Philosophy of Religion

Assignment

Mark Jason Gotas

Stefaan Stoelen

Information Enigma: Where Does Information Come From?

As they say, knowledge is power. In accordance to the structure of life, the video
has pointed out that species are formed out from information, that evolution stemmed
from a genetic mutation. Similar to the discussion we had last week, the video has
made an analogy of how species evolve. If data/code was for the computer, then there
must be data/information for a specie to be structured/formed. They also made a
statement that was very familiar to us. That these living organisms had to have a cause.
That their evolution had to have a cause. Familiar? It was a statement similar to the
previous videos about the cosmos. It stated that there can be two origins of existence,
being that something exists necessarily or that it exists contingently. I’d say the video on
biology was referring to contingently. Where did the information come from?

According to their website, 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. They do have a point, how can we
build something without any instructions on what to build or how to build it, in reference
to a living organism. Information drives the development of life. Is it just based on some
random mutation that triggered the evolution of an organism?

The origin of life is still a mystery as there are many different types of
speculations on how life was first formed and how it turned into what all life is now. The
only potential source of order in the beginning would have been networks of chemical
reactions that function according to the laws of chemistry and physics. Just when and
how this transformation happened remains an open issue that researchers are debating
but the fact that it happened is clear.
 Philosophy of Religion
Assignment

Whereas the likelihood statement appears to be a crippling blow to the neo-

Darwinian paradigm in terms of protein evolution, there is in fact a far greater and
broader issue than what the video suggests in terms of statistics. This dilemma is so
debilitating that even if one claims that unguided and undirected evolutionary processes
are able to overcome the probability of what geneticist like Douglas Axe has proposed
here, such presumption would not in fact be enough to solve the whole dilemma of
protein evolution. This issue has already been well founded scientifically, however the
problem is commonly overlooked, known as denaturation of proteins.

Denaturation of proteins is a destructive process in which proteins lose their

stable folding structure of 3rd dimensional protein caused by numerous factors. Such
considerations or conditions are: 1) high acidity or base 2) concentrated inorganic salt
3) radiation & 4) exposure to heat. Denaturation is really bad for proteins, since their
tertiary and quaternary structures are destroyed. Much like amino acid sequencing, the
structure of proteins is very important for the polymer to work properly. Thereby, they
have to be placed under some stable environmental conditions in order for the proteins
to actually fold and continue to function efficiently at all.

So many of those variables would make those proteins denature and totally
useless, even though the sequencing and folding of amino acids turned out to be
correct after all. When it comes to DNA & RNA, Denaturation is also a concern.

There is, however, an even larger issue I proposed earlier. Parallel to what most
may fail to recognize, proteins simply never last long, even though they are in optimal
conditions where denaturation is impossible to result. They continue to get damaged
over time, and finally reach the point where they eventually disappear. So even if one
thought that, given all the incredible 99.99 percent impossible chances, a functional
protein inexplicably appeared from nowhere, it would inevitably die out at some point.
Therefore, in order for the role of the protein to stay useful and to be chosen by natural
selection, it will have to reproduce itself somehow. However, proteins themselves are
not self-replicating, but are instead being replaced by new cell-made proteins. However,
for this to happen, special enzymes, ribosomes and other types of cellular machinery all
 Philosophy of Religion
Assignment

consisting of already existing proteins and special RNA molecules must already be
present. That's where the problem with chicken and eggs comes in.

Furthermore, it is not just the stats that bring those who are against the theory of
intelligent design a major slap to the face but also the laws of physics. Neither abstract
mathematical models nor physics activities conform with the neo-Darwinian orthodox
theory. Of course, while there are people who want to firmly believe that all of these can
be explained as a means of debunking intelligent design under self-organization
methodologies, the ultimate irony concerning their arguments of self-organization was
that they'd rely on previously existing genetic information and pre-assume it.

Therefore, I conclude that no theory can justify the enigma of information

stronger than the intelligent design. And that an Intelligent designer has designed
everything and nothing came out from just mere odds. In the video, they compared the
challenge in facing unguided natural selection to a thief trying to steal a locked bicycle.
They showed how intricate, how detailed a genetic combination would be, just to find
the right sequence to formulate a simple protein, similar to a bicycle lock is with its dials
of ten digits. It is only then, in the 20 th century, that there was a scientific revelation to
regarding this. It is that life’s information, can be conveyed like a code using alphabets.
To put it simply, any information of an organism comes from an arrangement of
characters.