Apicontent

The Case of the Missing Links

The discovery of DNA has revolutionized the world of forensic evidence. Cold case files have been reopened. Criminals who thought they had beaten the system have been belatedly prosecuted by a swab of saliva or body fluids forgotten about for decades. And in some instances, the new evidence has exonerated innocent prisoners.

Herman Atkins was just 20 years old when his life began to fall apart. He was imprisoned in January, 1986 for wounding three people in a shooting spree in South-Central Los Angeles. Prior to his imprisonment a “Wanted” poster had been widely circulated.

Later, at a sheriff’s substation, a 23 year-old rape victim glanced at a “Wanted” poster on a nearby table that showed a young black fugitive from Los Angeles. In court, she testified that she turned to her mother and said, “That’s him,” and pointed at the picture of Herman Atkins.

A clerk from an adjoining business where the attacker stopped briefly before the rape also identified Atkins. Based primarily upon these eyewitness testimonies, the jury found Herman Atkins guilty of rape and robbery. His sentence: 47 years, 8 months in prison. Atkins spent thirteen years, three months, and six days in state prison, but not for a crime he had committed. His cold case had been reopened, and the DNA evidence had revealed that Atkins was not the rapist. On February 18, 2000 he walked out a free man, the victim of mistaken identity.

Just as DNA has revolutionized criminal forensics, the work of paleontologists has shed new light on human origins. Being an honest man, Charles Darwin made no bones (pardon the pun) about predicting that the forensic fossil evidence would ultimately prove his theory right or wrong.

But just as experts can jump to the wrong conclusion with regard to criminal evidence, so in the world of paleontology, a tooth, jaw, or piece of skull has often created premature headlines of “Missing Link Found.” Paleontologist Michael Boulter summarizes the problem with identifying fossils correctly:

It’s very hard to piece together a few broken bones from a fossilized group of differentially aged primates scattered over a desert or cave floor and to be sure that they come from the same animal….It follows that the reliability of any description that attempts to recognize an actual species cannot be totally objective.¹

Boulter is alluding to the fact that, being human, most scientists look at a fossil through the lens of their own presuppositions. For example, those who wanted to make a case for humans descending from apes were quick to jump with joy over the supposed discovery of the “missing link” called Piltdown Man. Featured in the London Times, New York Times, and various science journals, they made it a textbook example of the connection between apes and humans. However, forty years later, in 1953, it was revealed as a fraud.

Frauds like the Piltdown Man are rare, and although objectivity is often lacking, there is actually a wealth of fossil evidence depicting the history of life on our planet.

So in order to see what the forensic evidence says about Darwin’s theory, we need to hear from paleontologists themselves about the evidence they have gathered during the nearly 150 years since he launched his theory. Our starting point is to clearly understand the predictions Darwin made regarding his theory and the fossils that should have resulted.

Darwin’s Two Theories

Charles Darwin was not the first to believe that life could arise by purely natural processes. In fact, the idea can be traced back as far as ancient Greece. And surely long before Darwin, people made the casual observation, “Hey, that guy kind of looks like a chimp.” But it was Darwin who gave the ideas intellectual teeth, or viability, through his observation and hypothesizing of several processes, including adaptation and natural selection.

Few people realize that Darwin’s theory of evolution predicts two different results: microevolution and macroevolution. We will look at microevolution first.

His micro-evolutionary theory states that variations within a species (cats, dogs, humans) can produce radical changes over time. He stated that sometimes these changes are accelerated by environmental conditions. For example, while on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin observed finches that had apparently grown slightly longer beaks during drought conditions. This confirmed his belief that creatures adapt to their environments.

Evolutionist Niles Eldredge explains the importance of adaptation to Darwin’s theory: “Adaptation is the very heart and soul of evolution. It is the scientific account of why the living world comes in so many shapes and sizes: how the giraffe got its long neck, why porpoises look so much like sharks … how birds fly.”²

Darwin believed that overpopulation of a species creates food shortages, which result in a struggle for survival, with the strongest of the species winning out. Kind of like Survivor, the winners pass on their genes to the next generation, improving the species, so life advances by survival of the fittest.

The evidence for Darwin’s theory of change within a species is compelling. Bacteria do mutate and evolve. Cats, dogs, birds, and human beings all show evidence of variation predicted by Darwin. Some of us are tall, others short. Some thin, others…oops, better not go there.

The controversy surrounding Darwinian evolution is over his general theory of macroevolution. It states that over eons of time, all life evolved by the same process of natural selection. If true, then human beings are merely the end product of a long evolutionary chain. His belief in macroevolution is the reason Stephen Jay Gould was able to say that human beings are nothing more than “glorious evolutionary accidents.”³

As we examine Darwin’s general theory of macroevolution, we need to recognize that most biologists believe it provides the only scientific explanation for human origins. Materialists use this argument to reject intelligent design, saying it is “unscientific.”

Biologists in general, have been far more reluctant to accept intelligent design as a valid option for the design evidenced in nature than their scientific counterparts in astronomy, physics, and cosmology. But that seems to be changing. In the face of stubborn opposition from the Darwinian paradigm, many biologists and paleontologists are now exposing Darwin’s predictions to the scrutiny of scientific investigation, willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. So let’s see where it leads.

An increasing number of scientists are looking at the evidence from a common sense point of view. If macroevolution is right then it makes sense that the fossil record would prove Darwin right. So they begin by looking at the evidence that Darwin predicted would substantiate his claims. Darwin predicted that transitional fossil discoveries would eventually prove his theory right.

According to Darwin, these transitional fossils would provide ample evidence of gradual changes brought about by chance mutations.

