DNA Proves God Exists Using Information Theory - FAS2607

SPEAKER A Can science prove God exists? Today, we are exploring how DNA and information theory provide scientific evidence for intelligent design. Werner Gitt has discovered 10 laws showing information cannot arise from matter alone, which means evolution is scientifically impossible. Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Casey Vacurcker. Joining me to discuss this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome to the program. SPEAKER B Hi, Katie. SPEAKER A Dr. John has written a book, the Big Does God Exist? And in today's program, we'll be drawing on insights from his book. And the first question I have for you, John, is what is information and how is it different from matter and energy? SPEAKER B Sure. Okay, so information is an interesting word. It's hard to find a definition for it. There are lots of different definitions for. For different aspects of it. Maybe I could illustrate it this way, that we have knowledge, right? So water boils at 100 degrees, and Captain Cook discovered Australia. This sort of thing. The cat is sitting on the mat. These sort of things, Right? These are statements, but they're not necessarily information unless it's something that can be then applied. Right? So water boils at 100 degrees C is a fact. Right. It becomes information if you need that, say, to calculate the thickness of insulation that you need on a pipe carrying water at 100 degrees. So it then becomes information. Similarly, for example, and some of the arguments that are given, say, to promote evolution and random events producing the genetic code, say you got your little toddler to sit down with a typewriter, and there were only a limited number of letters, and eventually, over time, they typed, the cat is on the mat. SPEAKER A Right. SPEAKER B But that isn't information unless the cat is actually sitting on the mat. Right. And you need to know that so that you don't trip over it or tread on it. This sort of thing. Right. So it then just becomes. It becomes a sentence, but it may not be a fact. There may be no cat sitting on a mat. SPEAKER A So it needs to connect with reality. SPEAKER B Right? So generally information has to have a purpose. Right? And that purpose leads to a goal or an outcome. And I think this is important. So we can have facts, we can have things expressed in language, but it's not necessarily information because it needs to inform us. And the reason why it informs us is that there's. There's a purpose that we're working towards. And one of the things is that this information, for example, could be written in the sand. SPEAKER A Okay? SPEAKER B Right. And someone could write in the sand, danger rocks ahead. Right? SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B And so again, that is something that informs you that if you continue to. To proceed, there is, There is A hazard. Right. So it's information. It's informing you about something. You could have, I guess you could, you know, love. A lot of couples write, you know, John loves Colleen or something like this in, In. In the sand. Right. And again, and so that can be in informing people. Again, if you wrote in the sand, water boils at 100 degrees centigrade. That's a fact. But one of the interesting things is that you put this information down, warning rocks ahead, or John loves Colleen in the sand, and then you can wipe it away, move the sand particles. The information's gone then. Right? There's no warning there. Then there's. There's no information there, but yet the sand is still there. And the same, if a teacher writes something on the backboard, you will need to answer five questions in this exam to pass that constitutes information. It leads to an outcome, to some doing. If he then rubs it off, the chalk dust is still there, the blackboard is still there, but the information is gone. So from this, information is non material. And this is a very important aspect. That information is different from matter and energy. So energy, for example, is connected to matter via Einstein's famous equation, equals MC squared and so forth. And of course, matter is material. So we have this material aspect. Information is something that is non material. It's outside this. And it only becomes useful if you have, if we have a mind now, if we come back to DNA and this sort of. In this area. Right. It's generally widely accepted that DNA contains information. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B All right. It's a code, it's a. It's a molecule, a very long molecule that contains information. And what that information does, it informs cellular processes how to assemble a new living organism. Right. Or repair an existing living organism. And so it actually encodes information. It has a purpose. That purpose is to inform. But again, those molecular letters are useless unless you have a code reader and a mind, for example. And this comes into language. And some scientists written, yes, have intimated that DNA is the language of God sort of thing. So it points to God and it clearly does. And this again raises a very interesting point. So if we convey information with words, usually, right. Or it can be with numbers and. But we convey information with words and we use language. Right. And so we're speaking in the English language. