"That natural selection generally acts with extreme slowness I fully admit….I do believe that natural selection will generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time…Slow though the process of selection may be. As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps." Charles Darwin
According to evolutionary theory changes are supposed to happen very, very slowly, over hundreds of thousands of generations, even though much of historical evidence points to 'saltational' or sudden changes. Life suddenly appeared; oxygen metabolizing organisms suddenly appeared; all the basic body plans that exist today suddenly appeared during the Cambrian Explosion. Evolutionary biologists argue these points, but in recent experiments where soapberry bugs, for instance (there have been similar experiments with other creatures*) have been exposed to a new food host (the golden rain tree), without having access to the food host that they were previously adapted to (the balloon vine), amazing changes in body size, beak length, flying patterns and the rhythm and speed of their whole cycle of reproduction has changed within fifty years. Is this evolution?
The researchers in the soapberry experiments that I have read about define any change in the genetic makeup of these bugs as "evolution." Wow! Good thing for Darwin that he is deified. If Newton was deified, Einstein would still be just a weird clerk in a patent office in Switzerland in need of a hair cut and socks. Heisenberg would have been run out of town as a heretic. Yet, when it came to Newton, the tiniest discrepancies in his theories and predictions caused the scientific community not to close ranks, but to search diligently for new answers and new theories that would explain these phenomenon; hence, relativity and quantum theory, hence, the use of atomic energy and space travel, transistors, lasers and atomic clocks. Yet here we have a case of, not small discrepancies, but enormous ones. We have organisms, soapberry bugs, and other organisms in different experiments, adapting at a rate thousands of times faster than Darwinian theory would have predicted. And this, of course, doesn't perturb the researchers in the least. They just define evolution as "any change in genes" and their results are published as further proof of evolution. If, upon measurement, we discovered that an action did not produce an equal and opposite reaction, but produced a reaction that was a thousand times stronger or a thousand times weaker than the initiating action, would we still blithely say that this was Newton, or would we look for a different theory? Would we say, "Oh,yeah, that's Newton alright, of course it's Newton. Good ole' Newton. It's just a very strong (or a very weak) Newton." Folks, wake up! All this information points to something that is deeply, inherently, basically wrong with Darwinian thinking.
At this point all we are really saying when we use the word evolution to refer to a biological change is that it is random; that there was no guiding principle involved. Yet if there were no guidance, how did all the changes in the soapberry bug occur so quickly, changes not just in alteration of genes but in new beak shapes and new proportions within those beak shapes, new metabolic changes and distributions of energy throughout the body, new firing patterns of genes, new rhythms of enzyme discharge so that the newly adapted bugs grew to sexual maturation much more quickly than the originals, and were no longer capable of flying. How do all these changes take place, changes which quickly and perfectly change the soapberry bug from a creature that was perfectly adapted to living in harmony with the rhythms and challenges of the balloon vine, to a creature that is perfectly adapted to live in harmony with the rhythms and challenges of the golden rain tree? Were all these processes random? If so, where were the millions upon millions of 'mistakes' until the new adaptations were the perfectly appropriate ones for the new host? Even if natural selection were at play, natural selection only operates among viable competitors. Selection has no influence over what genetic copying 'mistakes', what mutations, will occur. Where were the new offspring, even if they didn't survive to have progeny, even if they were still born, who flew further instead of not at all; whose rate of reproduction was slower rather than faster; whose beak size was longer or fatter or narrower rather than shorter; whose new beak shape didn't work at all, because the beak of the soapberry bug is so long (seventy percent of its body length) that it is constructed in three parts that unhinge when it eats and fold up when it doesn't. How many beaks were created where the hinging didn't work at all; where the size and weight of the beak prevented the animal from any locomotion what so ever; where the nervous system connected to the beak was misconstructed so that the bug could not control the movement or the positioning of the beak and did not have the ability to use it to pierce the covering of the plant seeds or no longer had the ability to grasp food in the front of its beak, move it to the rear of the beak and swallow it? All of these are enormously complicated mechanical processes and any change in shape must be accompanied by changes in nerves and blood vessels and precise adjustments to the part of the brain that these nerves connect to in order to have a newly functioning beak of a completely different size; and the amount of processes that have to take place for an organism to change from a reproductive cycle that is annual to a reproductive cycle that takes place two or three times a year, is so complex in all its details that it becomes overwhelming to study it all, much less to actually execute such changes. I'll tell you how many mistakes from this random 'hit or miss' process: none, zero, zip, zilch, nada, niente! Not a one. This whole process of dazzling complexity proceeded with no mistakes, no trial and error, not even a scintilla of evidence that there was any 'randomness' involved. Instead it shows clear proof to anyone except those fundamentalists who worship at the church of the great god Darwin, that all of these changes took place in a perfectly straight line with absolutely clear purpose and transcendent intelligence.
At the present time researchers are trying to determine the precise genetic changes that occurred to the soapberry bug as it re-adapted to the golden rain tree. If there were subtle changes in some of the bug's genes, that is not the cause, but a fairly minor result of this metamorphoses. If there were subtle changes in genes, there were much less subtle changes in gene firings. It is the changes in the firing and the rhythm of the firing and the quantity of the firing of those genes through the embryonic development of the bug and the changes of the shape templates that the structural proteins fill out that make the real change. Isn't it obvious that this "evolution" of the soapberry bug had to proceed by ideas, ideas of how to change the timing of gene firing, the shape that the structural proteins will take and, possibly, but not necessarily, some change in the amino acid make up of some proteins if different qualities of some of the protein materials involved are needed? To attribute all this dramatic change to a few minor one or two amino acid mutations misses the point entirely.
These researchers, who have obviously drunk deeply of the Darwinian Kool-Aid, are in the process of preparing a 'scientific' paper where they will attribute one or two or a few minor amino acid genetic changes, which they will call random mutations (and not intentional changes as the new ideas for adapting to the golden rain tree were undertaken) as the cause of the entire transformation. And they will dutifully ignore the changes in genetic firing patterns and the introduction of new shapes simultaneous with these few genetic changes, that prove that all three aspects: shape changes, firing sequence changes and protein modifications, were all part of the same idea which led to a straight line, purposeful and rapid transformation of the soapberry bug. They will wind up writing a paper that 'proves' that the entire transformation was caused by a few 'mutations' which, by themselves, have nothing to do with shape changes in an organism; and the whole thing will be considered further evidence of Darwinian evolution. At this point, traditional biologists are so inculcated in Darwinian thinking that they are twisting all new data into a Darwinian box and interpreting it as proof of Darwinian style evolution, when in fact, it is proving just the opposite.
Your comments are always most welcome.
*Writing in Science Magazine, Portugese biologists Lidia Perfeito and Isabel Gordo report that beneficial mutation rates in Escherichia coli bacteria, not when they are measured in a stable environment as they usually are, but when they are measured adapting to a new environment, are A THOUSAND times higher than one would have predicted by random replication accidents. And these are beneficial mutations. Of all the possible accidents that could happen in gene replication, how many of those possibilities would be beneficial, if these accidents were truly random. Here we have a thousand times the rate of any mutations, and the mutations are beneficial. Whole colonies of bacteria are undergoing the same mutations that are moving them to an adaptive balance with their new surroundings. (EVOLUTION).
*In June 2008 the popular science magazine New Scientist printed a story about Professor Richard Lenski's twenty-year project examining the evolution of E. coli. They reported that, as a result of several beneficial mutations, his organisms had acquired the ability to metabolize citrate - or more correctly an ability to transport it through the cell wall prior to metabolizing it. This was an entirely new ability for this species - an increase in complexity provided by a beneficial mutation.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Thursday, March 6, 2014
THE NO GOD DELUSION AND THE MYTH OF THE REPLICATORS
Richard Dawkins wrote a book called 'The God Delusion.' I believe that it is he who is suffering under a 'No God Delusion'; that is the only explanation I have of why a man, as intellectually intelligent as he, could come up with his idiotic and absolutely nonsensical ideas of how life was created and developed. Anyone who knows anything about the human body and especially someone who knows as much about the human body as Dawkins, who knows that the functioning of this body depends on the interconnectedness and synchronicity of one hundred trillion cells, cells that this body manufactured itself, in exactly the right quantity, at exactly the right moment and in exactly the right location, every one hundred trillion of them; and that these cells contain, each, three billion pairs of nucleic acid molecules, many, many thousands of which, are 'coded' to send information, in the form of amino acid recipes for proteins, at exactly the right time, to exactly the right place, millions upon millions upon millions of times every day, to enable this body to grow and grow precisely proportionately so that all the blood vessels and muscles and bones and nerves grow proportionally together, which means that each of these millions upon millions upon millions of manufactured protein molecules are sent to precisely the right place in precisely the right amount; which folds the three billion nucleotide pairs in each of the one hundred trillion cells (enough nucleotides to, if the nucleotides of just one human body were arranged in a straight line, reach to the sun and back three times), as I say, which folds all of these nucleotides in two thousand precisely different ways so that the gene sequences that are used by any particular cell to send the amino acid recipes for each and every protein, and the nucleotides that must be fired to begin the separation of that sequence from it's coiled partner, and the nucleotides that are needed to aid in the transcription of the nucleotide sequence onto an mRNA molecule, and the nucleotide sequences that are part of the directional system that determines precisely where this message is sent, all wind up adjacent to each other on the outside of this coiled mass, so that the protein molecules and the nucleic acid molecules can locate and bond with these precise nucleotides to get the transcription process started; a body that responds at every moment to our every intention, even before we have a conscious thought of what we want to do, by firing thousands upon thousands, if not millions upon millions, of the precise one hundred billion neurons of the brain, which will initiate a process of successive neural firings, increased blood circulation, muscular contractions and releases, that allow us, at every moment, mind you, to do exactly what it is that we want to do (all of those processes, from the firing of the brain neurons to the muscular contractions are amazingly and wonderfully complex, but the translation of non-physical, unobservable and unmeasurable intentions to the firing of the precise pattern of millions of neurons, that is a process that is not just unobservable, not just unfathomable complex; it is miraculous. Also miraculous is the way that we, at every waking moment, remember something, or think about something, or look at something, instantly the precise neurons of the one hundred billion neurons in our brains are located and the patterns of the shapes of those neurons, or the pattern of electricity flowing through those neurons, or the elctro-magnetic waves formed by those firing neurons, or the chemical deposits left by those firing neurons, are translated, into the memories and thoughts and the information we need to define exactly what it is that we are listening to or looking at or tasting or touching at every moment. This process of locating the precise neurons and translating them into the very stuff of our consciousness is also, beyond complex. It is also miraculous.
