Amino Acids, Proteins and DNA

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Let’s take a journey deep into the cells of all living organisms. This will be unlike any journey you have ever taken before.

Immediately, we see a world of such exquisite detail, design, complexity, inter-dependence and specificity as to boggle the mind. Let’s paint a picture.

Amino acids must link together to form a chain, thus making a protein. Notice: “Yet, amino acids form functioning proteins only when they adopt very specific sequential arrangements…like properly sequenced letters in an English sentence. Thus, amino acids alone do not make proteins any more than letters alone make…poetry. In both cases, the sequencing of the constituent parts determines the function [or lack of function] of the whole. Explaining the origin of the specific sequencing of proteins (and DNA) lies at the heart of the current crisis in materialistic evolutionary thinking” (Stephen C. Meyer, DNA And Other Designs, p. 9—emphasis mine).

A brief discussion of proteins and sequencing is necessary. Proteins must appear in exact sequences to cause specific chemical reactions or build specific structures within the cells. This action is called specificity. It is because of specificity that proteins cannot substitute for one another. They are as different in purpose as an axe, a drill, a hammer and a screwdriver.

This extensive quote summarizes the enormous difficulty of believing that DNA happened by chance: “The complexity and intricacy of the DNA molecule—combined with the staggering amount of chemically-coded information it contains—speak unerringly to the fact that this ‘supermolecule’ simply could not have happened by blind chance. As Andrews has observed.

“It is not possible for a code, of any kind, to arise by chance or accident…A code is the work of an intelligent mind. Even the cleverest dog or chimpanzee could not work out a code of any kind. It is obvious then that chance cannot do it…This could no more have been the work of chance or accident than could the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ be played by mice running up and down the keyboard of my piano! Codes do not arise from chaos.” (Andrews, E.H., 1978, From Nothing to Nature, pp. 28-29).

Here is a second statement: “Indeed, codes do not arise from chaos. As Dawkins correctly remarked: ‘The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially, the obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent Designer’ (1982, p. 130, emp. Added). That is the exact point the theist is making: an intelligent Designer is demanded by the evidence” (Bert Thompson, Ph.D., The Case For The Existence of God [Part II]).

Dr. Carl Sagan wrote an article for the Encyclopedia Britannica about DNA. He said, “The information content of a simple cell has been estimated at around (one trillion) bits.” He then went on to explain the enormity of this number by stating, “…that if one were to count every letter of every word of every book in the world’s largest library (over ten million volumes), the final tally would be approximately a trillion letters. Thus, a single cell contains the equivalent information content…of more than ten million volumes” (“Life on Earth,” Vol. 10). In conclusion, regarding DNA, nothing works unless EVERYTHING works at the same time. It could not have gradually come into existence. Special creation is required for DNA to exist!

“Tiny Engines” Inside Cells

We need to look at one more example of molecular machines to better appreciate the complexity of cells. Japanese and German scientists have now discovered the smallest of nature’s machines, called “tiny engines.” Consider this advanced research on these remarkable little engines.

As you read this quote, ask yourself where they came from: “A group of Japanese scientists exploring the crystal structure of the F1-ATPase enzyme discovered nature’s own rotary engine—no bigger than ten billionths by ten billionths by eight billionths of a meter. The tiny motor includes the equivalent of an engine block, a drive shaft, and three pistons. It runs at speeds between 0.5 and 4.0 revolutions per second. This motor not only ranks as the smallest ever seen, it also represents the smallest motor that the laws of physics and chemistry will allow.

“In Germany, a research team used the new instruments to examine an enormous molecule, the yeast 26S proteasome. Though not the largest molecule in existence, the yeast 26S proteasome contains over two million protons and neutrons and is the largest non-symmetrical molecule mapped to date. This molecule can only be described as a ‘wonder.’ It serves as an intracellular waste-disposal and recycling system” (Hugh Ross, Ph.D., Small-scale Evidence of Grand Scale Design).

These organisms could never have evolved gradually. No wonder God says of those who do not believe in His existence, “The fool has said…There is no God.”

Life Requires a LIFEGIVER

What about the presence of all life on earth today? Where did it come from? How did it get here? The Bible states that God created all life during the first six days of the creation week of Genesis 1:1-50. Is this true, or did life come into existence by itself?

As with Uranium 238, and its provable moment of beginning, the great pattern of all life is that it can only come from other pre-existing life. This is called the Law of Biogenesis. All first-year biology students know it.

When examining tiny organisms, such as protozoa and bacteria, it can be demonstrated that life only comes from life. There are many kinds of life, but each continues to reproduce the same kind over and over. This is indisputable.

Life can never come from inanimate (non-living) objects. Evolutionists theorize that inanimate objects, under certain unknown circumstances in the misty past, somehow spontaneously gave birth to very primitive life forms. This presents enormous problems for anyone familiar with the nature and complexity of simple cells.

Biologists understand that all cells can only come from pre-existing cells. Here is why. Cells, even in their simplest and most rudimentary form, are extremely complex. Consider: “The simplest organism capable of independent life, the prokargote bacterial cell, is a masterpiece of miniaturized complexity which makes a spaceship seem rather low-tech” (Darwin on Trial, Philip Johnson, p. 102). The next source is equally powerful in explaining both the complexity of the cell and its origin: “The cell needs all its basic parts with their various functions, for survival; therefore, if the cell had evolved, it would have meant that billions of parts would have had to come into existence at the same time, in the same place, and then simultaneously come together in a precise order” (Origins?, Ranganathan, B.G., p. 15).

Will sceptics ignore the truth that it is impossible to have life without a LIFE GIVER? Only God has Life inherent in Himself. This is, after all, what makes Him God. No one created God, because He has Life inherent in Himself. But is this God merely some kind of blind power, some kind of dumb “first force?” Let’s reason together.

The Extraordinary Human Mind

Stop and think! Consider all of the works of nature around you—both on earth and in the heavens. First, consider the many different kinds of planets, stars and galaxies. Each is its own marvel. Second, consider all the species of plants on earth today. There are millions, diverse in color, shape, size, beauty, length of life, etc. I have spent much of my life studying and planting many kinds of plants. The brilliance of their various designs and purposes never ceases to amaze me! I am more fascinated with these living plants, than with stars and other objects throughout the heavens.

A side note should be considered at this point. All of the food that exists on earth today is perfectly designed for either human or animal consumption. It is constructed so that it contains just the right amounts of different elements necessary to sustain various life forms. Every time man tries to alter or improve food, he seems to pollute, ruin, devitalize, inject with poison, genetically re-engineer, or in some manner reduce its perfection into something inferior to what he started with. If mankind could just leave food alone, and eat it as God created it, sickness, disease and every form of nutrition-related human infirmity would disappear.

The germination, growth, development and maturation of plants into the many kinds of food, available just to human beings, represents its own series of miracles far too complex to recount here. It could command its own book just to explore it beyond even the most superficial overview.

But think! Who is more intelligent? God—who made perfect food, or men—who find every possible way to alter and degrade it before consuming it? Take the time to ponder this question.

Third, consider the nearly one million different kinds of creatures (plus the estimated several million additional kinds of insects). Because these creatures are animate, they are even more marvellous and fascinating than is the world of plants. Their diversity in colour, shape, size, beauty, length of life, etc., is comparable to plants.

What is the point? As fascinating, marvellous, beautiful and amazing as are all the things described here, surely nothing is as amazing as the HUMAN MIND. It is the absolute pinnacle of all living organisms. None can doubt this.