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B And if I, and we use certain letters, 26 letters, the alphanumeric letters, if I took those same letters and I assembled them as a little bit differently and I wrote up Z, I, V, I, S, right. That probably won't convey anything. To you? Yes. Yeah. SPEAKER A It means nothing. SPEAKER B Right, yes. If I put up the word, if I put up the letters F, I, S, H, there we go, that would convey something to you. Right, right, yeah, Fish. So of course sivas is fish in Latvian. SPEAKER A So okay, there we go. SPEAKER B So here we have. Part of this information involves language and involves a code reader. And that was your mind. So your mind was a code reader that works quite well in English, presumably? SPEAKER A Yes. Not many others. SPEAKER B Yeah. So back in my day we had to learn languages, Latin and French and so forth and German. And so we need a code reader. And again, that is our mind. And of course the code reader for the DNA is a machine, the ribosome, which reads those. Now one of the things, as I said earlier, if we take the example of the toddler typing accidentally or eventually the cat is on the mat, right. It doesn't really mean anything and it's not really information unless that can inform something, somebody. And minds are involved. There's minds at two ends. So the argument is that that was randomly generated. It's very, very rare that that random generated information, the child type in cat on the mat, is actually going to correspond to an adult coming by reading it and then looking down and say, oh, the cat is on the mat. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B Right. So this is one of the very important things about if the argument is that maybe the genetic code could form randomly. Actually when you look at the chemical reactions and the chemistry involved in, it's absolutely impossible. Even if you had trillions of trillions of years for these to occur, just due to the fact that the chemical reactions required don't occur. The stability of the small compounds, they have such short lifestyles, they're going to decay before you can build on them. Again, lots of obstacles, but just say the code did form, it actually a whole code formed. It would have to inform something that was meaningful at the time. So again, you have the probability of a code forming that is going to be relevant for a species to be able to survive. And when we look at these probabilities, they're greater than astronomical. Yes. But the other important thing is of course that this information is non material. And so that's. And so the fact that we live in a world now where we see, you know, we're here, we see the flowers, birds, insects and all the different plants and creatures that all are made by a code that all works. Right. And this, this implies an intelligent design. So if someone is going to give the directions to build a house or to assemble a mobile phone, Right, which has A purpose. This is information. But it comes from a mind initially to make it work, to assemble something with a purpose. And so when we look at information, information is not only a non material entity, it requires a mind. And one of the other fascinating things about it is that. And one of the laws that Git refers to is that information is non material and non material entities cannot be produced by material entities. SPEAKER A They require an intelligent entity to produce. SPEAKER B They require an intelligence. Yes. To produce it, to produce meaning. And that is because you could argue that the caddis on the map could be produced randomly by random letter generators. But it has no meaning, it doesn't constitute information. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B It would be extremely rare for that to occur. SPEAKER A Yeah. Because there's so much organization involved in that code and the interpretation in order to get the meaning, isn't there? SPEAKER B Well, that's right. But it also has to be relevant to something that has a purpose, that has an action out at the end. And so this is, you know, this is very, very, these laws of information and the fact that information is non material and the fact that we see so much evidence of information, of codes that work, that produce things that have a purpose is powerful evidence for an amazing supernatural, non material being that designed and put these codes together. It's the only explanation that we have. All the other examples of language, of code, of informing people so that there can be an outcome which is what information is. Involve a mind to start with and a mind to interpret, to carry that out. SPEAKER A And we don't have any example, like researchers haven't found any example where information arose without intelligence, have they? SPEAKER B That's correct, yes. Yes. SPEAKER A It's always, if you've got information, it's, there's a connection with intelligence unequivocally. Is that pretty much the case? SPEAKER B Yes, yes, that's right. We don't find natural processes, for example, you know, wind and wave action carving out in a language that people can read, warning, there is a rock ahead, you know, on the sand, like raindrops, you know. Yeah. And we can see, you know, that. And again, there are major problems for people coming along the beach. If that was some natural processes, would the language be in English or would it be in Chinese? Yes, you know, or Egyptian hieroglyphics, you know, it's a major problem. And that's why the unique language that we find in DNA, which is a code language, code, it informs, it's this code, it has a unique reader. And of course the real bottleneck is that the code to make the code reader is in the code? SPEAKER A Yes. That's incredible, isn't it? It is. SPEAKER B That's the clincher. SPEAKER A That's something which, yeah, the mind almost. SPEAKER B Cannot fathom, which essentially proves that God must exist. There must be a creator. There must be a super mind that's created this system. SPEAKER A Thank you so much for explaining that and sharing today, and we look forward to some more. Have you ever struggled with doubts about God's existence or known someone who has? What helped you through it? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments. Your journey could inspire someone else searching for answers.