Anyone, as I say, with a glimmer of intelligence and a glimmer of objectivity, should be able to look at such a creation and say without any doubt that this transcendent and coordinated complexity was created through a series of ideas that are so complex and intelligent, so brilliant and subtle, that it had to be created by an intelligence that is not just great, but transcendent and unfathomable. And yet Dawkins and his materialist ilk, walk through the world of humans and redwood trees and caterpillars and porpoises, of elephants and panthers and centipedes, and see no evidence of any intelligence at all! As I say, these people are suffering under the sway of a 'no god delusion.' And mind you, if any of these people were on what they thought was an uninhabited island, somewhere, say, in an isolated part of the oceans, and suddenly discovered on the beach a stone axe, they would then be convinced, that would give them proof beyond any reasonable doubt, that an intelligent being was there or had been there. Think about it. A stone axe, consisting of a piece of rock, a stick and some primitive attachment, three immobile parts, is proof positive of intelligence and a human body with it's quadrillions of simultaneous and synchronized processes provides for these people absolutely no proof of intelligence.
How then did this miraculously complex life come about according to Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists? In his book, 'The Selfish Gene,' Dawkins writes that 'in the beginning there was simplicity.' One wonders to what degree of intellectual isolation these people live in? Is Dawkins acquainted, for instance, with a physicist? You would think he would know at least one and that he might have had, on occasion a chance to talk to this person or read what one of these people have ever written. If he had done either of these things he would realize that prior to there being any matter in this universe what so ever, there were, in place, a whole series of utterly precise and complex and perfectly synchronized laws which include all the laws that Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg and many other of the most intelligent human beings that have ever walked this planet spent their entire lives trying to unravel, and are still trying to unravel; a simple beginning? Regarding life forms, the first known forms of life appeared on this planet at the very time, according to the best meteorological and geological and astronomical research, that the temperature and atmospheric conditions on Earth made possible the survival of any life forms at all. What were these life forms? Single celled microbes. Admittedly, much simpler than some of today's more recent organisms (microbes, in the same form that they were four billion years ago are still the dominant species on this planet as they always have been, outnumbering much larger multi-celled organisms by billions or trillions to one, which fact does what to the theory that evolution is spurred by the accidental formation of more efficient survival mechanisms, when it began with the microbe which was and still is the most efficient survival mechanism of them all?) These 'simple' microbes, all, have a system of metabolism, digestion, excretion, circulation, a way of sensing their environment, DNA, with the same system of transcribing and translating nucleic acid messages into amino acid chains and the same way of connecting and folding those chains to form proteins that we do, and they also had and have a method of gene swapping, so that any member of a community of microbes that is in possession of genetic material that would help to ward off a new threat to the community, or help digest a new food source, can share that material by manufacturing an excess of it and then growing ducts or pilli to another microbe connecting to the exact spot where this precise genetic material will travel and give this donee microbe the same genetic advantage as the original donor microbe. This process, so far beyond in its precision and specificity what our best contemporary surgeons can accomplish today, is also part of the 'simplicity' at the beginning of life to which Dawkins refers at the very opening of his book.
Continuing from this premise that all things begin in simplicity and evolve into complexity, he proposes the theory of 'The Replicators,' precursors of what he calls the modern replicator, DNA; and it was from this relatively simple competition for survival among replicating molecules that these molecules, by accident, as the result purely from random copying errors, developed bodies and brains and vision and hearing and locomotion and digestive systems and metabolic and nervous systems, all in the service of improving the chances of survival of the replicating molecules. Yet the truth is that the microbe is the most efficient existing organism for replicating DNA and any venture, accidental or otherwise, into more complex life forms, especially as it is imagined by neo-Darwinist evolutionists, would result in a severe reduction in survivability during the imagined 'many millions' of years that it would take for all these successive 'copying errors' to accumulate in the same hereditary line of an organism until it finally accumulated into something that the organism could actually use and not spend a good part of its metabolic energy lugging around an incomplete growth of a yet to be completed and yet to be useful new organ or new feature.
The entire discussion of so-called pre-biotic evolution which follows, describing many millions of years during which organic material gradually accumulated 'unmolested' in warm tide pools is no longer even worthy of discussion because the most recent meteorological, geological and astronomical evidence proves that there was such heat, such bombardment of meteors, such frequent volcanoes on this planet that there was never a time, prior to the arrival of microbial life, that organic material could lie unmolested anywhere on the Earth nor that there were any warm tide pools where organic material could accumulate over millions of years, nor where organic material, if there were any organic material, could survive for more than a few seconds, roughly the time it would take to boil an egg. And speaking of boiling eggs, the very oldest microbial life is now considered to be hyperthermophilic bacteria, that were living near thermal vents below the surface of the waters in temperatures at or quite a bit above the boiling point of water. They thrived in this environment because their proteins had many more and stronger bonds than normal proteins. If the theory of pre-biotic evolution depends on the gradual accumulation of organic matter, how could this take place in an environment (boiling water) where any unprotected organic matter would last no longer than the time, in fact, precisely as long as the time, it takes to boil an egg?
Life could not possibly have resulted from the accumulation of organic materials on this planet. Organic matter, at least the organic matter that we actually know of, is manufactured within the bodies of living organisms, and is protected by walls of the nucleus of the cells, cell walls, the walls of the digestive and circulation system, and by the outer wall, the skin or hide or bark, of the organism itself. Within the organism are metabolic systems that maintain the proper charges for this organic material to do its work and systems which maintain the proper temperature within the body, and a constant supply of nutrients and an immune and elimination system to protect organic material from harmful chemicals and antigens. Plus there are the so-called 'survival instincts' of the organism itself, which seeks warmth when it experiences excessive cold, seeks coolness when it experiences excessive heat, seeks water when it is thirsty, nutrients when it is hungry and reparative rest when it is tired. Organic matter outside a living body (think egg whites) is extremely delicate. Despite the fact that there were no bacterial threats to organic matter prior to the beginning of life, there were still many, many threats, not of being eaten, but of simply being broken down. These threats include oxidation (scientists now think that the evidence is overwhelming that there had to be oxygen present in the early atmosphere), excessive heat or cold (all evidence now points to an early earth that was extremely hot) sudden violent movements (the evidence is abundant that the earth was frequently bombarded by large meteors, meteorites and asteroids, and was subject to frequent and massive volcanic eruptions), plus, interestingly, many organic chemicals are three dimensional, so there are both left-handed and right handed molecules. The reason this is important is that there are only left-handed molecules found in amino acids within the body, but equal amounts of both right and left handed organic molecules found in traces in the lab work that Dawkins refers to in 'The Selfish Gene.' "Chemists have tried to imitate the chemical conditions of the young earth," says Dawkins. What they actually did was to come up with a concoction of gases that might possibly support organic material without any real investigation into what the atmosphere of the early earth might be like. This mixture of gases is now considered to be not even similar to the early earth atmosphere. "They have put these simple substances in a flask and supplied a source of energy such as ultraviolet light or electric sparks-artificial simulation of primordial lightning." (Actually a non-stop current of electricity for three weeks, not like any lightning strike that I have ever heard of.) "After a few weeks of this, something interesting is usually found inside the flask…….amino acids have been found--the building blocks of proteins, one of the two great classes of biological molecules." (Actually the amino acids had to be captured immediately from the atmosphere that formed them or they would have broken down, and they shortly thereafter broke down anyway from the reducing sugars in the rescued mixture, becoming mellanoid compounds, no longer amino acids.) Anyway, these momentary traces of amino acids contained both left and right handed molecules in equal amounts. Right handed molecules will break down proteins and are fatal when they appear in a living organism, and there is no known way to separate them. The fact that they are separated and only left handed molecules appear in the amino acids of living bodies is yet another mystery of the endlessly mysterious process of creation.
