The Myth of Junk DNA

Scientists agree that most of our DNA does not code for protein. The question is whether this non-coding DNA is just useless junk left over from a very long line of evolution, or whether the non-coding DNA actually serves some useful purpose. The reason this question is important is that some vocal evolutionists have used the junk DNA theory to mock the idea that life was designed by a creator. If life was intelligently designed, why, they ask, would an intelligent designer spread so much useless junk throughout our genome?

In his book, “The Myth of Junk DNA,” Jonathan Wells (Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from U.C. Berkeley) cites hundreds of articles by scientists—many, if not most of whom are evolutionists—who have now discovered that what was once called junk DNA is not junk after all! They are discovering that even though the “junk” DNA does not code for proteins, it does serve numerous other important functions in the cell (one scientist cited in this book “listed over 80 known functions for non-coding repetitive DNA”).

So another scientific theory used to disprove the existence of God bites the dust. Moral of the story: Don’t get too shaken by scientific theories that purport to disprove God’s existence. Many things that were once considered scientific fact are now just oddities of history.

The Myth of Junk DNA is a short but excellent book. Highly recommended.

Has Science Dis-proven the existence of Adam and Eve?

Dr. Ann Gauger is a senior research scientist at Biologic Institute. She has a BS in biology from MIT, a Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of Washington, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University. Her work has been published in such journals as Nature, Development, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry (http://goo.gl/obCJpr). The following is a summary of an article written by Dr. Ann Gauger on “The Science of Adam and Eve” (chapter 5 of Science & Human Origins. Seattle : Discovery Institute, 2012).

Some scientists, and even groups like BioLogos, have insisted that scientific evidence has disproven the existence of Adam and Eve. In Gauger’s words, “Using population genetics, some scientists have argued that there is too much genetic diversity to have passed through a bottleneck of just two individuals. But that turns out not to be true” (105).

Gauger focuses on one of the strongest scientific arguments supposedly disproving the existence of Adam and Eve, i.e. “the argument based on genetic variation in human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes, some of the most variable genes in the human genome” (106). These HLA genes “bind and present foreign peptides on the surface of immune cells (leukocytes), in order to trigger a response by other immune cells” (106).

“In the 1930s and 40s, Darwin’s theory of evolution and Mendel’s theory of genetics were combined, creating what is now called the Modern Synthesis” which focused on “how genetic variation spread through populations.” These “‘population geneticists’…developed mathematical models to extrapolate from existing genetic variation in populations to what may have happened to those populations in the past” (108). They determined that it is not possible that the amount of genetic variation seen in humans today came from just two human beings.

Gauger argues that generally speaking, these genetic models assume 1) “a constant background mutation rate, with no strong selection biasing genetic change” 2) “a constant population size with no migration in or out” and 3) that “common descent is the underlying cause of sequence similarity” (108). Gauger demonstrates that all of these are questionable assumptions.

More specifically, Gauger challenges the research of Francisco Ayala, a biologist who set out to disprove the idea that all humans came from Adam and Eve. He used “sequence information from one of the HLA genes” called HLA-DRB1 (109) and concluded that there was “just too much ancestral diversity in HLA-DRB1” for “the human population to have passed through a bottleneck of two” (111).

Gauger argues that Ayala’s “explicit assumptions include” 1) “a constant background mutation rate over time” 2) “lack of selection for genetic change on the DNA sequences being studied” 3) “random breeding among individuals, 4) “no migrations in or out of the breeding population,” and 5) a constant population size.” Guager says that if any of these assumptions turn to be unrealistic, the results of a model may be seriously flawed” (112). Not only that but Gauger argues that “the particular DNA sequence from HLA-DRB1 that Ayala used in his analysis was guaranteed to give an overestimate, because he inadequately controlled for two of the above assumptions” (112).

In addition, Gauger says “There are also hidden assumptions…For example, “The population genetics equations…assume that random processes are the only causes of genetic change over time, an assumption drawn from naturalism” (112). Second, Ayala’s “algorithms assume that a tree of common descent exists.” It assumes an evolutionary model in which all animal life including humans descended from a common source [In other words, if swimming, flying and walking creatures are separate creations by God as Genesis 1 claims, Ayala’s model fails. Just to be clear: Ayala’s model denies the truthfulness of Genesis 1 and then uses this assumption to refute the biblical account of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2]. As Gauger says, Ayala’s “assumptions rely upon the very thing they are meant to demonstrate” (112).