The idea that one species could slowly change into another creates its own special problems, and because of these, Darwin championed the idea of favorable mutations. That is, the DNA of an organism would, on rare occasions, mutate favorably, which over time would lead to other favorable mutations, and the next thing you know, that ugly rat is now a cute little armadillo. Darwin assumed that life advanced over time from one-celled creatures all the way to humankind.

The Rocks Talk

We have observed examples of microevolution in which variations exist within a species. But there is little or no empirical evidence supporting Darwin’s claim of macroevolution—one species evolving into another species.⁴ More sophisticated creatures clearly do appear to arrive in later periods, but there remain yawning chasms (not mere gaps) between not only different species, but even between the highest orders of creatures, what are called phyla.

Why are the missing links essential to Darwin’s theory? Couldn’t gradual macroevolution have occurred without producing transitional fossils? Not according to Darwin. And certainly if countless species had undergone very gradual transitions from one category to another (for example, cats into dogs or fish into birds), then, according to Darwin, there should be countless fossils.

The abundance of transitional fossils should be demonstrable within all phyla and species, not merely a few. Certainly there should be many millions of transitional fossils, since it is estimated that over a billion species have existed in Earth’s history. Again, we are not looking for microevolutionary changes of one type of bird evolving into another, or one type of horse evolving into another horse, etc.

Evolutionist Steven Stanley, a paleobiologist from Johns Hopkins, concludes in his book Macroevolution that, without the fossil evidence, “we might wonder whether the doctrine of evolution would qualify as anything more than an outrageous hypothesis.”⁵ In other words, all the conjecture about whether Darwinian evolution is factual or not comes down to hard evidence.

Occasionally some researcher claims to have “evolved” a new species in the lab, but that is not evidence for Darwinian macroevolution. In fact, many such claims turn out to be bogus, or merely evidence for microevolution. In any case, the lab experiment involves intelligence, not chance.

For 150 years paleontologists have been busy digging, classifying, and looking for these transitional fossils in a worldwide hunt. Billions of fossils representing about 250,000 species have been scrutinized. What have the scientists discovered? Does the fossil evidence support Darwin’s theory of macroevolution? If it does, the missing links Darwin predicted should no longer be missing.

We commence our fossil search with the mysterious Cambrian period, an era geologists date at around 530 million years ago.

Boom-Life

Seemingly out of the blue, complex life-forms with fully developed eyes appeared during the Cambrian period. It has been called by some “biology’s big bang.”

Only fossils for simple life-forms have been discovered from the time prior to the Cambrian period. Then, suddenly, the fossil record is shown to be teeming with more complex life-forms than exist today. It is called the “Cambrian Explosion.”

Explosion is an apt term in this case. We see the period’s importance, for example, in the appearance of new phyla. Phyla are the broadest category of animals that exist. According to biologists, you are a member of a phylum that also includes gerbils and trout. The differences between phyla are even more extreme than the differences within them. For example, the slug family falls into a separate phylum from that of humans. (So feel the freedom to squish them.) In fact, organisms in different phyla are built according to entirely different body plans.

What paleontologists find in the Cambrian explosion is not simply the appearance of a few new animals but the appearance of 50 completely different body types without prior transitions or predecessors.

Darwin staked his entire theory on the belief that a species could never suddenly appear. He said, “If numerous species, belonging to the same … families, have really started into life at once, that fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection.”⁶

Yet complex body organs such as eyes suddenly appeared during the Cambrian period. The trilobite eye has dozens of complex tubes, each with its own intricate lens. Darwinian gradualism cannot account for the sudden development of complex organs such as the fully formed eye.⁷ Evolutionists are stumped because Darwin theorized that complex organs like the eye could only develop gradually over enormous periods of time, traceable to a common ancestor. Yet five totally different phyla with no hint of a common ancestor all suddenly popped into existence during the Cambrian period, each with fully developed eyes.⁸

T. S. Kemp, curator of the zoological collections at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, is one of the world’s foremost experts on Cambrian fossils. When discussing the sudden appearances of new species, Kemp declares, “With few exceptions, radically new kinds of organisms appear for the first time in the fossil record already fully evolved. … It is not at all what might have been expected.”⁹

Certainly new organisms with eyes developing quickly is not what Darwin had in mind when his theory defined natural selection as gradual changes over vast amounts of time. Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins—no friend to a belief in creation—affirms, “Without gradualness …we are back to a miracle.”¹⁰

Stephen Gould, a staunch advocate of materialistic evolution, sums up the problem for Darwinists: “We do not know why the Cambrian explosion could establish all major anatomical designs so quickly. … The Cambrian explosion was the most remarkable and puzzling event in the history of life.”¹¹

Although the Cambrian explosion doesn’t disprove Darwin’s theory, it certainly does raise a huge question mark, and it has been a source of great frustration to materialists. But is the Cambrian explosion of suddenly appearing new species the only contradiction to Darwin’s theory of macroevolution?

The best examples evolutionists offer in defense of macroevolution are the Archaeopteryx (a bird with reptilian features), and the Tiktaalik roseae (a fish that appears to have been developing limbs). But these two debatable examples don’t explain the enormous gaps in the fossil record. Molecular biologist Michael Denton remarks, “Archaeopteryx was probably the best intermediate that Darwin was able to name, yet between reptiles and Archaeopteryx there was still a very obvious gap.”¹² Darwin expected much more evidence to support macroevolution. This has led even the most ardent materialists to question Darwin’s prediction.

Gould’s colleague, Eldredge, frankly admits the failure of the fossil record to provide evidence for macroevolution, stating, “No one has found any such in-between creatures … and there is a growing conviction among many scientists that these transitional forms never existed.”¹³

Life-Forms in A Rut

What the fossil record does show, according to paleontologists, is that most species don’t change but rather remain virtually the same for millions of years. They call this phenomenon stasis, which basically means you should not expect to grow a second head or third arm anytime in the foreseeable future.