As I said earlier, Dawkins contends that the evolution of life begins with the replication of a molecule which may or may not have been DNA but is the precursor of DNA, which is our modern replicator molecule. Yet, is DNA really a replicator? Does it really replicate by itself? DNA is really a storage unit for pairs of nucleotides, thousands and hundreds of thousands in micro-organisms and many millions and even several billions in larger organism. DNA as well as proteins are referred to as molecules, which they are, but the word 'molecule' covers a very broad category of particles. Any collection of atoms which are bonded together can be referred to as a molecule, but proteins and DNA are very different than other molecules. First of all, proteins are not formed simply by the collision of atoms that happen to electro-magnetically attract each other. All known proteins are manufactured within living bodies by an amazingly complex and precise process of transcription and translation of the coded messages in the nucleotide chains of the DNA which transforms them into chains of amino acids. These amino acids are bonded together by polypeptide bonds which must happen in the absence of water molecules (so much for the theory of organic molecules accumulating and forming proteins in pre-biotic ponds or 'organic soups.') Then these chains are further folded into a precise shape with the addition, perhaps, of other molecules, like sugars or lipids or phosphates. Each protein, then, is a three dimensional structure, specifically designed to perform a specific function in the body and is delivered to the specific area at the specific time that that function needs to be performed. Some protein molecules act as pumps, some are motor cars that move material around, some are sensors, some are guards preventing certain molecules to enter a cell or enter a nucleus and allowing in others, some re-enter the nucleus of the cell and aid in the process of transcription of genes or in DNA replication. Protein molecules are the work horses of living bodies. As such, they are often referred to, among biologists, as protein machines or micro-machines. I would suggest that a better word would be 'components.' Components conveys the idea that protein machines are electrically charged and that their work is accomplished, at least in part, due to the functioning and interactions of these electrical charges, both of which are true. Components also convey the idea that proteins are part of a much larger machine, the living organism, and that it makes no sense to think of them as machines independent of the entire organism. Each protein molecule is manufactured and designed at a specific time for a specific purpose in a living body and each has a very sophisticated, precise and unwavering three dimensional shape with a very sophisticated, precise and unwavering pattern of electrical charges, and a very sophisticated, precise and unwavering arrangement of many different acid molecules and other molecules, each of which has a particular quality, like being rigid or supple, being water resistant or water soluble, being fat or thin, all of which allows the protein component to do its work at a specific place in the living body where this specific work needs to be done.
The manufacture of protein components is done through a vast mechanism of signaling, so that protein manufacture is synchronized with the biological needs of the entire body, and with the desires of the being who dwells within the body (you). Neo-Darwinist biologists who are suffering under the No God Delusion, think of the body as purely a survival machine, with no other purpose but to continue to survive, which is tantamount to having no purpose at all. But the body also has another purpose, which is the reason that all these processes are in place to allow it to survive for as long as possible. That second purpoose is to allow the conscious being that dwells in the body (you) to do what ever you are able to do at the moment that you desire to and commit to doing it. Your desire, your non-physical, non-measurable intention to do something instantly results in the firing of the million or two million or ten million specific neurons that initiate a cascade of extra blood flow, enzyme manufacture, muscular contractions and expansions, that allow you to do that which you desire to do. So protein molecules are really components of an endlessly complex and synchronized biological machine that not only does the work to keep the machine surviving, but also does the work that allows you, the being that dwells within the machine, to do whatever you want to do, at the moment that you desire to and commit to doing it.
Now it is true that in a metabolized (charged) solution in a laboratory outside the living body (in vitro) protein components, if these are components that move in a particular way, for instance pump proteins, will continue to do that movement. You cannot really call it pumping, because there is nothing to pump. A pump protein component in the body is delivered to a specific spot where it fits perfectly both because of its shape and its charges, into a membrane that separates one enclosed area of a solution from another enclosed area of solution, so that this protein component does what it was designed to do; move molecules in a solution where there are an excess of them into a solution where they are needed. The pump protein only really makes sense in the entire context in which it is needed. Take haemoglobin molecules, manufactured in the body at the rate of six trillion per second. Their purpose is to circulate through the blood stream and move oxygen molecules from the oxygen heavy blood near the lungs to the arms and legs and areas far from the lungs where oxygen is depleted. Although you may be able to keep a haemoglobin molecule in tact in a metabolized solution, it cannot do what it was designed to do unless it is operating in a blood circulation system which depends on the distribution of oxygen.
Evolutionists do not like the word component because they are still clinging to the theory that proteins originally formed by accumulation and that life came about when protein molecules in pre-biotic ponds (where amino acids could not possibly bind with each other, during a time in the history of the earth when it was way too hot and too violent for any organic material to remain in tact), as I say, when protein molecules, which are actually components and have no function outside of a completed living body, accidentally came in contact with a replicator molecule, whose only purpose is to provide recipes for the manufacture of proteins!!!??? Pretty crazy, huh? Well, delusional people have crazy thoughts; I guess that is what is meant by being delusional.
The genetic code was discovered in 1961. It was and is referred to as the code of life. Actually there are probably several other codes of life, of equal importance as the genetic code, which more aptly should be referred to as a code of life. Other codes, which may or may not be discoverable, because they may or may not exist on a physical plane, are the codes which govern the timing system and direction of the firing of the genes (I know that in a mature physical body, you can trace the source of enzyme manufacture to various relatively simple causes: a change in temperature, a change in activity level, ingestion of food, etc., but in the development of the body itself, from conception to birth, the timing of gene firings and the directional system of moving completed structural proteins and enzymes to the developing body is so overwhelmingly complex (to the human mind) and so staggeringly prolific and precise, that scientists don't even dare tackle it; also the code or whatever the mechanism is that shapes the manufactured and delivered proteins into the shapes and shapes within shapes and shapes within shapes within shapes that make up a human body or any advanced, multi-cellular organism; the code, if there is one, that translates the electrical pathways in the brain into the thoughts and memories and visions and tunes, into the stuff of our actual experience, and the code by which initiator protein molecules are arranged within the cytoplasm of a fertilized egg, so that as the egg mitotically divides and the growing cell mass twists and turns, collapses into itself and goes through a whole series of contortions, each specific to its own species (where is the code for that?), these protein molecules are dispersed into exactly the right cells in exactly the right proportions so that they will enter the nucleus of that cell and ignite a whole cascade of gene firings so that two thousand different cells, all in the right place and all in the right amount, will emerge from that one fertilized ovum. Anyway, this one code, the genetic code, which is made up of nucleotide molecules and is coded for the manufacture of amino acid molecules (the building blocks of proteins), was discovered, as I said, in 1961, and was hailed as a replacement for God. God was DNA and DNA was a complicated and lengthy series of coded nucleotides.
What is a code? A sane, non-delusional person, thinks of a code as a means of sending information from one intelligent being to either another intelligent being or to some kind of machinery built by an intelligent being which can read that code and put that information to use. Letters are a code. Numbers are a code. The high and low frequencies of electricity are used as a code in computers and electronics. Yet sane people do not think of letters, numbers or high and low frequencies as forming themselves into novels, equations and software, do they? You don't finish a novel and think, "That was great. I especially loved the 't's, and the 'a's were not too shabby, either." No! You immediately think that an author, an intelligent human being, not a group of 26 letters, wrote a great book. When you look at the equation E=MC2, you don't think how brilliant the letters and the number 2 are, do you? No! You may think of Einstein's brilliance, but not the brilliance of the code of letters and numbers with which he communicated this idea. And certainly, computer code does not create by itself, with no intelligent help, Apple Computers and Apple Software. Of course you don't think that, but you are not deluded, are you? ………………are you?
Biological machines never correlate exactly with human machines. They are always much more complex and, in addition to doing a myriad of functions, they also grow and replicate themselves. The closest correlary I can come to a DNA component among human fabrications, would be a computerized filing system for culinary recipes. You enter the key words for what you want to eat and the computer will bring up and reveal the recipe for the food. Then you can copy down the recipe, take it back to your kitchen and prepare it. In a world where there was no life, nothing else that was mechanized at all, a DNA molecule (component) replicating by itself would be like a computerized recipe file continuing to make copies of itself when there was no one or no way to enter the code or the words that would bring up the recipe, no one or no way to read the recipes if somehow they were brought up, no supply of groceries or other ingredients to translate the recipe into the actual ingredients that you would need to start cooking; and no equipment, no stoves, no utensils, no pots, no pans, or any device to actually cook the recipe once the ingredients were gathered; and of course no living organism with a body that could benefit from having this recipe prepared (a functional protein). Yet in this nutty, imaginary, neo-Darwinian pre-biotic world of replicating molecules, the DNA molecule component, whose only function within a body is to provide the correct recipes for proteins if and when those recipes are signalled for, keeps replicating itself in a world where there is no one or no thing that can signal for the new protein recipe, no one or no thing to transcribe the recipe if it did come up, no one or no thing to carry that transcribed recipe anywhere, no equipment to translate the transcribed recipe into the actual ingredients that the recipe calls for, and no means of manufacturing the transcribed recipe into a protein component, and no body where the finished recipe, a functional protein component, would be of any use whatsoever. Does this make any sense? Or perhaps there were no nucleotides on this molecule. Perhaps there were no nucleotides with coded recipes for proteins; recipes that could not be read, transported, manufactured or used. Perhaps DNA was just a scaffolding of sugar and phosphate, a series of shelves with no books, that just kept replicating, but a scaffolding to carry what, to fold into what, to fit into what? Does any of this make any sense at all? Not to me.