Gauger doesn’t just point out the faulty assumptions. She also demonstrates why they are faulty. Gauger concludes, “…one thing is clear right now: Adam and Eve have not been disproven by science, and those who claim otherwise are misrepresenting the scientific evidence” (121).  

The origin of human beings: One Adam or many "adams"

Last Sunday someone asked a great question about whether Adam could have been just one of many early people on earth--in other words, the idea that humankind did not all originate from Adam but from many "adams.'  Below is a slightly edited version of my e-mailed response:

You asked whether Adam could have been just one of many early people on earth.
The idea that "Adam" was just one of many does not come from the Bible but from science. 

Most scientists operate from the philosophical presupposition that if God exists at all, he would never involve himself in human events. They, therefore, believe that any idea of God must be completely ruled out of any scientific inquiry (In other words, IF God had anything to do with the origin of life, most scientists would never know about it because they have ruled God out their research as a matter of methodology).


These scientists conclude that if life just happened to originate from non-living material in one instance, there is no reason it couldn't have done so independently in multiple instances.


To say that this hypothesis is scientifically flawed is a huge understatement. That is because even the very simplest organism (one-cell organisms) are so incredibly complex it is scientifically impossible for them to have evolved in only 15 billion years (the supposed age of the universe). I once read that even the simplest one-cell organism is more complicated in some ways than a modern computer!


Even the DNA in those single-celled organisms is too complex to have originated and evolved in 15 billion years just by chance and random selection alone-the DNA is quite literally similar to a chemical computer code. This was the conclusion of a world-renowned atheist philosopher named Antony Flew. He eventually came to the conclusion that atheism was scientifically impossible (he hasn't become a Christian yet-he's still looking for an explanation).


There is another philosopher who is also a scientist who studied the origin of life at Cambridge University-one of the most prestigious universities in the world. He studied every single theory of the origin of life ever proposed and concluded that not a single one of them is scientifically valid-ALL of them are flawed. None of them can adequately explain the origin of life from a purely naturalistic (i.e. ruling out God) perspective.


All this doesn't prove God did it, of course, but it does give scientific reason to believe that the origin of a single living creature on earth is extremely improbable if not outright scientifically impossible. And if that is true, the independent origin of multiple living creatures is exponentially impossible!


Some of us, therefore, choose to believe the Bible's explanation over science's deeply flawed explanations. And the Bible is very clear-in Genesis and elsewhere (e.g. Romans 5)-that all human life came from Adam who was created directly by God


Anyway, I guess the bottom line with regard to Adam and Eve and the origin of life is that I could 1) believe some scientific theory that many scientists and philosophers argue is scientifically impossible, 2) believe the Bible's explanation that God created a human being in his image and all others came from that one or 3) throw up my hands and say we just don't know.


In my humble opinion, the first option takes more faith than I have. The third option is an honest option but is, I think, a head-in-the sand approach. The second option makes the most sense to me.


If you'd like to read more, I've written some short articles on my blog about science and the origin of life:

http://goo.gl/St23wA
http://goo.gl/vDf0Iv
http://goo.gl/DXZLNc
http://goo.gl/T7YeX1
http://goo.gl/RLzCKD
http://goo.gl/PaMFXv

Life, ten billion years old?

This article seems to support what advocates of Intelligent Design have been saying all along, i.e. that even the simplest forms of life are WAY to complex to have evolved in the 4.5 billion years of earth's supposed history. These geneticists, therefore, propose that life began 10 billion years ago somewhere else in the universe (where, conveniently, the origin of life can't be studied). 

Aside from the fact that this, IMHO, takes much more faith than belief in God, is it really plausible to believe that life began that soon after the big bang? As I understand it, according to standard Big Bang theory, stars were just beginning to form 10 billion years ago.

Intelligent Design and dogma

As I have encountered numerous books and articles attacking Intelligent Design, one thing that often stands out is that some scientists seem genuinely offended that their cherished scientific theories should be attacked.  They often respond with all the passion and even anger that so often accompanies the defense of dogma.

