DNA. While high school students can pull out its full name, Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, for me, DNA prompts a different phrase to come to mind: Don’t Neglect Awe. Because honestly, I don’t believe we can look at DNA without being gob smacked… Francis Crick, a Nobel prize winner famed for his contribution in discovering the structure of DNA, realised that its 4 subunits: A,T C & G, function like alphabetic characters in a written text, or digital characters in a section of software. In fact, Bill Gates articulated that DNA is actually more complex than any software humans have been able to develop…which is super crazy complex! Even to write the most basic part of DNA’s code would take 1000 books of 1000 pages.
So what’s the significance of this ultra complex information? Well, we know information doesn’t come from purely physical processes. Physical processes can produce randomness, or even patterns, but they can’t produce authentic information. Information is only ever produced from a mind. Even Crick, who was an atheist, believed an intelligent source was needed for the information in DNA. However, he chose to attribute this to aliens. I mean, whatever floats your boat I guess, but personally, I think if you weigh up all the evidence there is a much better case that the great mind behind DNA was an intelligent God.
I’m Sophie Gillespie from Thinking Matters and this has been your Thought for the Week. For more reasons to believe, visit www.thinkingmatters.org.nz