Another thing that makes no sense is Dawkins' long discussion of the competition for survival among molecules. What are they competing for? Space? There are now quintillions of microbes on this planet each containing thousands if not millions of molecules. At that time there were none, so I can't really imagine a competition for space. Were they competing for food? Why? What food does a molecule need? It just needs to stay in tact, and it certainly doesn't have any means of ingesting this food if it came upon it, or moving toward this food if it located it, or locating this food if it was in the vicinity of it. I don't believe living beings usually compete for survival. Humans know nothing about their survival and, I think, it is a safe assumption that molecules no even less. We compete for food because we experience hunger and food will satisfy that hunger. We compete for water because we experience thirst and water will satisfy that thirst. We compete for sexual partners because we experience horniness and sex with a partner of the same species will satisfy that horniness. It seems to me that there can only be a competition among sentient beings. We compete to have an experience: the pleasure of relieving our hunger, quenching our thirst, satisfying our sexual desires, with little or no thought about our survival. Non-sentient objects cannot really compete. What would they be competing for? And the act of competition requires the expenditure of energy, to overcome the natural forces that would just do with you what they will and not allow you to do anything you want. Inorganic molecules and atoms are passive, they simply and passively react to what the forces of nature compel them to do. Organic molecules are as passive as inorganic molecules except when they are in the metabolized confines of a living body. Then they are still passive, but receiving signals from that body that compel them to act in a certain way (as pumps, material movers, chaperones to protect water soluble molecules from liquid cytoplasm in the protein folding process, sensors to prevent certain molecule and allow certain molecules to enter a cell or the nucleus of a cell, to start the process of DNA transcription, to start the process of DNA replication by breaking the bonds that hold the two strands together, and on and on.) They are not doing these things because they want to. They are doing these things because they are unconsciously compelled to. Competitors, on the other hand, compete because they experience desires, desires for certain experiences (drinking water, having sex, eating food) and the experience of relief and pleasure that those experiences will bring. A competition has to be between sentient creatures who have experiences competing for the opportunity to have desired experiences. A competition between molecules would be for what, for why? Do you really think a molecule that experiences nothing could have any motivation to compete for some end result that has no experience to offer him (it). It really makes absolutely no sense. If we didn't have experiences we wouldn't have desires, and what we desire is a certain kind of experience, either for ourselves or for others. A competition among non-sentient objects makes, to me, absolutely no sense.
It is also true that DNA molecules (components) do not replicate by themselves. This computerized filing system of recipes that I referred to above, has a whole series of switches, thousands, millions of them. All the functions of DNA are started and stopped by turning on and off a whole series of switches, and the keys that locate and then fit into these switches are protein molecules. So proteins are necessary to start and assist with and end the functions of DNA, the main function of which is to provide the recipes for the manufacture of proteins. DNA replication does not begin with the DNA molecule itself either. It begins with a whole complex of protein molecules turning the switches to ignite the replication process, which takes place with the assistance of a variety of protein enzymes. In their desperation to find a simple line of cause and effect to explain the creation of life, Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists have side-stepped the problem that you cannot separate nucleic acids (DNA) from amino acids (proteins). Life, as we know it on this planet, is based on the interrelationship of both. This is the same kind of chicken and egg dilemma that one gets into when pondering the origin of anything outside of a spiritual context. Life, in fact all things, do not begin with a chemical, or an ingredient. All things, including life, begin with an idea. This is obvious with man made things. What came first: the screw or the screwdriver? Obviously, it began with an idea of some kind of primitive screw along with a primitive tool for turning that screw. What came first: the frankfurter or the roll; the hamburger or the bun; paper or ink? The idea for frankfurters, hamburgers and books, involved the combining of existing ingredients to form something new. Life began with the idea of a relationship between nucleic acids and amino acids. The two are so interwoven that any attempt to separate them, to say that life began with a nucleic acid molecule which then attracted amino acid molecules, or even to say that information goes exclusively out from nucleic acid molecules to protein molecules, when the operations of the nucleic acid molecules and the selection and timing of all their firing are done by protein molecules, will hopelessly fail.
Earlier I said that . "A sane, non-delusional person, thinks of a code as a means of sending information from one intelligent being to either another intelligent being or to some kind of machinery built by an intelligent being which can read that code and put that information to use." I would like to show you a video of the kind of machinery that we all have, all meaning all of life, from microbes to humans, which we use countless billions of times a day, and even more intensely during embryonic development to transcribe and translate that code into, not a protein, but a string of amino acids, which will later be engineered by folding and adding other molecules, (by other equally daunting and precise processes) into a fully formed, functional, protein component. The film has two other segments that I would like you to watch, the first one about how DNA is folded and folded and folded again so that all six feet of it fits into the nucleus of every cell in your body, and the other about the actual process of DNA replication. Here it is:
The first segment has to do with the folding of the nucleotides of the DNA molecule into a spiral and spiral within a spiral, and spiral within another spiral, that allow this six foot long molecule to fit within the nucleus of a cell, but no only fit, but to allow all the activity of the nucleus to take place on and around the border of these folded nucleotides and the surrounding nuclear liquid. Notice from the way it is folded, the great majority of nucleotides are deep within the folds of the coils and inaccessible. Only the nucleotides on the surface can be accessed for transcription and protein manufacture. That means that all the gene sequences that are used by that particular cell must appear at the outer edge of the chromosome at the shore of the nuclear liquid. And many, many other nucleotides, that assist in the transcription of these genes, nucleotides that start the gene process, and that bind with protein molecules which aid in every facet of the transcription, have to be located adjacent to or abutting this particular genetic strand of nucleotides. Even though these helper nucleotides may, and often are, on strands that are separated from the genes sequences that they work with by many thousands or even several millions of nucleotides, after the folding process, they must wind up right along side the sequence, or the sequence cannot be transcribed. That means for the two thousand different types of cells in the body, there is a unique, and equally precise way of folding 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs so that all the needed sequences and their helper nucleotides all appear adjacent to each other on the surface of the DNA coil. Think of the enormity and precision of just that folding process. How is it done? By the genetic code? How could a code for amino acids control the absolutely precise folding of enough nucleotides in each cell to stretch to the sun and back three times?
The second sequence is an animation in real time of DNA replication. This is the exact same process which takes place in all living things from microbes to man. Is this part of the 'simplicity' that Dawkins' referred to at the beginning of life? Is this a process that would seem to accumulate through copying errors? But wait, there can be no copying errors because there can be no copying without this process!
This third sequence, again an animation in real time, is of transcription, how the gene sequence is read and copied onto an RNA molecule, and the fourth sequence is of the RNA molecule being translated into an amino acid chain. As amazing and complex and precise as these processes are, they are not the end. The amino acid chain must still be folded with sugar or lipid or phosphate or other molecules added before the protein component is complete, and then it must be directed to the exact location where it is needed.
Except for the first part of folding DNA so that it fits in the confines of a cell nucleus, which is the exact process in all eukaryotic cells, but not prokaryotic cells (all living organisms excluding archaea and bacteria), the processes of DNA replication, transcription of gene sequences and translation of gene sequences are identical in all living forms.
You do understand, I hope, that all of this amazing activity that you have just seen in this film and that has taken place in every one of the hundred trillion cells of your body, and, at least in the case of transcription and translation, continues to take place many, many millions of million of times every day in each and every one of your bodies; I hope you understand that all of this activity is taking place in a highly controlled and metabolized environment, and that the timing of these activities is connected to the timing of countless other activities at other locations in your body. I hope this tape gives you a better understanding of why I refer to all these protein and DNA molecules as components and not just collections of atoms, and a better understanding of why I consider the idea of life beginning with 'simplicity' as either intentional propaganda or self-delusion by the neo-Darwinists; and a better understanding of the absurdity of considering such awesomely complex and precise mechanisms as these, to have possibly been the result of a series of random, purposeless, accidental copying mistakes.
The final delusion I would like to deal with before I wrap up this long-winded essay, is the delusion of thinking that God, whether or not you believe God exists, as a living being with a body, probably a human type body, and a brain, probably a human type brain, only larger. If that is so, than an explanation of the beginning of life as being formed by cosmic or Divine ideas, is just a way of passing off the riddle of creation to another being, while the creation of that physical being, that deity, is overlooked. But God is not a thing. God is no thing. God is what is left when you remove all the thingness and all the separation. God does not have a brain. A brain is a way of organizing and recording and categorizing experience in a certain way so that a human with a human brain has a human experience of life, and a giraffe with a giraffe brain has a giraffe experience of life, and a caterpillar with a caterpillar brain has a caterpillar experience of life. While the brain categorizes and records and helps you define your experience so that you have a consistent, familiar, sense of reality that you can operate comfortably within, the brain does not experience your experience. You do that. You, with Divine help, translate all those complicated patterns of neuron firings and electrical paths, into the sounds and sights and colors and tastes and smells and seemingly solid, reliable comfortable objects that allow you to have a life of joy, of curiosity, and fulfillment.
