every cell by chance
- Furthermore, we know, based on all uniform and repeated experience, that information always comes from an intelligent source
- The best explanation for the origin of the complex and specified information with meaning and purpose included in DNA and the protein is intelligence
- There’s no known physics, chemistry or biology that can explain how complex and specified information was first created on the early earth yet we know, when we see signs of finely tuned information, it was created by an intelligent agent
- The only intelligence that can create such finely tuned information with meaning and purpose at a molecular level within every cell within every living organism is God