In an entirely different context, Paul N. Anderson discusses critical scholars in biblical studies who are offended when their critical theories are challenged. Anderson writes, “If critical scholars are threatened by critical theories being examined critically, one wonders if the theories or the scholars deserve the appellation, ‘critical’” (Anderson, Paul N. The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus. New York : T&T Clark, 3).

It occurs to me that merely be changing a few words, Anderson’s statement could just as easily (and accurately) be applied to the scientists who attack Intelligent Design: “If scientists are threatened by scientific theories being examined scientifically, one wonders if the theories or the scholars deserve the appellation, ‘scientific or scientist.”

The Myth of Junk DNA

Scientists agree that most of our DNA does not code for protein. The question is whether this non-coding DNA is just useless junk left over from a very long line of evolution, or whether the non-coding DNA actually serves some useful purpose. The reason this question is important is that some vocal evolutionists have used the junk DNA theory to mock the idea that life was intelligently designed. If life was intelligently designed, why, they ask, would an intelligent designer spread so much useless junk throughout our genome?

The Myth of Junk DNA by Jonathan Wells (Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from U.C. Berkeley) cites hundreds of articles by over 1,000 scientists—many, if not most of whom are evolutionists—who are now saying that this so-called junk DNA is not junk after all. They are discovering that even though the “junk” DNA does not code for proteins, it does serve numerous other important functions in the cell (one scientist cited in this book “listed over 80 known functions for non-coding repetitive DNA”). The book also answers those who are still, despite the evidence, defending the junk DNA theory, some of whom seem to be not up to speed on the latest research and are just parroting outdated information.

It almost looks to me like a few evolutionist ideologues wanted the non-coding DNA to be junk so badly, they stopped looking for possible reasons for its existence. In other words, their faith-commitment to naturalist philosophy prevented them from pursuing scientific investigation into the possible purpose of non-coding DNA.

The Myth of Junk DNA is a short but excellent book. Highly recommended.

Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer

I recently finished reading Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer (611 pages!). Meyer is an advocate of Intelligent Design which includes the idea that science itself demonstrates that life is way too complex to have originated without a designer. The author is a geophysicist and biologist with a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge.  His expertise is origin-of-life research.

Meyer begins with a discussion of the history of origin-of-life research and the discovery of DNA.  He goes on to discuss what he calls the “molecular labyrinth” and explains (in reasonably understandable language) the incredibly complex world of DNA, RNA, proteins, translation, transcription, etc., and how this relates to origin-of-life research.

Meyer explains and refutes virtually every scientific origin-of-life theory that has been proposed. He shows how Intelligent Design explains origin-of-life from a purely scientific perspective. Meyer also takes on those who attack Intelligent Design for not being a science. Not only does Meyer show that Intelligent Design is science, he shows that if attacks against Intelligent Design were applied consistently, they would exclude other sciences like geology and physics for example as well.

The book is absolutely outstanding. I’ve read several books on Intelligent Design and this stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is no wonder that the world-renowned atheist,Anthony Flew, changed his mind and came to the conclusion that atheism is scientifically impossible.

Computers proving life originated by chance?

I've been reading an outstanding book on the origin of life called Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer. It analyzes all the attempts to explain the origin of live purely by chance/natural selection/necessity.

I'm now on a section in which describes and critiques the numerous computer programs which have been designed to show how life could have originated by chance/natural selection/necessity alone (programs often hyped as proving that life could have originated by chance/natural selection/necessity alone). At one point the author who is a biologist provides an anecdotal insight on these programs:

"One of my friends is a retired forty-something programmer, who was formerly one of Microsoft's elite architect-level programmers. He also has a special interest in origin of life and evolutionary algorithms. He said something interesting to me about these programs: 'There is absolutely nothing surprising about the results of these algorithms. The computer is programmed from the outsed to converge on the solution. The programmer designed the code to do that. What would be surprising is if the program came didn't converge on the solution. That would reflect badly on the skill of the programmer. Everything interesting in the output of the program came as a result of the programmer's skill--the information input. There are no mysterious outputs.