When you get an idea, an axon, which is a growth extending from a neuron, grows and connects one neuron to another, or perhaps to several others, creating a new pathway for electricity to flow. The question is, did you get that idea, or did the neuron or the axon get that idea? Is the neuron growing the axon creating the idea that it just had, or is it recording the idea that you just had? Where in the brain, what physical part of the brain, made of nerve cells, whose main observable job is to conduct a curent of electricity to another nerve cell and to form new electrical pathways by growing axons, where would desire, or intelligence, or perception or consciousness be among these materials? Why would anyone think that the electrons in their brain are any smarter than the electrons in their toaster? They are not. Intelligence is not a characteristic of matter. It is a characteristic of how beings, non-physical beings, manipulate matter, manipulate the physical world, to be able to satisfy their desires.
God, the Cosmic Consciousness, the Atman, Infinity, however various cultures refer to it, is unattached consciousness, consciousness not attached to one brain, one genome, one organism. And from unattached consciousness comes all ideas (which you receive when you are ready to receive them), and all love (which you experience when you have a sense that you and the person or the animal that you are with or the activity that you are engaged in, are not separate, but are one. In God you realize that the entire universe is one). Consciousness is a non-local phenomena. It is, at once, everywhere, since it has no boundaries, and no where, since it takes up no time or space. Life, the whole system of separate living beings, is a way of giving consciousness, which is not really separable, the illusion and the experience of a separate, dramatic, and exciting existence. One of the many ways that God achieved that was by exploiting the interplay of amino acids and nucleic acids.
There has been a long evolution on this planet, but that is not because it took a long time for genes, or organisms to 'learn' how to be more efficient, or grow bodies, or grow brains. How could genes, or any body part or any animal, primitive or advanced, possibly learn such a thing? Evolution took time because the physical conditions on this planet, the temperature, the atmosphere, the available elements in the waters of the oceans, the amount of ultra-violet light, the amount of oxygen, the stabilization of the magnetic poles, and probably many, many other factors that we are not currently aware of, had to be right for more advanced life to appear. But the moment those conditions were right, then more advanced creatures suddenly, saltationally, not gradually, appeared. Thus, the sudden appearance of microbes the moment the surface of the earth cooled below the boiling point of water; the sudden appearance of oxygen metabolizing organisms the moment there was sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere, the sudden appearance of skeletal creatures when the element phosphorous, necessary for the construction of bones, appeared on the surface of the planet; and the sudden appearance of all the modern body types during a very short period called the Cambrian explosion. The ideas were there, they were just waiting for the right environmental conditions so that they could be implemented. In exactly the same way, the ideas that occur to humans are already there waiting for the moment when someone is in the position to receive them. The idea of relativity, appeared to Einstein at the moment he was ready to receive it. Relativity was the answer to the problems with Newtonian physics that Einstein was grappling with. He had filled his brain with all the necessary information, and was desirous of this specific solution. Ideas are 'received' are 'gotten', you are suddenly 'hit' by them, but they only occur to you when you are ready, when you have the desire and the information to be able to understand them. In the exact same way, when the earth was prepared and habitable for the next more advanced stage of life, that more advanced being arrived. It did not arrive from nothing but through the funnel of an existing species, whose genetic make-up was changed, not by accidental mutations, but by intentional re-arrangements, not just of genetic sequences, but re-arrangements of elaborate timing systems, signalling systems, re-arrangements of musculature and blood and nervous systems, and the introduction of new shapes and shapes within shapes to form these new proteins made from these new genetic materials into new organs, new methods of metabolism, a new sense of equilibrium, and a new apportionment of the real estate of the brain so that new organs or new improvements or features could be controlled by this new species. All these changes did not happen at once, but somewhat gradually (not nearly as slowly as Darwinian evolution would predict), but slow enough so that the new creation still had an understandable relationship with his or her parents, and enough time for the new organism to adjust to the changes from the previous generation and not be overwhelmed by them. The evolution of life, just like the evolution of technology, is the result of a purposeful accumulation of ideas, not a random accumulation of materials.
God is nothing to believe in. God is not a thing. And we, in our essence, are made of the same thing as God, consciousness. That is the divine spark. We will never know God, or encounter God, as one being encountering, or coming face to face with another being. You know God by going inward, by encountering your essence, by clearing your consciousness of all it's contents, all it's fleeing thoughts and ceaseless desires, and experiencing pure consciousness. When you do that, then your boundaries melt, your identities melt, and you experience a taste of the expansion, the limitlessness, the universal connection and love, that is part of the Infinite, the Atman. And interestingly, God is the only thing you can really know! Scientists think they can know a thing by measuring and observing it. Yet those are attributes of a thing, and not the thing itself, When you love someone you know them for that moment but then they and you return to your normal consciousness, your normal interests and desires which are somewhat different from each other, which is good. We don't want to know each other so well that we can never surprise each other. Members of the same species are similar enough so that we can understand each other well enought to communicate, but we are all somewhat different so that we are always capable of surprising one another. This amazing system allows us to not die of loneliness, since we can communicate with our fellow species members, and not die of boredom, since our fellows are never completely predictable to us and are always capable of surprise.
Taken in sum, we have a wonderful, interesting and unpredictable life, with a capacity to learn, to love, to enjoy and to expand. For this I thank, not Darwin, not Dawkins, not replicating molecules, not pre-biotic evolution; I thank God.
Your comments are always welcome.
Anyone, as I say, with a glimmer of intelligence and a glimmer of objectivity, should be able to look at such a creation and say without any doubt that this transcendent and coordinated complexity was created through a series of ideas that are so complex and intelligent, so brilliant and subtle, that it had to be created by an intelligence that is not just great, but transcendent and unfathomable. And yet Dawkins and his materialist ilk, walk through the world of humans and redwood trees and caterpillars and porpoises, of elephants and panthers and centipedes, and see no evidence of any intelligence at all! As I say, these people are suffering under the sway of a 'no god delusion.' And mind you, if any of these people were on what they thought was an uninhabited island, somewhere, say, in an isolated part of the oceans, and suddenly discovered on the beach a stone axe, they would then be convinced, that would give them proof beyond any reasonable doubt, that an intelligent being was there or had been there. Think about it. A stone axe, consisting of a piece of rock, a stick and some primitive attachment, three immobile parts, is proof positive of intelligence and a human body with it's quadrillions of simultaneous and synchronized processes provides for these people absolutely no proof of intelligence.
How then did this miraculously complex life come about according to Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists? In his book, 'The Selfish Gene,' Dawkins writes that 'in the beginning there was simplicity.' One wonders to what degree of intellectual isolation these people live in? Is Dawkins acquainted, for instance, with a physicist? You would think he would know at least one and that he might have had, on occasion a chance to talk to this person or read what one of these people have ever written. If he had done either of these things he would realize that prior to there being any matter in this universe what so ever, there were, in place, a whole series of utterly precise and complex and perfectly synchronized laws which include all the laws that Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg and many other of the most intelligent human beings that have ever walked this planet spent their entire lives trying to unravel, and are still trying to unravel; a simple beginning? Regarding life forms, the first known forms of life appeared on this planet at the very time, according to the best meteorological and geological and astronomical research, that the temperature and atmospheric conditions on Earth made possible the survival of any life forms at all. What were these life forms? Single celled microbes. Admittedly, much simpler than some of today's more recent organisms (microbes, in the same form that they were four billion years ago are still the dominant species on this planet as they always have been, outnumbering much larger multi-celled organisms by billions or trillions to one, which fact does what to the theory that evolution is spurred by the accidental formation of more efficient survival mechanisms, when it began with the microbe which was and still is the most efficient survival mechanism of them all?) These 'simple' microbes, all, have a system of metabolism, digestion, excretion, circulation, a way of sensing their environment, DNA, with the same system of transcribing and translating nucleic acid messages into amino acid chains and the same way of connecting and folding those chains to form proteins that we do, and they also had and have a method of gene swapping, so that any member of a community of microbes that is in possession of genetic material that would help to ward off a new threat to the community, or help digest a new food source, can share that material by manufacturing an excess of it and then growing ducts or pilli to another microbe connecting to the exact spot where this precise genetic material will travel and give this donee microbe the same genetic advantage as the original donor microbe. This process, so far beyond in its precision and specificity what our best contemporary surgeons can accomplish today, is also part of the 'simplicity' at the beginning of life to which Dawkins refers at the very opening of his book.
Continuing from this premise that all things begin in simplicity and evolve into complexity, he proposes the theory of 'The Replicators,' precursors of what he calls the modern replicator, DNA; and it was from this relatively simple competition for survival among replicating molecules that these molecules, by accident, as the result purely from random copying errors, developed bodies and brains and vision and hearing and locomotion and digestive systems and metabolic and nervous systems, all in the service of improving the chances of survival of the replicating molecules. Yet the truth is that the microbe is the most efficient existing organism for replicating DNA and any venture, accidental or otherwise, into more complex life forms, especially as it is imagined by neo-Darwinist evolutionists, would result in a severe reduction in survivability during the imagined 'many millions' of years that it would take for all these successive 'copying errors' to accumulate in the same hereditary line of an organism until it finally accumulated into something that the organism could actually use and not spend a good part of its metabolic energy lugging around an incomplete growth of a yet to be completed and yet to be useful new organ or new feature.
