INFORMATION & CREATION

WE live in a world where there has been an information 'explosion'. Messages are constantly flashing around the world — telephone calls, fax and text messages, electronic mail, radio and television transmissions — and all are based upon a code which is translated into electronic signals. Millions of computers work away, each using a programme, and storing coded information on hard drives, floppy disks, tapes, and CDs. Thousands of new books are published every year, each containing words which are composed from a written language. There are different computer languages and thousands of different written languages, but in every case the information had to come from an intelligent source. All computer programmes had to be written by a programmer.

THE SOURCE OF INFORMATION

All information systems require intelligence.

As with all languages, the genetic code contains and conveys information. For example, every one of the millions of cells in our bodies contains a full set of instructions to build another human being! What is the source of this information? Evolutionists have to believe that it came about by chance, natural processes — in other words that no intelligence was involved. But this goes against all the principles of the modern science of information theory. German information scientist Professor Werner Gitt gives short shrift to this idea, and insists there can be no code and no information without an intelligent source.

The storage potential of DNA is remarkable. Professor Gitt, speaking at the 4th European Creationist Congress, contrasted this with the most advanced information storage systems invented by humans. He explained that the sum total of knowledge stored in all the world's libraries is estimated at 10¹² bits.¹ To store this information on megachips would entail a pile reaching from the earth to the moon! However, in DNA form this same information could be stored on a pinhead! Molecular biologist Dr. Michael Denton has made a similar comparison: 'The capacity of DNA to store information vastly exceeds that of any other known system... all the information to specify the design of all the species of organisms which have ever lived in the planet — a number according to G. G. Simpson of approximately one thousand million — could be stored on a teaspoon, and there would still be room left over for the information in every book ever written.'²

In DNA form, all of the information to specify the design of all the species which ever lived on the planet could be contained in a teaspoon — with room to spare!

If we were to attempt to print out the genetic instructions contained within a human cell — which specify a complete human being — how much space would be required? The answer is that it would take a library of 250,000 books, each 230 pages long! Think how long it would take to type out all that information — and how long it would take to read it!

NEW CHALLENGES FROM GENETICS

Darwinists have long pretended that their theory can explain how genetic information originated and then caused increasing complexity during the course of evolution. They are now having the rug pulled from beneath them by modern genetics, and some of the strongest challenges are coming from non-creationists. Jewish scientist Dr. Lee Spetner is one of the latest experts to throw down the gauntlet. In his book Not by Chance! he writes: 'Any theory meant to explain how all plants and animals evolved from a single cell has to explain how all the information got into the genome. All living organisms have a lot of information in them.... According to the doctrine of evolution, all the information in life today was built through evolution. If the neo-Darwinians think their mechanism can explain how evolution took place, they have to show how that mechanism could have put large amounts of information into the genome. They have to explain how the genomes got all the information they have.'³

Spetner also highlights a very important objection to evolution: increasing complexity would require the addition of new genetic information. This has never been observed, and there is no known mechanism by which this could happen. So evolution theory can explain neither the origin of genetic information nor how increasing complexity was attained. Spetner emphasises that while mutations can bring about changes, they can never add new genetic information. Sometimes mutations can benefit an organism. Some insects that live on windswept islands have lost their wings as have some parasitic animals like fleas. But this has come about through the loss of genetic information; their descendants will never be able to grow wings in the future, as there is no way for this lost information to be regained.

Some insects, such as fleas, have lost their wings due to a mutation. But this means genetic information has been lost.

CREATION EXPLANATION

Information theory tells us that all information must have an intelligent source. When we receive a message, whether in the form of a letter, telephone call or fax, we would never for one moment consider that it originated by chance. Scientists who are searching for evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence say that the detection of non-random radio signals would convince them that there was intelligent alien life out there somewhere. Yet faced with the facts about genetic information, many of these same scientists refuse to accept the evidence for a Creator. As new research continues to expose the sham of the Darwinian explanation, creation is seen to be by far the most superior — and most scientific — explanation. Dr. Werner Gitt has written: 'All efforts to explain an origin of information depending on matter alone, fail empirically. We thus turn to another source which is unknown to and actively rejected by evolutionists, namely the witness of the Bible. The intellectual source for all information required by information theory, including biological information, is already mentioned on the first page of the Bible: 'In the beginning God created...' (Genesis 1:1)'⁴ The Bible tells us that in the beginning God created living organisms 'ccording to their kinds'. These kinds would originally have been endowed with a rich gene pool, allowing wide diversification within the boundaries God created. As time went on the gene pool would become diluted. Information would sometimes be lost, but since creation no new information would arise. Fish could never become amphibians nor reptiles birds, because this would require a massive amount of new information. It follows that the many gaps in the fossil record are not due to a failure to discover the 'missing links'. These imagined transitions never happened, because they couldn't! Today, men of learning, some of whom do not even acknowledge God, are being raised up to demonstrate to an often brain-washed public that the evidence points to creation, not evolution.

REFERENCES:

1. i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 digits of information.
2. Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler (1986) p. 334
3. Not by Chance! Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution , The Judacia Press, (1997) p. 70.
4. Did God Use Evolution? CLV-Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung e. V. (1993) p.85.

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