(NB: The quote is from chapter 13. I'm quoting from my iPad so I don't have the exact page number)

Not enough faith to be an atheist

Some fascinating facts:

"The expansion rate of the Big Bang had to be accurate to within one part in [10 followed by 55 zeros--The actual quotes use scientific notation but as far as I know, that's not possible in blogger]. Any slower and the universe would have collapsed. Any faster and there would be no stars or planetary systems. In either case, life would not be possible."

"The force of gravity had to be accurate to within on part in [10 followed by 40 zeros]. Otherwise, stars could not form, and life would be impossible."

"The mass density of the universe had to be accurate to within on part in [10 followed by 60 zeros]. Otherwise, life-sustaining stars could not have formed."

This comes from The Making of an Atheist by philosopher James S. Spiegel (pg 46), quoting from former atheist philosopher Antony Flew. And all of this was just for conditions for the development of life to be theoretically possible! (Antony Flew was influenced by MIT scientist Gerald Schroeder). The actual appearance of life is much more problematic:

"...two scientists, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, calculated the odds of life emerging from non-living matter to be on in [10 followed by 40,000 zeros]." To put this enormous figure in perspectice, consider that the number of atoms in the known universe is [10 followed by 80 zeros]--a paltry sum by comparison. Moreover, consider the fact that statisticians, as a general rule, consider any 'possibility' less than on in [10 followed by 50 zeros] to be impossible" (Spiegel, 48).I just don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

I just don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

Intelligent Design vs. Creationism

Critics of Intelligent Design Theory sometimes confuse Intelligent Design with Scientific Creationism. The two are not the same. Scientific Creationism teaches 1) that there was a sudden creation of the universe out of nothing, 2) that natural selection is insufficient to account for “all living kinds from a single organism” 3) Changes in plants and animals “occur only within fixed limits,” 4) humans did not descend from apes, 5) the earth’s geology is largely explained by a worldwide flood, 6) the earth and life began relatively recently.

Intelligent Design, on the other hand, teaches that 1) “Specified complexity and irreducible complexity are reliable indicators or hallmarks of design, 2) “Biological systems exhibit specified complexity and employ irreducibly complex subsystems 3) “Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of specified complexity or irreducible complexity,” 4) “Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanation for the origin of specified complexity and irreducible complexity in biological systems.” (William Dembski. The Design Revolution, 41-44).

Intelligent Design never argues on the basis of biblical texts. Those who argue that Intelligent Design is simply theology or Creationism in disguise may be arguing out of their ignorance of Intelligent Design Theory or they may be deliberately engaging in a smear campaign designed to discredit Intelligent Design.

SETI and Intelligent Design

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a scientific organization that searches for signs of intelligent life in outer space. SETI has received support from such reputable agencies as NASA, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, US Geological Survey, Jet Propulsion laboratory, et al. In an essay on the SETI Institute website, Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak attempts to distance SETI from Intelligent Design research.

According to Shostak, “When ID advocates posit that DNA – which is a complicated, molecular blueprint – is solid evidence for a designer, most scientists are unconvinced. They counter that the structure of this biological building block is the result of self-organization via evolution, and not a proof of deliberate engineering. DNA, the researchers will protest, is no more a consciously constructed system than Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Organized complexity, in other words, is not enough to infer design.”

What planet is this guy from? How could a scientist seriously compare the complexity of DNA with the Red Spot storm on Jupiter? And is he serous about organized complexity not being enough to infer design? It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in English, for example, to tell the difference between random letters on a paper, and an essay that was designed by an author. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in geology to tell the difference between natural geological formations, and designed monuments like those on Easter Island. It is apparently just in biology where organized complexity doesn’t count.

Shostak continues, “But the adherents of Intelligent Design protest the protest. They point to SETI and say, ‘upon receiving a complex radio signal from space, SETI researchers will claim it as proof that intelligent life resides in the neighborhood of a distant star. Thus, isn’t their search completely analogous to our own line of reasoning – a clear case of complexity implying intelligence and deliberate design?’ And SETI, they would note, enjoys widespread scientific acceptance.”

