Shifting Paradigms

An interesting article has come out by Philip Ball, "Celebrate the Unknowns," Nature 496 (April 24, 2013): 419-420.  The author marks the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA (our cellular source of genes) by Watson and Crick. He basically says scientists don’t understand molecular evolution, which means they don’t understand evolution period.  Ball in turn quotes another biologist, Patrick Phillips, who said, "[P]rojects such as ENCODE are showing scientists that they don't really understand how genotypes map into phenotypes, or how exactly evolutionary forces shape any given genome." The genotype is the makeup of the gene and the phenotype is the physical structure of the individual organism. 

It’s intriguing that Nature would produce such an article, since they are the ones who published the Consortium Project collection, "ENCODE,". Nature (Sept. 5, 2012). A summary of the findings can be seen in another article by Brendan Maher, "ENCODE: The human encyclopaedia," Nature 489 (Sept. 5, 2012).  Basically ENCODE found that at least 80% of DNA is functional, which totally eliminates chance as the fundamental cause of life and speciation.  This research has falsified Darwinian evolution, but many scientists still won’t admit it.  To deny that only chance was involved, they’ve claimed natural selection has moved life and evolution along.  However, that was based on nature being able to select individuals with genes which formed by chance into something useful.  And that depended on a DNA molecule that was mostly "junk," supposedly giving room for the chance formation of useful genes to be selected. ENCODE has eliminated the "junk" hypothesis.

The high functionality of DNA defies the “billions of years” modifier used in the past to explain materialistic evolution.  Billions of years is a drop in the bucket for the millions of regulatory switches found by the ENCODE research.  There is just no way these could have randomly gathered and been able to function in the fine-tuned world of the biological organism.  Anyone familiar with probabilities will know the truth of that.  It is time for a change in our paradigm.

In my blog, I’ve been trying to show that human beings can’t be here from simple chance of nature.  I know there is still a long way for some of you to go in your understanding, but I hope you are starting to see how true it is that we are made by a Genius Whom we know as God.  The next step for those who are just starting to accept that neo-Darwinian theory is defunct is to determine Who this God is.

My approach is in contrast to what the advocates of Intelligent Design Theory (ID) say about biological design being separate from religion.  They seem to think that is a valid approach and are not the only ones who make distinct categories.  The biologist Stephen Jay Gould felt they were different spheres.  But Creationists have long combined the two, and their concept of biological Creation is independent of the age of the Earth, though many believe in a Young Earth.  In other words, a Creationist does not have to believe in 6 literal 24-hour days of creation to believe that God made people and/or species directly. And when Christians believe that biological life was made by a Designer, there should be no question to them of Who that is.  That is the Triune God of the Bible: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

ID advocates insist that they are not secretly promoting religion, describing the designer only as intelligent.  They define a quality of the designer but not the identity.  But once we see the complexity of biology it is natural to ask the “Who” as well as the “How.”  This is where the ID people ignore a portion of the population as much as materialistic scientists do. Creationists see all questions as valid, even if some of the answers will always be beyond our understanding.

So I ask those of you who are starting to see the validity of what Creationists have said all along to keep on your journey.  When I was searching for answers to spiritual questions, I prayed for the Truth.  Even if you don’t know Who God may be, He will hear you.  I prayed in this way and found Christianity.  I now believe this religion to be True and am joyful to have discovered fulfillment such that I never could have previously imagined. 

It’s not that unusual to fear new territory and yet when we allow ourselves to experience it we often find the opposite from what we expect.  Seekers may think Christianity is limiting, but it is expanding.  They may think it will confine them if they embrace it, but it frees them.  But like a foreign country, you can’t really know what Christianity is like until you go there.