The entire discussion of so-called pre-biotic evolution which follows, describing many millions of years during which organic material gradually accumulated 'unmolested' in warm tide pools is no longer even worthy of discussion because the most recent meteorological, geological and astronomical evidence proves that there was such heat, such bombardment of meteors, such frequent volcanoes on this planet that there was never a time, prior to the arrival of microbial life, that organic material could lie unmolested anywhere on the Earth nor that there were any warm tide pools where organic material could accumulate over millions of years, nor where organic material, if there were any organic material, could survive for more than a few seconds, roughly the time it would take to boil an egg. And speaking of boiling eggs, the very oldest microbial life is now considered to be hyperthermophilic bacteria, that were living near thermal vents below the surface of the waters in temperatures at or quite a bit above the boiling point of water. They thrived in this environment because their proteins had many more and stronger bonds than normal proteins. If the theory of pre-biotic evolution depends on the gradual accumulation of organic matter, how could this take place in an environment (boiling water) where any unprotected organic matter would last no longer than the time, in fact, precisely as long as the time, it takes to boil an egg?
Life could not possibly have resulted from the accumulation of organic materials on this planet. Organic matter, at least the organic matter that we actually know of, is manufactured within the bodies of living organisms, and is protected by walls of the nucleus of the cells, cell walls, the walls of the digestive and circulation system, and by the outer wall, the skin or hide or bark, of the organism itself. Within the organism are metabolic systems that maintain the proper charges for this organic material to do its work and systems which maintain the proper temperature within the body, and a constant supply of nutrients and an immune and elimination system to protect organic material from harmful chemicals and antigens. Plus there are the so-called 'survival instincts' of the organism itself, which seeks warmth when it experiences excessive cold, seeks coolness when it experiences excessive heat, seeks water when it is thirsty, nutrients when it is hungry and reparative rest when it is tired. Organic matter outside a living body (think egg whites) is extremely delicate. Despite the fact that there were no bacterial threats to organic matter prior to the beginning of life, there were still many, many threats, not of being eaten, but of simply being broken down. These threats include oxidation (scientists now think that the evidence is overwhelming that there had to be oxygen present in the early atmosphere), excessive heat or cold (all evidence now points to an early earth that was extremely hot) sudden violent movements (the evidence is abundant that the earth was frequently bombarded by large meteors, meteorites and asteroids, and was subject to frequent and massive volcanic eruptions), plus, interestingly, many organic chemicals are three dimensional, so there are both left-handed and right handed molecules. The reason this is important is that there are only left-handed molecules found in amino acids within the body, but equal amounts of both right and left handed organic molecules found in traces in the lab work that Dawkins refers to in 'The Selfish Gene.' "Chemists have tried to imitate the chemical conditions of the young earth," says Dawkins. What they actually did was to come up with a concoction of gases that might possibly support organic material without any real investigation into what the atmosphere of the early earth might be like. This mixture of gases is now considered to be not even similar to the early earth atmosphere. "They have put these simple substances in a flask and supplied a source of energy such as ultraviolet light or electric sparks-artificial simulation of primordial lightning." (Actually a non-stop current of electricity for three weeks, not like any lightning strike that I have ever heard of.) "After a few weeks of this, something interesting is usually found inside the flask…….amino acids have been found--the building blocks of proteins, one of the two great classes of biological molecules." (Actually the amino acids had to be captured immediately from the atmosphere that formed them or they would have broken down, and they shortly thereafter broke down anyway from the reducing sugars in the rescued mixture, becoming mellanoid compounds, no longer amino acids.) Anyway, these momentary traces of amino acids contained both left and right handed molecules in equal amounts. Right handed molecules will break down proteins and are fatal when they appear in a living organism, and there is no known way to separate them. The fact that they are separated and only left handed molecules appear in the amino acids of living bodies is yet another mystery of the endlessly mysterious process of creation.
As I said earlier, Dawkins contends that the evolution of life begins with the replication of a molecule which may or may not have been DNA but is the precursor of DNA, which is our modern replicator molecule. Yet, is DNA really a replicator? Does it really replicate by itself? DNA is really a storage unit for pairs of nucleotides, thousands and hundreds of thousands in micro-organisms and many millions and even several billions in larger organism. DNA as well as proteins are referred to as molecules, which they are, but the word 'molecule' covers a very broad category of particles. Any collection of atoms which are bonded together can be referred to as a molecule, but proteins and DNA are very different than other molecules. First of all, proteins are not formed simply by the collision of atoms that happen to electro-magnetically attract each other. All known proteins are manufactured within living bodies by an amazingly complex and precise process of transcription and translation of the coded messages in the nucleotide chains of the DNA which transforms them into chains of amino acids. These amino acids are bonded together by polypeptide bonds which must happen in the absence of water molecules (so much for the theory of organic molecules accumulating and forming proteins in pre-biotic ponds or 'organic soups.') Then these chains are further folded into a precise shape with the addition, perhaps, of other molecules, like sugars or lipids or phosphates. Each protein, then, is a three dimensional structure, specifically designed to perform a specific function in the body and is delivered to the specific area at the specific time that that function needs to be performed. Some protein molecules act as pumps, some are motor cars that move material around, some are sensors, some are guards preventing certain molecules to enter a cell or enter a nucleus and allowing in others, some re-enter the nucleus of the cell and aid in the process of transcription of genes or in DNA replication. Protein molecules are the work horses of living bodies. As such, they are often referred to, among biologists, as protein machines or micro-machines. I would suggest that a better word would be 'components.' Components conveys the idea that protein machines are electrically charged and that their work is accomplished, at least in part, due to the functioning and interactions of these electrical charges, both of which are true. Components also convey the idea that proteins are part of a much larger machine, the living organism, and that it makes no sense to think of them as machines independent of the entire organism. Each protein molecule is manufactured and designed at a specific time for a specific purpose in a living body and each has a very sophisticated, precise and unwavering three dimensional shape with a very sophisticated, precise and unwavering pattern of electrical charges, and a very sophisticated, precise and unwavering arrangement of many different acid molecules and other molecules, each of which has a particular quality, like being rigid or supple, being water resistant or water soluble, being fat or thin, all of which allows the protein component to do its work at a specific place in the living body where this specific work needs to be done.
The manufacture of protein components is done through a vast mechanism of signaling, so that protein manufacture is synchronized with the biological needs of the entire body, and with the desires of the being who dwells within the body (you). Neo-Darwinist biologists who are suffering under the No God Delusion, think of the body as purely a survival machine, with no other purpose but to continue to survive, which is tantamount to having no purpose at all. But the body also has another purpose, which is the reason that all these processes are in place to allow it to survive for as long as possible. That second purpoose is to allow the conscious being that dwells in the body (you) to do what ever you are able to do at the moment that you desire to and commit to doing it. Your desire, your non-physical, non-measurable intention to do something instantly results in the firing of the million or two million or ten million specific neurons that initiate a cascade of extra blood flow, enzyme manufacture, muscular contractions and expansions, that allow you to do that which you desire to do. So protein molecules are really components of an endlessly complex and synchronized biological machine that not only does the work to keep the machine surviving, but also does the work that allows you, the being that dwells within the machine, to do whatever you want to do, at the moment that you desire to and commit to doing it.
Now it is true that in a metabolized (charged) solution in a laboratory outside the living body (in vitro) protein components, if these are components that move in a particular way, for instance pump proteins, will continue to do that movement. You cannot really call it pumping, because there is nothing to pump. A pump protein component in the body is delivered to a specific spot where it fits perfectly both because of its shape and its charges, into a membrane that separates one enclosed area of a solution from another enclosed area of solution, so that this protein component does what it was designed to do; move molecules in a solution where there are an excess of them into a solution where they are needed. The pump protein only really makes sense in the entire context in which it is needed. Take haemoglobin molecules, manufactured in the body at the rate of six trillion per second. Their purpose is to circulate through the blood stream and move oxygen molecules from the oxygen heavy blood near the lungs to the arms and legs and areas far from the lungs where oxygen is depleted. Although you may be able to keep a haemoglobin molecule in tact in a metabolized solution, it cannot do what it was designed to do unless it is operating in a blood circulation system which depends on the distribution of oxygen.
Evolutionists do not like the word component because they are still clinging to the theory that proteins originally formed by accumulation and that life came about when protein molecules in pre-biotic ponds (where amino acids could not possibly bind with each other, during a time in the history of the earth when it was way too hot and too violent for any organic material to remain in tact), as I say, when protein molecules, which are actually components and have no function outside of a completed living body, accidentally came in contact with a replicator molecule, whose only purpose is to provide recipes for the manufacture of proteins!!!??? Pretty crazy, huh? Well, delusional people have crazy thoughts; I guess that is what is meant by being delusional.