Shostak’s answer is that SETI looks for artificial signals, not for complex signals. He says, “Our sought-after signal is hardly complex, and yet we’re still going to say that we’ve found extraterrestrials. If we can get away with that, why can’t they? Well, it’s because the credibility of the evidence is not predicated on its complexity. If SETI were to announce that we’re not alone because it had detected a signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality.”

This argument is just smoke and mirrors. First, although the artificial is not always, complex, complexity is often the hallmark of artificiality. For example, when the Rosetta Stone was first discovered, no one mistook the complex scripts for erosion or natural scratches.

Second, if SETI did find highly complex signals from outer space for which natural explanations proved to be statistically improbable, you can bet your last dollar that they would claim to have found signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Third, the point of comparison is the fact that both Intelligent Design and SETI scientifically study evidence for design. The fact that the evidence for design in biology may be different than the evidence for design in astrophysics does not make either one less scientific than the other.

The Science of God

Gerald Schroeder is a nuclear physicist with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has also done work in biology and earth sciences. He has the distinction of being instrumental in convincing the world-renowned atheist philosopher, Anthony Flew, that God—at least in a Deist sense—really does exist after all

The following comes from Dr. Schroeder’s book, The Hidden Face of God; How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth. As with any book on this topic (and as you can see from the Amazon reviews) some people love it, some hate it. Either way, it is a fascinating read.

The human body acts as a finely tuned machine, a magnificent metropolis in which…each of the 75 trillion cells, composed of [10 with 27 zeros] atoms, moves in symbiotic precision…

[These atoms] are organized by a single act when a protozoan-like sperm cells adds its message of genetic material into a receptive egg cell....

Until the mid-1970’s the accepted wisdom was that the origin of this organization that we refer to as life was the result of chance random reactions among atoms, gradually combining, one chance occurrence building upon another over eons of time until self-replication and then mutation produced the first biological cell. Three billion years were thought to have passed between the formation of liquid water on the formerly molten earth and the appearance of the first forms of life….

Two to three billion years were available for randomness to do its work. ‘Given so much time the…impossible becomes the possible, the possible becomes probable, and the probable virtually certain’…So wrote George Wald, professor of biology at Harvard University and Nobel laureate….

In the mid-1970’s came the seminal discovery of Elso Barghoorn. He, like Wald, was at Harvard…Using a scanning electron microscope…Barghoorn searched the surfaces of…stone taken from the oldest of rocks able to bear fossils. To the amazement of the scientific community, fossils of fully developed bacteria were found in rocks 3.6 billion years old. Further evidence…indicated the origins of cellular life at close to 3.8 billion years before the present, the same period in which liquid water first formed on Earth.

Overnight, the fantasy of billions of years of random reactions in warm little ponds brimming with fecund chemicals leading to life, evaporated. Elso Barrghoorn had discovered a most perplexing fact: life, the most complexly organized system of atoms known in the universe, popped into being in the blink of a geological eye (49-51).

And they call this science

Sir Fred Hoyle Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and Francis Crick were all world-renowned scientists who were atheists. The following are excerpts from a book which discusses their work on the origin of life:

"Hoyle ran the numbers to determine the mathematical probability of the basic enzymes of life arising by random processes. They conclude that the odds were 1 to 1 followed by 40,000 zeros, or ‘so utterly minuscule’ as to make Darwin’s theory of evolution absurd.”

"In order to explain the creation of the universe while carefully excluding God, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe came up with a theory called ‘panspermia,’ which holds that life began in space and spread to Earth by a steady influx of microscopic infectious agents delivered to Earth on comets."

"Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize for his codiscovery of DNA, also realized that spontaneous evolution of life could not be reconciled with the facts. As he said, ‘the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd.’ Consequently, Crick hypothesized that highly intelligent extraterrestrials sent living cells to Earth on an unmanned spaceship…”

"Ahh, but more recent evolutionists speak of computer simulations proving evolution to be true. “…in his book River Out of Eden, Dawkins blathers on and on about ‘computer models of evolving eyes.”

David Berlinski got to the bottom of the famed computer simulation, tracking down scientists alleged to have performed this wonderous feat, and discovered…it doesn’t exist.