Kemp forcefully summarizes the findings from the fossil record: “It is now indisputable that stasis … occurs in … probably a majority of cases of fossil species. … Equally it seems beyond dispute that speciation [macroevolution] usually occurs so rapidly … that the process is below the resolution of the fossil record.”¹⁴

In other words evolution rarely occurs, and when it does, it occurs so rapidly it leaves no fossil trail. Eldredge remarks, “No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen.”¹⁵ But wait. Didn’t Darwin theorize that all of life gradually evolved? How do Darwinists respond to this embarrassing lack of evidence?

According to Gould, with silence: “It’s not evolution so you don’t talk about it.”¹⁶ Gould, one of Darwin’s strongest advocates, also admits, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and notes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”¹⁷

Paleontologist Whitey Hagadorn has intensely studied fossils of the early marine animal communities, looking for evidence of transitions. He remarks, “Paleontologists have the best eyes in the world. If we can’t find the fossils, sometimes you have to think that they just weren’t there.”¹⁸

Graduating from Gradualism

Eldredge discloses that the Darwinian paradigm is so strong that paleontologists refused to admit defeat by acknowledging gradualism as wrong. “Paleontologists clung to the myth of gradual adaptive transformation even in the face of plain evidence to the contrary… ”¹⁹

Eldredge and his colleague Gould, however, responded to the lack of transitional fossils by developing a new theory called punctuated equilibria, a complete departure from Darwin’s basic premise of gradualism.²⁰

The punctuated equilibria theory contends that evolution, rather than being a gradual process, flourished quickly in small, isolated geographic regions, and then stabilized. But evolution was the exception, and rarely occurred.

Gould and Eldredge have argued that a sudden jump from species to species is the only way to explain the missing transitional fossils. Denton contests their conclusions are difficult to believe. “To suggest that … possibly even millions of transitional species … were all unsuccessful species occupying isolated areas and having very small population numbers is verging on the incredible.”²¹

Whereas Darwin’s theory required many millions of years, punctuated equilibria speculates that body forms evolved in hundreds of thousands of years, merely 100th of one percent of Earth’s history. There is no known mechanism that can work so fast.

Based upon the fossil evidence, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. Cambrian fossils contradict Darwin’s theory.
2. Transitional fossils have failed to show up.
3. Most species don’t change.
4. Perplexed materialists are seeking non-Darwinian explanations.

Gerald Schroeder cites how micro-evolutionary examples are used by Darwinists as “proof” of macro-evolution: “…when the London Museum of natural History, a bastion of Darwinian dogma, mounted a massive exhibit on evolution, occupying an entire wing of the second floor, the only examples it could show were pink daisies evolving into blue daisies, little dogs evolving into big dogs, a few dozen species of cichlid fish evolving into hundreds of species of—you guessed it—cichlid fish. They could not come up with a single major morphological change clearly recorded in the fossil record. I am not anti-evolution. And I am not pro-creation. What I am is pro-look-at-the-data-and-see-what-they-teach.”²²

Evolution with A Purpose?

Some scientists believe that the chemistry of life has been fine-tuned and that evolution was programmed into nature’s laws. Conway Morris of Cambridge University, acknowledged as one of the foremost paleontologists of his time, has proposed a theory that combines design and evolution. Morris observes, “Far from being a random, directionless process, evolution shows deep patterns, and perhaps even a purpose.”²³

In his book Life’s Solution, Morris makes a compelling case for inherent design in life. Morris suggests that life could not have been a mere product of time plus chance, as Darwin theorized. He sees design and purpose in biological structures, pondering:

Does evolution have a structure, an overall design, perhaps even a purpose? Orthodox
opinion recoils from this prospect. Evolution, it is widely believed, is an effectively random process where almost any outcome is possible. … We, like all other life, are an evolutionary accident. But is this correct? In fact the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction.²⁴

Morris cites evidence of design patterns like the eye, that exist in unrelated phyla. How did each of these unrelated animal groups develop an eye, independent of one another? Morris believes there are common patterns built into nature’s laws. He calls his theory, convergence.

According to Morris, such common design patterns in totally separate phyla provide compelling evidence against Darwin’s theory of accidental naturalistic evolution. But is designed evolution really an option if there is little or no fossil evidence to support macroevolution?

Although, like Morris, many believe in some form of directed evolution, such theories don’t adequately explain the missing transitional fossils. Macroevolution, whether by design or by accident, still requires transitional forms. Yet the intense scrutiny of billions of fossils has failed to provide clear evidence for macroevolution other than a few debatable exceptions.

What, then, is the most plausible explanation for the missing transitional forms? There are really only three viable options:

1. Darwin was right about macroevolution. An abundance of transitional fossils will someday be found, or billions of transitionals were destroyed.
2. Darwin was wrong about gradualism. Macroevolution occurred rapidly, explaining the missing transitions (punctuated equilibria or design).
3. Darwin was wrong about macroevolution. The fossils can’t be found because transitions never existed (design).

Paleontologists are not in agreement on which option is correct, but there is general agreement, with a few debatable exceptions, that the fossils that Darwin predicted would be discovered in abundance are truly missing. Materialists respond by showing fossil evidence of horses gradually evolving. But that is only microevolution.

They also try to depict human evolution by assembling fragments of hominid skulls. But the origin of Homo sapiens has been a source of frustration and controversy. (See Are Humans the Result of Evolution?)

As we have seen, Darwinist’s best example, the Archaeopteryx, is a debatable transition between birds and reptiles. If Darwin was right, there should be millions of his predicted transitional fossils forthcoming by now. That would end the debate.