The genetic code was discovered in 1961. It was and is referred to as the code of life. Actually there are probably several other codes of life, of equal importance as the genetic code, which more aptly should be referred to as a code of life. Other codes, which may or may not be discoverable, because they may or may not exist on a physical plane, are the codes which govern the timing system and direction of the firing of the genes (I know that in a mature physical body, you can trace the source of enzyme manufacture to various relatively simple causes: a change in temperature, a change in activity level, ingestion of food, etc., but in the development of the body itself, from conception to birth, the timing of gene firings and the directional system of moving completed structural proteins and enzymes to the developing body is so overwhelmingly complex (to the human mind) and so staggeringly prolific and precise, that scientists don't even dare tackle it; also the code or whatever the mechanism is that shapes the manufactured and delivered proteins into the shapes and shapes within shapes and shapes within shapes within shapes that make up a human body or any advanced, multi-cellular organism; the code, if there is one, that translates the electrical pathways in the brain into the thoughts and memories and visions and tunes, into the stuff of our actual experience, and the code by which initiator protein molecules are arranged within the cytoplasm of a fertilized egg, so that as the egg mitotically divides and the growing cell mass twists and turns, collapses into itself and goes through a whole series of contortions, each specific to its own species (where is the code for that?), these protein molecules are dispersed into exactly the right cells in exactly the right proportions so that they will enter the nucleus of that cell and ignite a whole cascade of gene firings so that two thousand different cells, all in the right place and all in the right amount, will emerge from that one fertilized ovum. Anyway, this one code, the genetic code, which is made up of nucleotide molecules and is coded for the manufacture of amino acid molecules (the building blocks of proteins), was discovered, as I said, in 1961, and was hailed as a replacement for God. God was DNA and DNA was a complicated and lengthy series of coded nucleotides.
What is a code? A sane, non-delusional person, thinks of a code as a means of sending information from one intelligent being to either another intelligent being or to some kind of machinery built by an intelligent being which can read that code and put that information to use. Letters are a code. Numbers are a code. The high and low frequencies of electricity are used as a code in computers and electronics. Yet sane people do not think of letters, numbers or high and low frequencies as forming themselves into novels, equations and software, do they? You don't finish a novel and think, "That was great. I especially loved the 't's, and the 'a's were not too shabby, either." No! You immediately think that an author, an intelligent human being, not a group of 26 letters, wrote a great book. When you look at the equation E=MC2, you don't think how brilliant the letters and the number 2 are, do you? No! You may think of Einstein's brilliance, but not the brilliance of the code of letters and numbers with which he communicated this idea. And certainly, computer code does not create by itself, with no intelligent help, Apple Computers and Apple Software. Of course you don't think that, but you are not deluded, are you? ………………are you?
Biological machines never correlate exactly with human machines. They are always much more complex and, in addition to doing a myriad of functions, they also grow and replicate themselves. The closest correlary I can come to a DNA component among human fabrications, would be a computerized filing system for culinary recipes. You enter the key words for what you want to eat and the computer will bring up and reveal the recipe for the food. Then you can copy down the recipe, take it back to your kitchen and prepare it. In a world where there was no life, nothing else that was mechanized at all, a DNA molecule (component) replicating by itself would be like a computerized recipe file continuing to make copies of itself when there was no one or no way to enter the code or the words that would bring up the recipe, no one or no way to read the recipes if somehow they were brought up, no supply of groceries or other ingredients to translate the recipe into the actual ingredients that you would need to start cooking; and no equipment, no stoves, no utensils, no pots, no pans, or any device to actually cook the recipe once the ingredients were gathered; and of course no living organism with a body that could benefit from having this recipe prepared (a functional protein). Yet in this nutty, imaginary, neo-Darwinian pre-biotic world of replicating molecules, the DNA molecule component, whose only function within a body is to provide the correct recipes for proteins if and when those recipes are signalled for, keeps replicating itself in a world where there is no one or no thing that can signal for the new protein recipe, no one or no thing to transcribe the recipe if it did come up, no one or no thing to carry that transcribed recipe anywhere, no equipment to translate the transcribed recipe into the actual ingredients that the recipe calls for, and no means of manufacturing the transcribed recipe into a protein component, and no body where the finished recipe, a functional protein component, would be of any use whatsoever. Does this make any sense? Or perhaps there were no nucleotides on this molecule. Perhaps there were no nucleotides with coded recipes for proteins; recipes that could not be read, transported, manufactured or used. Perhaps DNA was just a scaffolding of sugar and phosphate, a series of shelves with no books, that just kept replicating, but a scaffolding to carry what, to fold into what, to fit into what? Does any of this make any sense at all? Not to me.
Another thing that makes no sense is Dawkins' long discussion of the competition for survival among molecules. What are they competing for? Space? There are now quintillions of microbes on this planet each containing thousands if not millions of molecules. At that time there were none, so I can't really imagine a competition for space. Were they competing for food? Why? What food does a molecule need? It just needs to stay in tact, and it certainly doesn't have any means of ingesting this food if it came upon it, or moving toward this food if it located it, or locating this food if it was in the vicinity of it. I don't believe living beings usually compete for survival. Humans know nothing about their survival and, I think, it is a safe assumption that molecules no even less. We compete for food because we experience hunger and food will satisfy that hunger. We compete for water because we experience thirst and water will satisfy that thirst. We compete for sexual partners because we experience horniness and sex with a partner of the same species will satisfy that horniness. It seems to me that there can only be a competition among sentient beings. We compete to have an experience: the pleasure of relieving our hunger, quenching our thirst, satisfying our sexual desires, with little or no thought about our survival. Non-sentient objects cannot really compete. What would they be competing for? And the act of competition requires the expenditure of energy, to overcome the natural forces that would just do with you what they will and not allow you to do anything you want. Inorganic molecules and atoms are passive, they simply and passively react to what the forces of nature compel them to do. Organic molecules are as passive as inorganic molecules except when they are in the metabolized confines of a living body. Then they are still passive, but receiving signals from that body that compel them to act in a certain way (as pumps, material movers, chaperones to protect water soluble molecules from liquid cytoplasm in the protein folding process, sensors to prevent certain molecule and allow certain molecules to enter a cell or the nucleus of a cell, to start the process of DNA transcription, to start the process of DNA replication by breaking the bonds that hold the two strands together, and on and on.) They are not doing these things because they want to. They are doing these things because they are unconsciously compelled to. Competitors, on the other hand, compete because they experience desires, desires for certain experiences (drinking water, having sex, eating food) and the experience of relief and pleasure that those experiences will bring. A competition has to be between sentient creatures who have experiences competing for the opportunity to have desired experiences. A competition between molecules would be for what, for why? Do you really think a molecule that experiences nothing could have any motivation to compete for some end result that has no experience to offer him (it). It really makes absolutely no sense. If we didn't have experiences we wouldn't have desires, and what we desire is a certain kind of experience, either for ourselves or for others. A competition among non-sentient objects makes, to me, absolutely no sense.
It is also true that DNA molecules (components) do not replicate by themselves. This computerized filing system of recipes that I referred to above, has a whole series of switches, thousands, millions of them. All the functions of DNA are started and stopped by turning on and off a whole series of switches, and the keys that locate and then fit into these switches are protein molecules. So proteins are necessary to start and assist with and end the functions of DNA, the main function of which is to provide the recipes for the manufacture of proteins. DNA replication does not begin with the DNA molecule itself either. It begins with a whole complex of protein molecules turning the switches to ignite the replication process, which takes place with the assistance of a variety of protein enzymes. In their desperation to find a simple line of cause and effect to explain the creation of life, Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists have side-stepped the problem that you cannot separate nucleic acids (DNA) from amino acids (proteins). Life, as we know it on this planet, is based on the interrelationship of both. This is the same kind of chicken and egg dilemma that one gets into when pondering the origin of anything outside of a spiritual context. Life, in fact all things, do not begin with a chemical, or an ingredient. All things, including life, begin with an idea. This is obvious with man made things. What came first: the screw or the screwdriver? Obviously, it began with an idea of some kind of primitive screw along with a primitive tool for turning that screw. What came first: the frankfurter or the roll; the hamburger or the bun; paper or ink? The idea for frankfurters, hamburgers and books, involved the combining of existing ingredients to form something new. Life began with the idea of a relationship between nucleic acids and amino acids. The two are so interwoven that any attempt to separate them, to say that life began with a nucleic acid molecule which then attracted amino acid molecules, or even to say that information goes exclusively out from nucleic acid molecules to protein molecules, when the operations of the nucleic acid molecules and the selection and timing of all their firing are done by protein molecules, will hopelessly fail.
Earlier I said that . "A sane, non-delusional person, thinks of a code as a means of sending information from one intelligent being to either another intelligent being or to some kind of machinery built by an intelligent being which can read that code and put that information to use." I would like to show you a video of the kind of machinery that we all have, all meaning all of life, from microbes to humans, which we use countless billions of times a day, and even more intensely during embryonic development to transcribe and translate that code into, not a protein, but a string of amino acids, which will later be engineered by folding and adding other molecules, (by other equally daunting and precise processes) into a fully formed, functional, protein component. The film has two other segments that I would like you to watch, the first one about how DNA is folded and folded and folded again so that all six feet of it fits into the nucleus of every cell in your body, and the other about the actual process of DNA replication. Here it is:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqESR7E4b...