"In The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, Tom Bethell quotes Berlinski’s summary of the evidence: ‘…There is no such model anywhere in any laboratory. No one has the faintest idea how to make one. The whole story was fabricated out of thin air by Richard Dawkins. The senior author of the study on which Dawkins based his claim—Dan E. Nilsson—has explicitly rejected the idea that his laboratory has ever produced a computer simulation of the eyes’ development” (All quotations from Coulter, Godless, 208, 210-211).

So there you have it. Honest atheists like Hoyle, Wickramasinghe and Crick realize that it is simply impossible for life to have originated spontaneously on earth by itself so they propose that it originated someplace else—some place that, conveniently, places it out of the reach of scientists to examine the evidence. And they call this science!

The Hidden Face of God

I recently finished reading The Hidden Face of God by Gerald Schroeder who received his Ph.D. from MIT. Reports are that Dr. Schroeder has even convinced the world-renowned atheist philosopher, Anthony Flew to change his mind about atheism. Even if you don’t understand the science below, you will understand the point at the end. Schroeder writes:

"When a specific protein is needed by a cell, a chemical messenger is sent from the outer cell, through a pore in the nuclear membrane, into the nucleus. How the messenger knows to go to the nucleus remains a mystery. This messenger finds the needed chromosome (one of the twenty-three pairs), locks onto that chromosome, and moves along, nucleotide by nucleotide, until it comes to the specific sequence of bases that marks the beginning of the gene that codes for the desired protein.

"At this stage, the signaling molecule changes shape, and in doing so allows—or causes—and enzyme called DNA-dependent RNA polymerase (I’ll call it RNA-P) to join the action."

"The RNA-P opens the helix, reads each nucleotide base, selects the correct complementary base from among the four types floating in the intracellular slurry, concurrently selects…the molecules that make up the spine of the lengthening strand of mRNA being manufactured, trailing behind the RNA-P, joins the just-selected base to the spine, takes the portion of DNA that has just been read and reseals it to the parallel DNA strand which it was separated, opens the portion of DNA to be read next, reads it, and continues the juggling act til it reaches a coded stop order…And RNA-P does this manufacturing at fifty bases a second…Keep in mind, this entire sequence is performed by molecules reading molecules, molecules selecting molecules, molecules walking along with other molecules. Don’t project too much brain power or body power into this system. It’s not little people in
there. It’s simply molecules that somehow seem to act like little knowledgeable people, as if they had a wisdom of their own. Which they do" (192-199).

"This is only one small part of a much more complicated process that takes place in what was once called the “simple cell.” At one time scientists used to imagine that, given enough time (billions of years) simple cells could evolve by themselves purely by chance or natural selection. The kicker here is that “it all developed so very rapidly, almost simultaneously with the appearance of liquid water on earth. We have absolutely phenomenal complexity, not after billions of years of evolution, but at the very beginning of the entire process" (193-194)!

Of course all of this doesn’t necessarily “prove” there is a God but it certainly takes an incredible amount of faith to believe that it all happened by chance, natural selection, or random mutations.

Personally, I don’t have that much faith.

Leading atheist finds God

Anthony Flew is “an Oxford educated philosopher described by some as ‘legendary.” For years he was one of the world’s leading proponents of atheism. Indeed, “His ideas paved the way for thinkers such as Richard Dawkins, the UK’s most virulent opponent of religious belief.”

In 2004 Dr. Flew changed his mind. He is now convinced of the existence of a personal God who created the universe, though Flew is careful to add that his view of God so far is more like that of Aristotle rather than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. All of this according to a recent article by Hilary White. Excerpts of the article appear below but please read the entire article at LifeSiteNews.

Flew has emphasized that his “discovery” of a god who created life was a result of relentlessly “following the evidence”. “It was empirical evidence,” he told an interviewer, “the evidence uncovered by the sciences. But it was a philosophical inference drawn from the evidence.”

Flew told Dr. Benjamin Wiker that two factors in particular “were decisive”. “One was my growing empathy,” he said, “with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”

He told Wiker, “I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code.”

Flew answered Richard Dawkins’ argument that “the origin of life can be attributed to a ‘lucky chance.’” He said, “If that's the best argument you have, then the game is over.” Flew said, “I would add that Dawkins is selective to the point of dishonesty when he cites the views of scientists on the philosophical implications of the scientific data.”