Darwin’s Own Verdict

In the case of Herman Atkins, DNA evidence proved that the original eyewitness testimony was flawed. Is it possible, that the combination of new evidence from molecular biology and the missing transitional fossils have revealed Darwinian evolution to be a flawed theory?

Biologists Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders speak for many scientists who seriously question the claims of Darwin’s theory:

“It is now approximately half a century since the neo-Darwinian synthesis was formulated. A great deal of research has been carried on within the paradigm it defines. Yet the successes of the theory are limited to the minutia of evolution, such as the adaptive change in coloration of moths, while it has remarkably little to say on the questions which interest us most, such as how there came to be moths in the first place.”²⁵

Regardless of one’s views of Charles Darwin, the geological record seems to have confirmed his worst fears; missing transitions, and the sudden appearance of new life forms. What Gould called the “trade secret” of paleontologists, the missing transitional fossils, points to the sudden appearance of new life forms, a phenomenon that Darwin said would be “fatal” to his theory of macroevolution.

Perhaps Gould’s colleague Eldredge said it best when he admitted, “there is a growing conviction among many scientists that these transitional forms never existed.”²⁶ And so we are left with a fossil trail that raises the question: How did these new life forms, some with fully developed eyes, appear so suddenly?

Many scientists reflect the view of Dr. Jonathan Wells, holder of PhDs in theology from Yale, and biology from Berkeley, who states, “Does this mean that biologists should devote their energies to proving the existence of a designer? I think not. It simply means that biologists should trust their common sense…biologists would be better off following the evidence wherever it leads.”²⁷

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Endnotes

The Language of Our Cells

Was the language of DNA programmed by a designer–or by chance?

Consider for a moment the cathedral-like structure of a snowflake under a microscope. Look at the beauty. Look at the complexity. Look at the originality of each individual flake. Surely this is evidence for a grand designer in the universe.

Well, no, actually it’s not—no more so than the burned enchilada of a woman in Mexico that apparently revealed the image of Jesus (though in the photo it did kind of look like him).

Although crystalline forms of a snowflake are beautiful and impressive, designs of this type abound in nature, and natural processes can and do produce them.

Neo-Darwinists believe that natural selection and favorable mutations are the total explanation for the appearance of design in nature.

But what if complexity in nature is discovered that is not explainable by natural selection and chance mutations? What if, unlike our snowflake and enchilada examples, scientists discover a form of complexity that exceeds all human engineering and all sophisticated software programs? This raises an important question: How would we be able to detect intelligent design in nature if it actually exists?

Of Clothes Dryers, Mount Rushmore, and Prime Numbers

The folks at SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have done some thinking along the lines of what constitutes signs of intelligence. They are searching for extraterrestrial life, as opposed to God, but they have to deal with the same problem set. How would they recognize communication from outer space if they saw or heard it?

Some of their thinking is brought out in the movie Contact. In one scene, the character played by Jodie Foster spends the evening listening to her dryer (presumably Blockbuster was closed). But there is a method to her apparent madness. She is trying to train her ears so that she will be able to recognize intelligent radio signals from outer space, filtering out the zillion random signals produced by all manner of objects in the cosmos.

A clothes dryer produces a certain level of mechanical rhythm; its noise actually has a level of design, sort of like that of a snowflake. But that noise (especially when you have sneakers thumping around in there) represents a type of design that nonintelligence (that is, nature) can produce.

How can we tell the difference between design that occurs naturally and intelligent design?

Let’s say we’ve headed out to Vegas, and along the way, we come upon a bizarre rock formation. I say, “Hey, look at the erosion on that rock. It looks kind of like Richard Nixon when the Watergate tapes were made public.” You, on the other hand, think it looks like Vladimir Putin eating scrambled eggs. We agree to disagree, but we both note that the forces of erosion made something that looks a bit like a product of intelligent design.

Now, as we drive farther, we come to Mount Rushmore. Seeing it for the first time, I am amazed. I say, “Wow, look at the erosion on those rocks. It looks just like three presidents I recognize and some guy wearing glasses.” You rightly call me an idiot, not only because you know who Teddy Roosevelt is, but also because it is obvious by the way the stone is cut and the extraordinary degree of design that this is the product of intelligent craftsmen—ones who apparently have no fear of heights. But there must be a more scientific way to differentiate between these two levels of design: one that can be produced by nature and one that can’t.

Later on in the movie Contact, the scientists receive radio waves at the sequence of 1,126 beats and pauses. The sequence, they deduce, represents the prime numbers 2 through 101. It becomes doubtful that random radio waves could emit such a sequence, thus they presume they have made contact.

This is a more scientific way of differentiating between two different orders of design. It is commonly called CSI. This acronym has nothing to do with a popular TV show. It stands for “complex, specified information.”

CSI: The Universe

Here is what you need to remember about CSI, or complex, specified information. Nature can generate information that is complex, and it can produce information that is specified, but it cannot do both.

The best way to understand this is to think of yourself as a computer programmer. (You might want to grab a large bag of potato chips and a six-pack of Coke to get into character.) I want you to write a program for the computer telling it to type random letters of the alphabet.

It should be fairly easy to write the program. Just instruct the computer to type keys at random and repeat the process infinitely. Now, occasionally the letters might make an interesting pattern, perhaps even type the word “Nixon” by accident, but it is clearly generating a design of complexity without any real specificity.

Now let’s switch it around. Let’s say I ask you to program the computer to type the word “the”. This is going to require specificity. You must specify, “Computer, type the letter ‘t,’ then ‘h,’ and then ‘e,’ and do this over and over again until your printer runs out of ink or your hard drive crashes.” This is specific, but it is not complex. You can program the computer in this case, like the previous one, with just a few lines of instructions.