The first segment has to do with the folding of the nucleotides of the DNA molecule into a spiral and spiral within a spiral, and spiral within another spiral, that allow this six foot long molecule to fit within the nucleus of a cell, but no only fit, but to allow all the activity of the nucleus to take place on and around the border of these folded nucleotides and the surrounding nuclear liquid. Notice from the way it is folded, the great majority of nucleotides are deep within the folds of the coils and inaccessible. Only the nucleotides on the surface can be accessed for transcription and protein manufacture. That means that all the gene sequences that are used by that particular cell must appear at the outer edge of the chromosome at the shore of the nuclear liquid. And many, many other nucleotides, that assist in the transcription of these genes, nucleotides that start the gene process, and that bind with protein molecules which aid in every facet of the transcription, have to be located adjacent to or abutting this particular genetic strand of nucleotides. Even though these helper nucleotides may, and often are, on strands that are separated from the genes sequences that they work with by many thousands or even several millions of nucleotides, after the folding process, they must wind up right along side the sequence, or the sequence cannot be transcribed. That means for the two thousand different types of cells in the body, there is a unique, and equally precise way of folding 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs so that all the needed sequences and their helper nucleotides all appear adjacent to each other on the surface of the DNA coil. Think of the enormity and precision of just that folding process. How is it done? By the genetic code? How could a code for amino acids control the absolutely precise folding of enough nucleotides in each cell to stretch to the sun and back three times?
The second sequence is an animation in real time of DNA replication. This is the exact same process which takes place in all living things from microbes to man. Is this part of the 'simplicity' that Dawkins' referred to at the beginning of life? Is this a process that would seem to accumulate through copying errors? But wait, there can be no copying errors because there can be no copying without this process!
This third sequence, again an animation in real time, is of transcription, how the gene sequence is read and copied onto an RNA molecule, and the fourth sequence is of the RNA molecule being translated into an amino acid chain. As amazing and complex and precise as these processes are, they are not the end. The amino acid chain must still be folded with sugar or lipid or phosphate or other molecules added before the protein component is complete, and then it must be directed to the exact location where it is needed.
Except for the first part of folding DNA so that it fits in the confines of a cell nucleus, which is the exact process in all eukaryotic cells, but not prokaryotic cells (all living organisms excluding archaea and bacteria), the processes of DNA replication, transcription of gene sequences and translation of gene sequences are identical in all living forms.
You do understand, I hope, that all of this amazing activity that you have just seen in this film and that has taken place in every one of the hundred trillion cells of your body, and, at least in the case of transcription and translation, continues to take place many, many millions of million of times every day in each and every one of your bodies; I hope you understand that all of this activity is taking place in a highly controlled and metabolized environment, and that the timing of these activities is connected to the timing of countless other activities at other locations in your body. I hope this tape gives you a better understanding of why I refer to all these protein and DNA molecules as components and not just collections of atoms, and a better understanding of why I consider the idea of life beginning with 'simplicity' as either intentional propaganda or self-delusion by the neo-Darwinists; and a better understanding of the absurdity of considering such awesomely complex and precise mechanisms as these, to have possibly been the result of a series of random, purposeless, accidental copying mistakes.
The final delusion I would like to deal with before I wrap up this long-winded essay, is the delusion of thinking that God, whether or not you believe God exists, as a living being with a body, probably a human type body, and a brain, probably a human type brain, only larger. If that is so, than an explanation of the beginning of life as being formed by cosmic or Divine ideas, is just a way of passing off the riddle of creation to another being, while the creation of that physical being, that deity, is overlooked. But God is not a thing. God is no thing. God is what is left when you remove all the thingness and all the separation. God does not have a brain. A brain is a way of organizing and recording and categorizing experience in a certain way so that a human with a human brain has a human experience of life, and a giraffe with a giraffe brain has a giraffe experience of life, and a caterpillar with a caterpillar brain has a caterpillar experience of life. While the brain categorizes and records and helps you define your experience so that you have a consistent, familiar, sense of reality that you can operate comfortably within, the brain does not experience your experience. You do that. You, with Divine help, translate all those complicated patterns of neuron firings and electrical paths, into the sounds and sights and colors and tastes and smells and seemingly solid, reliable comfortable objects that allow you to have a life of joy, of curiosity, and fulfillment.
When you get an idea, an axon, which is a growth extending from a neuron, grows and connects one neuron to another, or perhaps to several others, creating a new pathway for electricity to flow. The question is, did you get that idea, or did the neuron or the axon get that idea? Is the neuron growing the axon creating the idea that it just had, or is it recording the idea that you just had? Where in the brain, what physical part of the brain, made of nerve cells, whose main observable job is to conduct a curent of electricity to another nerve cell and to form new electrical pathways by growing axons, where would desire, or intelligence, or perception or consciousness be among these materials? Why would anyone think that the electrons in their brain are any smarter than the electrons in their toaster? They are not. Intelligence is not a characteristic of matter. It is a characteristic of how beings, non-physical beings, manipulate matter, manipulate the physical world, to be able to satisfy their desires.
God, the Cosmic Consciousness, the Atman, Infinity, however various cultures refer to it, is unattached consciousness, consciousness not attached to one brain, one genome, one organism. And from unattached consciousness comes all ideas (which you receive when you are ready to receive them), and all love (which you experience when you have a sense that you and the person or the animal that you are with or the activity that you are engaged in, are not separate, but are one. In God you realize that the entire universe is one). Consciousness is a non-local phenomena. It is, at once, everywhere, since it has no boundaries, and no where, since it takes up no time or space. Life, the whole system of separate living beings, is a way of giving consciousness, which is not really separable, the illusion and the experience of a separate, dramatic, and exciting existence. One of the many ways that God achieved that was by exploiting the interplay of amino acids and nucleic acids.
There has been a long evolution on this planet, but that is not because it took a long time for genes, or organisms to 'learn' how to be more efficient, or grow bodies, or grow brains. How could genes, or any body part or any animal, primitive or advanced, possibly learn such a thing? Evolution took time because the physical conditions on this planet, the temperature, the atmosphere, the available elements in the waters of the oceans, the amount of ultra-violet light, the amount of oxygen, the stabilization of the magnetic poles, and probably many, many other factors that we are not currently aware of, had to be right for more advanced life to appear. But the moment those conditions were right, then more advanced creatures suddenly, saltationally, not gradually, appeared. Thus, the sudden appearance of microbes the moment the surface of the earth cooled below the boiling point of water; the sudden appearance of oxygen metabolizing organisms the moment there was sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere, the sudden appearance of skeletal creatures when the element phosphorous, necessary for the construction of bones, appeared on the surface of the planet; and the sudden appearance of all the modern body types during a very short period called the Cambrian explosion. The ideas were there, they were just waiting for the right environmental conditions so that they could be implemented. In exactly the same way, the ideas that occur to humans are already there waiting for the moment when someone is in the position to receive them. The idea of relativity, appeared to Einstein at the moment he was ready to receive it. Relativity was the answer to the problems with Newtonian physics that Einstein was grappling with. He had filled his brain with all the necessary information, and was desirous of this specific solution. Ideas are 'received' are 'gotten', you are suddenly 'hit' by them, but they only occur to you when you are ready, when you have the desire and the information to be able to understand them. In the exact same way, when the earth was prepared and habitable for the next more advanced stage of life, that more advanced being arrived. It did not arrive from nothing but through the funnel of an existing species, whose genetic make-up was changed, not by accidental mutations, but by intentional re-arrangements, not just of genetic sequences, but re-arrangements of elaborate timing systems, signalling systems, re-arrangements of musculature and blood and nervous systems, and the introduction of new shapes and shapes within shapes to form these new proteins made from these new genetic materials into new organs, new methods of metabolism, a new sense of equilibrium, and a new apportionment of the real estate of the brain so that new organs or new improvements or features could be controlled by this new species. All these changes did not happen at once, but somewhat gradually (not nearly as slowly as Darwinian evolution would predict), but slow enough so that the new creation still had an understandable relationship with his or her parents, and enough time for the new organism to adjust to the changes from the previous generation and not be overwhelmed by them. The evolution of life, just like the evolution of technology, is the result of a purposeful accumulation of ideas, not a random accumulation of materials.
God is nothing to believe in. God is not a thing. And we, in our essence, are made of the same thing as God, consciousness. That is the divine spark. We will never know God, or encounter God, as one being encountering, or coming face to face with another being. You know God by going inward, by encountering your essence, by clearing your consciousness of all it's contents, all it's fleeing thoughts and ceaseless desires, and experiencing pure consciousness. When you do that, then your boundaries melt, your identities melt, and you experience a taste of the expansion, the limitlessness, the universal connection and love, that is part of the Infinite, the Atman. And interestingly, God is the only thing you can really know! Scientists think they can know a thing by measuring and observing it. Yet those are attributes of a thing, and not the thing itself, When you love someone you know them for that moment but then they and you return to your normal consciousness, your normal interests and desires which are somewhat different from each other, which is good. We don't want to know each other so well that we can never surprise each other. Members of the same species are similar enough so that we can understand each other well enought to communicate, but we are all somewhat different so that we are always capable of surprising one another. This amazing system allows us to not die of loneliness, since we can communicate with our fellow species members, and not die of boredom, since our fellows are never completely predictable to us and are always capable of surprise.
Taken in sum, we have a wonderful, interesting and unpredictable life, with a capacity to learn, to love, to enjoy and to expand. For this I thank, not Darwin, not Dawkins, not replicating molecules, not pre-biotic evolution; I thank God.
Your comments are always welcome.
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