Atheism and monkeys

Anthony Flew is a world renowned philosopher who has aggressively advocated atheism for more than 50 years. Recently he changed his mind. He says he is now convinced on the basis of reason alone that atheism is no longer a viable option. He has just published a new book entitled “There is a God; How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind” (He notes that the title was not his idea). In this book Flew says,

“I was particularly impressed with Gerry Schroeder’s point-by-point refutation of what I call the ‘monkey theorem.” This idea, which has been presented in a number of forms and variations, defends the possibility of life arising by chance using the analogy of a multitude of monkeys banging away on computer keyboards and eventually ending up writing a Shakespearean sonnet.”

Schroeder first referred to an experiment conducted by the British National Council of Arts. A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys. After one month of hammering away at it (as well as using it as a bathroom!), the monkeys produced fifty pages—but not a single word. Schroeder noted that this was the case even though the shortest word in the English language is one letter (a or I). A is a word only if there is a space on either side of it. If we take it that the keyboard has thirty characters (the twenty-six letters and other symbols), then the likelihood of getting a one-letter word is 30 times 30 times 30, which is 27,000. The likelihood of getting a one-letter word is one chance out of 27,000. (76-77)

Schroeder then calculates the probability of producing a Shakespearean sonnet. All sonnets are 14 lines long. The one he chose happened to have 488 letters in it. The chance that these monkeys would produce a sonnet like this by chance turns out to be a 1 followed by 690 zeros. If you wonder how big that is, Schroeder points out that the number of estimated particles (protons, electrons, neutrons) in the entire universe is only 1 followed by 80 zeros!.

Needless to say, the very simplest living cell is incalculably more complicated than a Shakespearean sonnet! Most of us simply don’t have enough faith to believe the universe originated without some kind of intelligent designer.

The Way of the Cell

I just finished reading a fascinating book called, The Way of the Cell; Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life by Franklin M. Harold, emeritus professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Colorado State University. The book describes in detail the unbelievable complexity of life at the cellular level.

Dr. Harold pulls no punches in his rejection of Intelligent Design theory. He writes, “Let me, therefore, state unambiguously that I, like the vast majority of contemporary scientists, see the living world as wholly the product of natural causes…” (190).

Fifteen pages later he goes on to say,

“We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations” (205, emphasis mine).

As “a matter of principle”? Not as a matter of science? I find it amusing how atheists and some scientists pretend that they have “science” on their side while Christians have only faith (what they mean is “gullibility”). While I admire Dr. Harold’s honesty, I hardly think “wishful speculations” falls under the category of science. Dr. Harold goes on:

“Cell components as we know them are so thoroughly integrated that one can scarcely imagine how any one function could have arisen in the absence of the others. Genetic information can only be replicated and read out with the aid of enzyme proteins, which are themselves specified by those same genes. Energy is harnessed by means of enzymes whose production requires energy input. Darwinian evolution is at bottom the struggle among individuals defined by cell membranes, yet how could membranes and transport catalysts arise without genes, proteins and energy?(245)

Excellent questions! Dr. Harold chooses, as a matter of faith, to believe that it all came together by chance, natural laws, and natural selection. Many of us don’t have that much faith. We prefer to postulate a designer. Dr. Harold continues:

The origin of life is also a stubborn problem, with no solution in sight…Biology textbooks often include a chapter on how life may have arisen from non-life, and while responsible authors do not fail to underscore the difficulties and uncertainties, readers still come away with the impression that the answer is almost within our grasp…In reality, we may not be much closer to understanding genesis than A.I. Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane were in the 1930’s; and in the long run, science would be better off if we said so.” (235-236)

I agree. It would be better if many scientists, and especially the new atheists, had the kind of honesty and integrity that Franklin Harold exhibits. Finally, Dr. Harold writes:

“It would be agreeable to conclude this book with a cheery fanfare about science closing in, slowly but surely, on the ultimate mystery; but the time for rosy rhetoric is not at hand. The origin of life appears to me is incomprehensible as ever, a mater of wonder but not for explication” (251).

Amen!