Daily Archives: February 20, 2015

Back-up Your Info In Your DNA!

The January 23 issue of Nature reported that some information–in this instance all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a photograph of a building, two science articles, and an mp3 clip of a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech–had been stored in a short strand of DNA. The resultant DNA was just a barely visible speck on the bottom of a small test tube. The scientists who brought about this experiment tout it as a possible means of storing massive amounts of information in the future for long periods of time.

However, scientists already knew about the nature of genetic information stored in DNA and creationists have long pointed to this as evidence that there is an intelligence behind it’s design, only to have evolutionists ridicule the idea. Now that scientists have managed to store non-genetic data in DNA it is even more obvious that information creation and storage require intelligence.

According to the article, it took over two weeks to read the information encoded in the DNA and cost $10,000 using the best technology known to man. To store the world’s existing data would cost more money than is even available on our planet! Yet DNA is read every minute of the day with ease in living things and the evolutionists expect us to believe this just happened by natural selection without any intelligence behind it.

If, later, someone were to sequence a strand of DNA and find a book of Shakespeare or an audio file or an image embedded in the DNA, would anyone think that this just happened by natural selection? Wouldn’t this be even greater evidence of intelligence and design than finding a watch on a beach, an illustration offered by William Paley back in 1802? And yet, the genetic material in DNA is even greater than any work of Shakespeare or photo or human speech. These genes produced the minds that create these works of art.

The authors also propose that in a decade, when technology has much improved, this might become a way to store information for long periods of time without decay. Normal digital storage media quickly become obsolete (remember 8-Track tapes and cassettes?) and degrade over time. It is said, however, DNA lasts much longer.

It is interesting that in the livescience.com  article on the subject, reference was made to Woolly Mammoth DNA being preserved for “tens of thousands of years.” However no reference was made to dinosaur DNA being found in T-Rex fossils. This was not mentioned perhaps because scientists also know it is not possible for DNA to last for 65 million years. Yet, according to Dr. Mary Schweitzer “material consistent with DNA” has been found in dinosaur fossils of that age. This caused quite a stir when announced. However, undaunted, Evolutionists never even considered re-thinking their view of when dinosaurs lived but, instead, changed their view of how long DNA could survive even though the experimental evidence is against it!

Nevertheless, while man-made digital tape degrades and is limited, God’s storage methods are permanent and unlimited.  That is especially true of God’s revealed word.  It will never pass away (Matt. 24:35).

But the bottom line is DNA is information that God stored in our cells to build our physical bodies. Anyone of normal intelligence would be impressed with both the design and intelligence exhibited not only in our bodies but in the world itself.

Eric L. Padgett