Typing random letters or typing a simple word over and over is like the kind of design that natural processes can handle on their own.

Now let’s look at specified complexity. Let’s say I ask you to program the computer to write out a Harlequin romance novel and make the girl decide to dump the guy in the end. You would have to write a list of instructions for the computer larger than the book itself. You would have to specify, in the form of a command, every letter of every word.

Few people would have thought of Harlequin romances as specified complexity, but as you can see, they are. The commands to the computer are extremely complex and extremely specific. That’s the kind of detail we must demand if we are going to believe that there is intelligent design exhibited in the world.

Probably Intelligent

Seems simple enough, but at what point does something cross the threshold from the simple design found in nature to second-order design produced only by intelligence? Mathematician William Dembski illustrates the difference by having us visualize a rat trying to go through a maze.

In a simple maze, the rat can take one turn and escape from the maze. Even a dim-witted rat could take one turn and escape. But now imagine that the maze is extremely complex, possessing walls and requiring 100 precise turns to reach the point of escape. How likely is it that the little critter will quickly learn all the correct turns and escape? Impossible–unless we have one awfully bright rat.

So, when do we infer intelligence? According to mathematicians when the odds against an event occurring are 1 in 10¹⁵⁰ or greater, it can’t be accidental.¹ In order to grasp such an astronomical number, consider that the odds against winning a Power ball lottery with a single ticket is about 1 in 10⁸. Or trying to pick a solitary atom from all the atoms in the universe would be 1 in 10⁸⁰.

So, having cleared all that up, we come to the real question. Forgetting all the erosion and snowflake patterns, are there any examples of specified complexity found in nature pointing toward intelligent design? The short answer is yes. What follows, without getting into too much detail, is the longer answer. It uses the example of something each of us has heard something about: deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

A Little Strand Can Do

DNA. That one complex molecule contains the complete blueprint for every cell in every living thing. In a sense DNA is like a recipe where common ingredients are used to make different dishes. Only, instead of tasty dishes, DNA instructs cells to make flowers, whales, chickens, or people. (Hmm…so chickens aren’t tasty dishes?)

The genius of DNA lies not only in its complex coded instructions for life but also in its incredibly well-designed architecture, which allows it to contain billions of detailed instructions within a microscopic molecule. The amount of DNA that would fit on a pinhead contains information equivalent to that of a stack of paperback books that would encircle the earth 5,000 times!²

Our complete blueprint is present in each of our thousand million million cells. Think of an enormous building with thousands upon thousands of rooms, where each room houses a complete set of blueprints for the entire structure. (If these analogies are getting a little sterile for you, then you might want to imagine a series of beach houses—and imagine yourself sitting in one.) However, instead of merely thousands of rooms, our bodies contain trillions of cells, each with a complete package of DNA instructions.³

Each strand of DNA in our bodies consists of three billion base pairs of genetic information. These base pairs form a chain, which constitutes the entire human genetic code. Today the entire human genome has been mapped out. Even though humans are closest to chimpanzees in DNA sequencing, there are still some 40 million differences. (Except maybe with my friend Bob.)⁴

Your Cells Are Talking

But just what is DNA, and how does it work? Although scientists are only beginning to unravel its mysteries, they know that DNA works much like a coded language. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates (apparently sizing up the potential to patent it and make it a part of Windows) discloses, “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.”⁵

When we think of sophisticated computer programs, we immediately realize that their coded software was intentionally designed. Materialists believe that DNA originated without any such intentional process. But is it possible that natural causes alone engineered DNA?

Prior to microbiologists’ discovery of the incredibly complex language of DNA, materialists had believed its origin was explainable by natural means. However, design theorists have now applied the mathematical discipline of CSI to the question of whether DNA is the result of intelligent design or was accidental in its origin.

Historian and philosopher Stephen C. Meyer comments on the intelligence required for coded languages: “Our experience with information-intensive systems (especially codes and languages) indicates that such systems always come from an intelligent source.”⁶

In other words, like a code or language, DNA operates with specifically organized instructions. This is the CSI (complex, specified information) discussed earlier as the watermark of intelligent design.

When DNA directs the cell to make proteins, it first gives instructions to make amino acids. Then twenty different amino acids must precisely link up into a chain, folding into an exacting, irregular three-dimensional protein. The amino acids are like letters; their arrangement spells out the specific protein being made.

Proteins are truly amazing. MIT-trained scientist Dr. Gerald Schroeder explains,

Other than sex and blood cells, every cell in your body is making approximately two thousand proteins every second. A protein is a combination of three hundred to over a thousand amino acids. An adult human body is made of approximately seventy-five trillion cells. Every second of every minute of every day, your body and every body is organizing on the order of 150 thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand amino acids into carefully constructed chains of proteins. Every second; every minute; every day. The fabric from which we and all life are built is being continually rewoven at a most astoundingly rapid rate.⁷

Life in A Test Tube?

In the 1950’s, Harold Urey, a professor at the University of Chicago challenged his students to create life in a test tube. One of his students who tried, Stanley Miller was jubilant, when after enormous efforts he produced a few amino acids…the building blocks of proteins.

It all appeared so promising, but what Miller didn’t understand then was that without DNA, those amino acids would never be able to form proteins…the stuff of life. The initial euphoria faded once further discoveries revealed life’s incredible complexity.

Professor J.P. Moreland compares laboratory results with the complexity required to generate life: “…if life can be likened to an encyclopedia in complexity and information, the best we have done is to synthesize a compound which carries the complexity and information of the word ME. The jump from ME to an encyclopedia is so far and speculative that the relevance of progress so far is questionable.”⁸

Meyer points out that the chemical codes directing the process attach themselves to the structure of the DNA molecule like letters on a chalkboard, but they do so without becoming organically involved with the board or the other letters. Therefore, he distinguishes the information content from the chemical bonding.

