Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Who Wrote The Code?

I went to a canyon in New Mexico. There, on the canyon walls were crude drawings, a series of drawings really, and they told a story. Someone put them there for a purpose. They were trying to tell us something.

I went to Egypt. There on house sized blocks of sandstone were hieroglyphics, a series of hieroglyphics really, and they told a story. Someone put them there for a purpose. They were trying to tell us something.

I went to the book store. There I pulled a book off the shelf. When I opened the book I found a sentence, a series of sentences really, and they told a story. Someone put them there for a purpose. They were trying to tell us something.

I looked at a microscopic cell. There in the cell was a code. It was written in a four-letter chemical alphabet whose letters combined in various sequences to form words, sentences and paragraphs. All the instructions needed to guide the functioning of the cell were written in that DNA code. In fact this code worked just like the letters of our alphabet work to form what we want to say. But this wasn't just a sentence or even a thousand sentences. Whatever put these words into the cell had a lot to say. In fact each single microscopic cell in the human body contains more information than is contained in all thirty volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Hmm, I’m pretty sure that it was something with intelligence that put the “crude” drawings on the canyon wall.

And I’m pretty sure that something with intelligence put the more sophisticated hieroglyphics on the stones in Egypt.

And I’m almost certain that some type of intelligence put the words and sentences in the book on the shelf.

But I’m confused. On the one hand, a guy named Carl Sagan said once, “If we received a single message from space, it would be enough to know there’s an intelligence out there.” And if the only time that we see written information, be it a canyon painting or a book, we know that there's an intelligence behind it, then by analogical reasoning wouldn't it be logical to conclude that is also true of any other information that we find in nature? Wouldn't this be particularly true of something so complicated as the information written in the DNA code. I mean, that's what DNA is, it's written information.

But the guy over at atheist planet is certain that the DNA code, something that no human has been able to replicate except under extremely improbable conditions, well he said that it just happened. Even though a single message from space would be enough to convince atheists of intelligent life, or so they say, when confronted with vast volumes of information . . .? Well, it’s confusing isn’t it? All this information in perfect sequence being a random product of unguided nature; from carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen no less? I think that the DNA code points to intelligence but that man over at atheist planet says that I just have to have A LOT of faith in nature and then it all makes sense.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry I didn't come across this sooner. WELL written! Thanks.