Intelligent
design is defined by the Discovery Institute as such:
“Intelligent
design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community
of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of
design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain
features of the universe and of living things are best explained by
an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural
selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a
design theorist is able to determine whether various natural
structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent
design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by
observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents
act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types
of informational properties which we commonly know come from
intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods
to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the
complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining
physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid
origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the
Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.” -
www.discovery.org
My
argument concerns the “complex and specified information in DNA”,
which is often shortened to “specified complexity”. Within DNA,
we find extremely complex instructions that govern the behavior of
all life on the molecular level. Such intelligent design proponents
as Frank Turek (“I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”)
liken the genetic code to the largest and most complex book ever
written. The argument goes, if we recognize a written volume such as
Hamlet
to be the product of an intelligent mind, should we not conclude the
same about a string of information many orders of magnitude greater
than any of Shakespeare's classics? My answer is no.
The
analogy to a written book is missing a crucial point, as are all
analogies in which DNA is compared to any information produced by
humans, such as a computer program or a musical composition. The
difference lies in what I call “natural function”. This term
refers to the ability of any string of information to interact in a
meaningful and complex way with its environment. Now, “meaningful
and complex” is rather vague, so let me give an example. If “I
think, therefore I am” was drawn in the sand, its creator would not
have to wait long before processes such as wind, waves, and the feet
of the occasional passerby destroyed it. This is to be expected;
given the specificity in which the grains of sand must be ordered to
spell out “I think, therefore I am”, the arrangements in which
those same grains of sand do not spell out Descartes's famous line
(or any other words in the English language, for that matter) far
outnumber the relatively small arrangements in which the sand will
spell out the sentence. Entropy takes its toll, and we lose our
“information”. Now, let us consider the inner workings of a
cell. We observe its constant state of nonequilibrium, which defies
our intuitions about how matter should behave when it is left alone.
The information in DNA, unlike the writing in the sand, is preserved.
How? Let's think about the medium in which this information is
encoded: Nucleotides, held together by sugars and phosphates, where
each sugar has a nucleobase attached which represents genetic
“information”. These nucleobases come in four types, which are
now referred to as G, A, T, and C. This information, unlike the
writing in the sand which consisted of millions of particles which do
not interact with each other in an individually distinct manner, is
encoded in single molecules. Of what significance is this, and how
does it refer to natural function? Well, each molecule behaves in a
certain manner. It can interact in various ways with the basic
constituents of life: atoms. (Carbon, as we know, composes the
greatest variations of highly complex and diverse molecules.) Now
we're getting somewhere: grains of sand do not interact with each
other in the way that molecules do. Grains of sand do not cling to
each other, possess net electric charges, or self-assemble into
complex shapes, as we have observed with molecules in the famous
Miller-Urey experiment.
Now
comes the kicker: the dynamic, interactive nature of single atoms and
molecules allow for something we do not see on a macro scale: the
creation and sustenance of information. This information is granted,
by the laws of physics, the ability to interact with other matter in
a complex and dynamic way, by the medium in which it is contained.
That is the difference between a string of information that possesses
a natural function and one which does not: the information encoded in
nucleobases can employ the laws of physics to directly interact with
its environment. As I hope I have shown, it is not the information
itself which we should be paying attention to: it is the medium in
which it is encoded. If I were to write the genetic code for a
simple virus on the side of a mountain, that mountain would not begin
to devour its neighbors. Conversely, if I were to write out Hamlet
as a complex sequence of nucleobases (assuming for the sake of
argument that I invented a morse-code-esque system in which I could
represent the entire alphabet through sequences of the four bases of
DNA), it would most likely result in a rather muddled attempt at
life. The information of life, unlike any book humans have ever
written, is “readable” by Mother Nature herself- the laws of
physics, in this case- and she has been reading it long before any of
us came around. We would be right, therefore, to deduce that a
certain string of information originated from an intelligent mind
like ours if and only if that information only carried significance
to intelligent minds- nothing else. The information of life, due to
its dynamic medium of organic molecules, carries a natural
significance to the laws of Nature which rings strong and clear.