Furthermore, Meyer compares the sequencing of the amino acids to a language: “Amino acids alone do not make proteins, any more than letters alone make words, sentences or poetry.”⁹

The fact that the arrangement of the letters is not the result of chemical bonding has driven Meyer to conclude that, without intelligence, DNA would never be able to turn amino acids into proteins. He writes, “The chance of each amino acid finding the correct bond is one in twenty; the chance of one hundred amino acids hooking up to successfully make a functional protein is one in 10³⁰.”¹⁰

And to survive, the protein chain must be contained within an intricate cellular architecture. That means that the odds against a protein being manufactured randomly are astronomical. It would be easier for a blindfolded person to find one special grain of sand hidden on one of the world’s beaches than to have a protein appear by chance.

Where Did It Come From?

Such complexity is so improbable that Meyer believes the DNA code cannot be the product of undirected natural processes. Furthermore, he reasons that DNA coding exhibits creative intelligence beyond random chemical bonds.

Perhaps this is why every attempt to create life has failed. Cambridge Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, Simon Conway Morris remarks on biologists’ efforts to replicate life in a test tube: “And yet, something is clearly missing: life cannot be created in the laboratory, nor is there any clear prospect of it happening.”¹¹

How did a molecule with such complex coded instructions originate? What natural process triggered a smattering of organic chemicals to come together and form the incredibly sophisticated double helix? Schroeder remarks, “And here’s that enigma. … It shows its head in a dozen different ways, the problem of how the entire process originally got started.”¹²

Dembski, Meyer, and Schroeder are part of a growing number of scientists and mathematicians who have concluded that the DNA molecule is so complex that it couldn’t have spontaneously assembled itself.

In Probability 1, mathematician and evolutionist Amir Aczel summarizes the DNA dilemma: “Having surveyed the discovery of the structure of DNA … and having seen how DNA stores and manipulates tremendous amounts of information (3 billion separate bits for a human being) and uses the information to control life, we are left with one big question: What created DNA?”¹³

An increasing number of scientists in other fields are also admitting that DNA’s complexity is not explainable by mere chance. Theoretical physicist Paul Davies affirms in The 5th Miracle,

The peculiarity of biological complexity makes genes seem almost like impossible objects. …

I have come to the conclusion that no familiar law of nature could produce such a structure from incoherent chemicals with the inevitability that some scientists assert.¹⁴

Biologist Michael Behe comments on the dilemma facing scientists who are wedded to a purely materialistic account of the origin of life, “In the face of the enormous complexity that modern biochemistry has uncovered in the cell, the scientific community is paralyzed.”¹⁵

Agnostic Sir Fred Hoyle, when considering the enormous information requirement of life writes, “Were a refined theory available for estimating the information content of DNA it would, in our opinion, be immediately apparent from its overwhelming content that life could never have arisen on a miniscule planet like on Earth. It would be seen that, to match the information content of even the simplest cell, nothing less than the resources of the entire Universe are needed.”¹⁶

DNA By Design?

Scientists have been stunned by the overwhelming probability against DNA forming by chance. It is one thing for intelligent scientists to manipulate chemicals under laboratory conditions, and it is quite another to attribute the origin of DNA to random action. Even the most ardent materialists do not claim to have explained DNA’s origin.

Amir Aczel questions his own materialistic belief by admitting that DNA is too complex to have arisen from natural processes. In a reflective mode he asks,

Are we witnessing here something so wondrous, so fantastically complex, that it could not be chemistry or random interactions of elements, but something far beyond our understanding?¹⁷

DNA’s co-discoverer Francis Crick also considers DNA to be too complex to have arisen in a warm pond on early Earth. This highly regarded Nobel Prize–winning biologist concludes, “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to almost be a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”¹⁸

In spite of Crick’s assertion that DNA appears miraculous he remained a materialist and began looking to outer space for the origin of life. (panspermia).

Having acknowledged the impossibility of DNA to originate naturally, some scientists have shifted their focus to RNA. Several biologists believe that DNA emerged from RNA. However, microbiologists who have analyzed RNA now believe it too “could not have emerged straight from the prehistoric muck.”¹⁹

Not only is RNA prohibitively intricate, but it’s far more delicate than DNA, meaning it couldn’t cohere by itself even if it did come together by chance. Thus, the origin of life remains an unsolved riddle to scientists.

Aczel reasons that the complexity of DNA could not have arisen naturally on Earth, He asks, “Was it perhaps the power, thinking, and will of a supreme being that created this self-replicating basis of all life?”²⁰ Like Crick, Aczel concludes that DNA must have arrived from outer space.

But according to Dembski, “Natural causes such as chance and law are incapable of producing CSI.”²¹ Since these laws apply throughout the universe, one shouldn’t hold his breath about finding Klingons on Planet Qo’noS in the Beta Quadrant–unless a designer made DNA based life elsewhere.

So how did life on Earth originate? Is intelligent design worthy of consideration? Not according to Dawkins, Eldridge, Mayr, and a host of other materialistic scientists who are convinced it is an enemy of science.

Yet other leading scientists are willing to objectively look at the evidence. And new scientific evidence has pushed intelligent design to the forefront of the debate on origins. Even many hardened atheists have considered the evidence and admit the implications of design.

Antony Flew is one materialist who led the charge against an intelligent designer. Recognized by many as the world’s leading atheist for the past fifty years, Flew wrote over thirty books arguing against a creator.

