RANDOMNESS

WHAT DOES RANDOMNESS IN MUTATION MEAN?

This is a misunderstood concept in Biology, but what biologists mean in the context of evolution is that the variations produced within a population of organisms are NOT produced in DIRECT response to the needs of the organism. Animals, plants and other life-forms merely vary in accordance with the variation in their genetic make-up and developmental processes.

Direction is given by NATURAL SELECTION and SEXUAL SELECTION - 'selection' by the environment and selection by prospective mates. For example, many species of birds have grown ever more elaborate plumage as female birds have 'selected' the gaudiest males over many generations.

So where does all the creativity of evolution come from? How can SELECTION provide the source of creativity for evolution? Actually it DOESN'T. The true source of creativity is within organisms themselves in the process of DEVELOPMENT that forms them from a single cell and its genes.

As organisms develop a process of 'Information Creation' takes place which involves the interaction of cells of the growing organism as they interact with each other and the wider environment. The average human body is composed of roughly a thousand million million cells, with 256 different cell types intricately arranged to produce organs, metabolism and that ever elusive essence, Life.

The MIRACLE lies in the fact that the human gene code under-specifies the information needed to make such a wondrous body by a factor of many millions. There are some 3 billion base pairs of nucleotides in our genome's DNA, and the nucleotide code needs three for each amino acid that goes into the proteins that get made from the DNA information. About three thousand or so base pairs is enough to specify a protein, and such a specification is called a GENE. Some 80,000 genes are specified in the protein coding part of our DNA, which is just 3 - 10 % of the whole.

BUT that's way too little to specify the human body. In fact it's not enough information to specify all the metabolic cycles of cells in TOTAL detail, NOR the information needed to tell proteins how to fold up in the most useful manner possible. Windows 2000 is roughly the same size in information terms and it's role is sort of analogous... DNA acts as the operating system of the cell. But unlike Windows it's the only program running in the body's cells... so how can it make a body?

The trick lies in information compression and cellular duplication. Every animal begins as a single cell that then duplicates itself over and over. By about 50 duplications enough cells exist to make a human body... and by the way each cell interacts with its neighbours it knows what to do. But all those endless cellular 'conversations' can't be written in the DNA, just extremely compact 'summaries' of interactions between genes. Change a gene or a summary and BIG changes can come about as a body unfolds.

Mutation's CREATIVITY lies within the logic of the cells themselves, how they interpret the changes to their protein codes and summaries... and also in the process of development which stresses cells in ways that can't be coded for.

Information is a much abused concept in the creation-evolution debate, with Creationists frequently asking where does new information come from? But this is misleading. Where does the information that a child gains as they grow up come from? Through interaction with the larger environment. Same with organisms developing and the same with species evolving.

Proteins illustrate perfectly the misleading nature of the argument. To work at their best they must fold up in certan 3-dimensional patterns to expose their active sites [the business part of a protein] to the chemicals they target. Each amino acid that makes up a protein can twist and turn in a variety of ways. The total number of possible combinations of all the amino acids in a single protein would take more information to specify than atoms in the Universe.

BUT folding proteins don't need exact specification. With a little help from cage-like molecules known as CHAPERONINS they fold themselves up via the self-interaction of all their amino-acid sub-units. Proteins SELF-ORGANISE. Many incredibly complex biological molecules and structures build themselves thanks to the varied chemical interactions of their parts and those parts with the larger cellular environment.

SELF-ORGANISATION is the soruce of much creativity in Nature, but none of this is incompatible with belief in God either. The Bible attests that God creates each of us in our mother's womb - by all the normal processes of development. God's acts are the World's processes it seems. If such an incredible process of 'Information Creation' can occur in this case, then why not as the cause of all change in Nature?

WHY CREATIONISM IS WRONG

WHAT IS EVOLUTION?

Who Is God?

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