The Creation Debate-Part 5

Editor’s note: In June 1990 The John Ankerberg Show taped a series of interviews with men from several branches of the sciences regarding the evidence for creation. For technical reasons we were unable to air these interview. Nevertheless, we have decided to re­lease portions of these interviews in a series of articles so you could read the arguments that were being made at that time—more than a decade ago.

Considerable effort has been made to quote the gentlemen correctly. We have at­tempted to find the correct spelling of the scientific terms used. However, the reader should keep in mind that this is a transcription of oral interviews. Mistakes in spelling and in the technical language should be laid at the feet of the editor.

The Creation Debate – Part 5
Some Intelligence Required

Dr. Kurt Wise: There is one thing, Duane, I’d like to bring up that might be confusing to members of our audience. You mentioned, for example, when you were discussing the translation procedure, that the messenger RNA leaves the nucleus and goes out to the cytoplasm.

Well, not all organisms that live today, namely prokaryotes, have nuclei. In other words, it’s not necessary for the messenger RNA to leave a nucleus and go out to the cytoplasm for all organisms. It is still necessary for it to leave the region of the cell where the DNA is to go to another region of the cell where the ribosomes are. Just to clarify that, those that would be concerned that in the formation of that first cell, we were not talking about a cell with a nucleus, at least according to evolutionary theory.

The other thing that might be an interesting clarification, at least a simplification here, the simplest organism that we know of, the simplest prokaryotes, that organism without even a nucleus has the capacity to reproduce, and that demands that process of replication you talked about. You must be able to reproduce the DNA. So, in order to have life as far as we know it, you have to be able to reproduce the DNA, that’s where the replication comes in, just to clarify it for others.

Furthermore, even the simplest cells have, included within even the simplest of cells, the processes of metabolism. In order to have metabolism, you must be able to produce pro­tein molecules of a variety of sorts to allow this metabolism to occur. And that’s where you have to take that DNA, that information, in the nucleus. You’ve got to copy it, like a photo­copier. You’ve got to take that copy out into the cell and then you’ve got to produce, you’ve got to make, build, the proteins for metabolism.

Dr. Duane Gish: Yes, Kurt, you know that’s a very important point. The simplest cell that we can imagine could do that would have to have hundreds of enzymes, several hundred enzymes at the very minimum, and have to have hundreds of DNA and RNA molecules, and many other molecules as well. And of course, a membrane would be necessary. As you say, the prokaryotes do not have a nucleus with a membrane as the other cells do. So it would be very, very complicated.

Some people speak of a self-replicating molecule. There is no self-replicating molecule known. DNA does not replicate itself. It is replicated by the living cell. A virus is not a self-replicating molecule. When a virus gets inside a living cell, that cell reproduces a virus and synthesizes the virus. Even viruses don’t reproduce themselves.

Dr. John Ankerberg: That’s why the scientists in the laboratory have found out they can’t explain how this moves on up into higher, more complex life. Now, it also would be a conclusion why the creationists would point to this and say this is evidence for design, for complexity, for information. That needs intelligence; otherwise you can’t get there from here.

Gish: Yes. Let me give you a simple example I think that everybody could understand. I think that if we have a mixture of dots and dashes, by chance, certainly by reasonable chance, you could probably get three dots, followed by three dashes, and followed by three dots. But it would be entirely meaningless. It wouldn’t mean anything. It would convey no information whatsoever.

But man has invented what is called the Morse Code. Now, in Morse Code, three dots means “s”, three dashes means “o”, and so we have “s-o-s.” We’ve converted the dots and dashes into s-o-s. But still that is meaningless. Doesn’t mean anything. By convention however, we have decided that s-o-s means, “I’m in danger. I need help. Please send help. S-O-S.” You see, even if you could assemble the dots and dashes by chance, it wouldn’t mean anything, accomplish nothing, until human beings, intelligent human beings, have decided that three dots means “s”, three dashes means “o” and three dots means “s”—S­O-S. Then we have to decide, we have by convention decided, that S-O-S means, “I’m in danger, please send help.”

And so again, if we go back to a DNA molecule, somehow these nucleotide did arrange themselves in a certain way, it would be totally meaningless, just be nonsense, you see. It wouldn’t convey any information because the information, what’s required to take that sequence, the nucleotide, and thereby construct a protein molecule would require a tre­mendously complex machine.

Read Part 6