But this formidable atheist took an honest look at DNA, remarking,

What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together. The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence.²²

Flew, who accepts Darwinian evolution, but doubts it can account for life’s origins, sees intelligent design as the best option to explain biological complexity. He made front page news when he renounced his atheism, remarking,

I think the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it…It now seems to me that the finding of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.²³

Flew’s honesty is to be applauded, but materialists aren’t clapping. As the intelligent design movement gains momentum, many refuse to consider it as an option, dismissing it as “unscientific.” However, most thinking people want to hear the facts and draw their own conclusions. Like Flew, many who have honestly investigated the evidence, are in awe at what appears to be a super-intelligence behind life and all its intricate complexity.

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Endnotes

The Problem with Half an Eye

Looking down at Greenland from 32,000 feet on my trip from Rome to Seattle, I heard a strange noise in the aircraft that sent my blood pressure soaring into hyperspace. Suddenly I began to wonder what would happen if one tiny part on the enormous Boeing 747 failed. Engines, hydraulics, air pressurization—all were complex systems that worked only when several interdependent parts functioned properly.

In vain I sought comfort in my airline pretzels, but comfort can never be found in low-fat foods. I kept thinking of all those dedicated employees (excuse me: “members of the Boeing family”) shown on the commercials who apparently love nothing more in life than a well-oiled 747 and who perpetually ponder my safety. But the nagging thought still popped into my head: “Just one faulty or missing part and I’d become part of the first bomb ever to be dropped on Greenland.”

In one sense, biological systems are like my Boeing 747: one missing or defective part and they won’t work. Here lies one of the major unanswered problems of biology. How did highly complex, interdependent biological systems like the eye develop slowly over eons of time? They would never have worked until fully developed.

Let’s step back for a minute and think about all this.

Airplanes, automobiles, cell phones, computers, and other complex machines, can always be traced back to a designer. However, with biological systems, materialists (those who believe nothing exists outside of the material world) assume there is some natural process that created such systems.

The real issue here is whether or not a designer is behind such complexity. There are four possibilities:

1. A designer created biological complexity supernaturally
2. A designer created biological complexity through natural processes
3. A designer combined natural processes and supernatural means to create biological complexity
4. A designer doesn’t exist. Complexity came about naturally.

Materialists believe the latter. Scientists who advocate intelligent design generally agree that some super-intelligence is behind it all, even though they leave the nature of a designer to theologians.

Here we must look at the evidence to see which of the possibilities makes the most sense. To determine the best option, we need to look closer at complex biological systems to determine whether they can be explained by natural causes alone.

Looking at The Eye

The human eye is perhaps the best-known example of a complex system that couldn’t just pop up overnight. (“Say, Bill, what’s that thing growing on your face?” “I thought it was acne, but now that you mention it, I think I can see out of it.”)

With the eye we are not merely dealing with complexity, but with hundreds of separate parts that must work together in unison with incredible precision.

Those who study the inner workings of the eye say it operates much like a television camera, but is far more sophisticated. In fact it is more sophisticated than any machine imaginable.

Darwin’s Big Idea

Since the dawn of history, the eye and other complex biological systems had baffled materialists. How could they exist without a designer? However, that changed in 1859 when biologist Charles Darwin published his revolutionary, The Origin of Species. The big idea in Darwin’s book was that life in all its complexity came about by a process he called natural selection. In other words, according to Darwin, no designer is needed. Materialists were elated.

Darwin postulated that natural selection was totally responsible for the complexity of organs like the eye, addressing the issue in a special section entitled, “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication.”

In his special section Darwin brilliantly argued that the eye might have developed in any number of ways. His reasoning was that even a partially developed eye would offer a creature some evolutionary advantage.

His explanation for the gradual development of such complex systems certainly had its critics, but by and large his ideas were embraced because they helped to explain a great deal of the observable phenomena of our world.

As the evolutionary movement grew, a great deal of evidence seemed to confirm Darwin’s theory, evidence similar to what you were taught in your high school textbooks. Adaptability, survival of the fittest, and other Darwinian tenets are clearly demonstrable within a given species. Materialist Richard Dawkins remarks of Darwin’s acceptance among most biologists, “Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun….”¹

As an atheist, Dawkins seems to applaud Darwin as the hero behind a purposeless world of chance. He writes, “Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is satisfying because it shows us a way in which simplicity could change into complexity, how unordered atoms could group themselves into ever more complex patterns until they ended up manufacturing people. Darwin provides a solution, the only feasible one so far suggested, to the deep problem of our existence.”²

Since Darwin’s theory was birthed in the mid-nineteenth century before the discovery of DNA and the intricacies of how life works at the molecular level, there was no scientific evidence to refute his claims. By the mid-twentieth century, Darwinism had gained widespread acceptance, but mounting evidence persuaded some scientists that his theory was incapable of accounting for life’s intricate complexity.

This led to a series of meetings where scientists from various disciplines attempted to hammer out a coherent and unified theory of evolution. The result was called the “evolutionary synthesis,” also known as Neo-Darwinism.

But as Dr. Michael Behe, associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, notes in his book Darwin’s Black Box, “One branch of science was not invited to the meetings [that produced the evolutionary synthesis], and for good reason. It did not yet exist.”³ Behe is referring to his own field of study, biochemistry.

Behe’s field did not begin until later in the century, after the advent of the electron microscope. Yet biochemistry is perhaps the most critical of all the disciplines for this study, because it analyzes life at the cellular level and observes the molecular foundations of living organisms.

If Darwin’s general theory of evolution is a valid explanation of how life can develop wholly apart from outside intelligence, then it must be demonstrated to be operating at the molecular level. But does Darwin’s theory hold up under such scrutiny?

