SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Chapter 14

HOW TO RECOGNISE A CREATION

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Question from Chapter 13

Is it possible to recognise a creation using the normal processes of scientific observation?

Let's start with a familiar object.

Was this object created?

When we look at a wooden table, we all know it did not happen by itself.  It was created. 

But how did we reach this conclusion?  Many people have never seen a table being created, and most cannot create tables for themselves, so how do we all know it was created?  The structure of the table is the key.  The table is made from wood, which comes from trees which do not have the natural properties of producing wood with ninety degree corners and flat tops and with a leg at each corner.  These features are not properties of the tree, so we know the table was not a result of any Natural Properties of the wood.  The structure is the evidence of the Outside Information supplied by the table's creator.

Is there any way therefore to distinguish between a system which has evolved as the result of information already present in the natural properties of that system, and a system which has come into existence only because information has been supplied from outside, i.e. it was created?

Let's look at things we know were created by the application of information from outside. Consider the wood which has been used to make the table.

Is there anything in the wood which determines it will be a table?

No - that is determined by the person who made the object.  The wood could be used to make an umbrella stand or a wooden toy train instead.  There is no information in the wood that will turn it into any of these items.  If the wood is left by itself it will eventually degenerate into compost.  The Information to make a table is added from outside.

This can be summarised by the equations:

Matter (wood) + Energy + Time ^{Outside Information}® Table

This formula can be applied to any created object, whatever it is made from.

Matter (raw materials) + Energy + Time ^OI® Created Object

or

M + E + T ^OI® Creation

How can we recognise this?

Creation and Information

We will call the completed object the Product, and the materials it is made from the parts.  Consider the Information stored on the completed Product, e.g. a table compared to the Information in the parts from which it was created, e.g. the wood.  The creator of the table has used his intelligence to add features to the wood which it would not normally contain. 

Since there was no Information in the wood which determined it would be a table, this information was added from outside.  Therefore, the Information (I) in the Product (P) is greater than the Information (I) in the parts (p).

We can summarise this as:

Information (Product)   >   Information (parts)

or

IP  >  Ip

We now have an easy formula to enable us to tell when something has been created:

When the Information in the Product is more than the Information in the parts, then the Product has been created.

For a general rule we can say:

A creation has occurred whenever IP  >  Ip

This could also be expressed as:

IP - Ip > 0

or even:

IP/Ip  > 1

How Clever is a Creator?

The evidence of how much Information a creator has used is communicated to us by the structure of the created object.  Consider another object something everyone knows was created - a computer.  It is made of components such as plastic, various metals and silicon.  Ultimately plastic comes from oil, metals are dug out of the ground and silicon comes from sand.  A formula to make a computer out of raw materials is:

Matter (Sand + Oil + Metal) + Energy + Time  ^{Outside Information}®  Computer

The Outside Information in this case was supplied by the computer manufacturer and you pay him for it.  To create the Product (the computer), a very large amount of information is needed to be applied to the parts (sand, oil and metal) by the manufacturers.  The greater the difference between the information in the Product compared with the information in the parts, the greater amount of work done by the maker(s) and the more the product will cost to you.  The difference between the information in Products and parts is a measure of the Intelligence of the Creator.

We could call the amount of intelligence needed to make a particular object the Creator's Intelligence Quotient or CIQ.  The Creator's Intelligence Quotient will be proportional to the amount of information that must be applied to the parts of the created object to achieve the Product.  Another way of expressing this is that the Creator's Intelligence Quotient is proportionate to the difference between the information in the product and the information in the parts.  This can be summarised in a formula:

CIQ  µ  IP - Ip

or

CIQ  µ  IP/Ip

Now consider how much information there is in a living cell compared with the basic components that it is made from.

Information in the Cell

Cells manufacture proteins from amino acids using information stored on DNA and conveyed by RNA.  The Information in a protein is greater than the Information in its amino acids, i.e. IP - Ip.  Therefore, we can say the proteins are created in the cell using the information on RNA.  Proteins don't just happen by themselves.

RNA is a complex molecule made from sugars, phosphates and bases using information supplied by DNA.  The Information in the RNA product is far greater than the information in its parts (sugar, phosphates and bases).  Therefore, RNA is a substance created in the cell using information that already exists on DNA. 

But DNA is an even more complex molecule consisting of sugars, phosphates and bases.  DNA is such a complex molecule, and works in such a sophisticated way, that the scientists who worked out its structure and how it functions as an information store, won a Nobel prize.  The complexity of DNA structure and the vast difference in the Information stored on the DNA product compared to the information of its parts, i.e. sugars, phosphates and bases, are the main reasons no one has suggested DNA could be spontaneously generated as a result of the Natural Properties of sugars, phosphates and bases.

As we have seen in previous sections the information making proteins is in the arrangement of bases in DNA.  The individual sugar, phosphate and base molecules do not contain information that can be used by a cell to make proteins.  DNA only carries information when it is assembled into a complete molecule.  For DNA it is certainly true that the Information in the Product is far greater that those in the parts.  This can be expressed as:

IP  >>>>>>  Ip

But IP - Ip is the characteristic of a creation!  A creation is something that doesn't happen by itself.

DNA shows all the characteristics of being a creation, but the source of information for creating DNA cannot be in the cell since DNA cannot function unless the cell already exists.

Question

Could any natural properties of matter be the source of information needed to create DNA; or does the information in the cell indicate that living organisms were created? 

We will consider this, and draw our conclusion in the next section.

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© Creation Research, 2007