Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design by Perry Marshall

Author:Perry Marshall
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781940363806
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
Published: 2015-08-31T14:00:00+00:00

* In this talk, I use the word prove in the scientific sense (induction), not the mathematical sense (deduction).

CHAPTER 23

* * *

Information: The Ten-Million-Dollar Question

There are more things in

Heaven and Earth, Horatio,

than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

MY SKEPTIC was especially persistent. I was citing well-established information science and he was refusing to accept it. I was getting annoyed. Suddenly I decided, “I’m going to lay down the gauntlet. I’m going to offer this guy 10 grand if he can solve this.”

To make an offer like that—an offer of financial compensation for the discovery of a naturally occurring code—my first step was to write a specification telling him exactly what he was supposed to find. OK, dude. Here’s exactly how you prove me wrong.

I consulted a standard engineering textbook for definitions (321). I used the definition to show why a computer language is a code; I showed that DNA is also code for identical reasons; then I went on to outline what I was asking for—a code that met the same requirements, that was not designed. (I’ve included that specification for you in appendix 4.)

The document described how any person could demonstrate this, according to the criteria from the engineering book. I posted it at www.NaturalCode.org.

On the blog I challenged him and everyone else: “If you can find a naturally occurring code that meets the spec at naturalcode.org, I’ll write you a check for $10,000.00.”

He poked me with a few questions and then . . .

. . . disappeared.

The round-and-round in circles about “sunlight is a code” stopped, too. And the “Perry, you unfortunately don’t understand what DNA does” and “Code is just a metaphor that scientists use to explain complex chemistry to ordinary people”—all of it stopped. Just like that.

As soon as they worked the diagram on the website form, anybody who thought sunlight was a code quickly realized why it wasn’t. (Try it yourself if you’re still not sure.) Anybody who thought DNA was merely like a code and not an actual code, needed only read the spec. They could see for themselves how neatly DNA transcription/translation matches up with Claude Shannon’s communication system.

A few weeks later, another person came along and posted a lengthy comment challenging my statements. Just like the other guy, I offered him the 10 grand. He did the same thing: He protested for a bit, then vanished.

The inference to design in DNA’s transcription/translation process could no longer be swept under the rug.

For five years I issued the $10,000 challenge, usually to people who were extremely passionate about this issue. But in five years I never got a single submission.

If you want to dismiss the idea of design in biology, you have to demonstrate where information comes from first.

Whether we have access to the designer was a question for the theologians; to an extent I set that question aside. The science question was: How was it designed? And just how intricate was the design?

Every living thing comes from information in its parents’ DNA. The cell reads information from DNA, and the DNA has the instructions for building the next cell.

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