A Better Mousetrap

Darwin once stated, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”⁴ Behe’s book, in essence, says, “OK, Charles, take a look at these!” And goes on to cite a handful of examples of what he calls irreducible complexity.

By irreducible complexity, Behe means a single system of interrelated parts, where the absence or failure of any part causes the entire system to non-perform or abort. In the airplane example, it could be a missing wing, rudder, or a defective integral part of the hydraulic system. In the eye, it could be a defective or missing cornea, retina, pupil, optic nerve, etc. All must work in concert for the eye to see.

So how did each of these separate parts evolve together over eons of time? Could the eye have served any purpose without being complete? We are not merely talking about a half-developed eye, but the eye at all its various stages of development throughout hundreds of millions of years (according to Darwin). Darwin himself stated that his theory (that all life is a product of natural processes alone) stands or falls on its ability to explain how an incomplete organ like the eye can benefit a species.

Behe uses a mousetrap as a nonliving example of irreducible complexity. Five basic parts of the trap must work together in order for it to catch mice:

1. a flat wooden platform
2. a spring
3. a sensitive catch that releases when pressure is applied
4. a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back
5. the hammer that serves as the instrument of death and cruelty for our harmless mouse.

A mousetrap needs each of these parts to kill mice. Each part works interdependently, and so a partially constructed mousetrap serves no function and is worthless.

Behe’s book focuses on a handful of examples, though he states that any biology book contains dozens of them. One of the examples he cites is the microscopic bacterial flagellum, which the bacterium uses as a miniature whip-like rotary motor to propel itself. The flagellum is a swimming device that works similar to a rotary propeller. It is described by Behe like this:

Just picture an outboard motor on a boat and you get a pretty good picture of how the flagellum functions, only the flagellum is far more incredible. The flagellum’s propeller is long and whip-like, made out of a protein called flagellum. This is attached to a drive shaft by hook protein, which acts as a universal joint, allowing the propeller and drive shaft to rotate freely. Several types of protein act as bushing material (like washer/donut) to allow the drive shaft to penetrate the bacterial wall (like the side of a boat) and attach to a rotary motor. … Not only that but the propeller can stop spinning within a quarter turn and instantly start spinning the other direction at 10,000 rpms.⁵

The flagellum’s molecular motor requires 20 proteins, all working in synchrony, to function. Like the partially constructed mousetrap, the flagellum would be worthless and perish unless all 20 proteins were fully developed.

Dr. Robert Macnab of Yale University detailed the tiny molecular motor of the E. coli flagellum in a 50 page review, concluding that its development cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution. Labeling Darwin’s explanation an “oversimplification,” Macnab questions how a non-functional “preflagellum” could have evolved part by part with each being indispensable to its completed function.⁷

Another example Behe cites is what he calls “the intracellular transport system” found within cells. The magnified cell in Darwin’s day looked something like an opaque pancake jellyfish with a fuzzy-looking dark spot in the center called the nucleus. It all looked so simple. Only recently, under powerful magnification, have the mysteries of the cell begun to be unveiled.

Molecular biologist Michael Denton uses a similar metaphor to describe the cell’s complexity:

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design.

On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.⁸

But, again, it is not simply complexity; it is irreducible complexity. Going back to Behe’s illustration of the mousetrap, everything must be in place for the system to work. Missing just one component, the whole system is worthless. Behe remarks,

The point of irreducible complexity is…that the trap we’re considering right now needs all of its parts to function. The challenge to Darwinian evolution is to get to my trap by means of numerous, successive slight modifications. You can’t do it. Besides, you’re using your intelligence as you try. Remember, the audacious claim of Darwinian evolution is that it can put together complex systems with no intelligence at all.⁹

Fingerprints of A Designer?

Several materialists have taken issue with Behe’s case for irreducible complexity, but none have adequately explained a process by which such complex organs and systems have evolved by mere chance.

Surprised at the sudden maelstrom caused by his book, Behe defends his position in The Boston Review. “The rotary nature of the flagellum has been recognized for about 25 years. During that time not a single paper has been published in the biochemical literature even attempting to show how such a machine might have developed by natural selection.”¹⁰

In The Flagellum Unspun, Ken Miller argues against irreducible complexity, labeling Behe and other intelligent design advocates, “unimaginative.”

Dr. William Dembski rebuts Miller’s objection by stating, “The problem is not that we in the intelligent design community…just can’t imagine how those systems arose.…Darwin’s theory, without which nothing in biology is supposed to make sense, in fact offers no insight into how the flagellum arose.”¹¹

James Shapiro, a biochemist at the University of Chicago, concurs, “There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”¹²

Darwin’s Black Box is a scientific book, not a theological one, but Behe has been joined by a growing number of scientists who claim they see the fingerprints of intelligent design within irreducibly complex biological systems. One of them, cosmologist Alan Sandage has remarked: “The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. … The more one learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some type of organizing principle—an architect for believers.”¹³  

Extreme Perfection and Complication, Indeed

We began this article by mentioning the objection of the human eye as it was raised and addressed by Darwin. For most people coming to grips with the implications of materialistic evolution, complex structures like the human eye are not simply a hard pill to swallow but rather a chicken bone stuck in the throat. Intuitively, we struggle to imagine how such a structure could slowly develop over time and what use a half-developed eye would serve.

A careful reading of Darwin’s explanation in “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication” reveals that he never answers the problem. In fact, regarding how the eye got started, Darwin stated, “How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated.”¹⁴

Did Darwin really believe the eye evolved bit by bit over time?  Although his theory attempts to explain how it could have happened, many believe Darwin himself was unconvinced. Years after he had written his world-changing theory Darwin admitted to a friend, “The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder.”¹⁵ Hmm…

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Endnotes