When is a duck not a duck?

Edgar Andrews in his book "Who made God?" describes how scientists agree that the DNA of living things is imprinted with informaiton in a manner reminiscent of an advanced modern language. As I understand Andrews without this organsised language written in a comprehensible way, life itself cannot exist.

In his book Andrews says that in the same way that that if a monkey started to type random letters on a computer key board - it would never in a million years produce the works of Shakespeare, this advanced language could never be written by accident - it needed a designer: "I was brought up to believe the duck theorum - 'if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it is probably ... a duck'. That is why I have problems with people who
(1) admit that nature gives every evidence of being intelligently designed;
(2) introduces an alternative materialistic explanation for the appearance of design; and then
(3) without further discussion conclude that only their alternative explanation can be true.

Meet the neo duckians, whose logic demands that 'if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is indubitably a chicken.' Such are those who tell us that the cell's molecular language is merely an acident of nature. We have seen that storage and use of information in the living cell exhibits many, if not all, the characteristics of human language.

Let's set this out clearly: 1. As in human language the cell employs a code, specifically a four symbol alphabet. 2. As in human language, the cell organises its symbols into words (codons) 3. As in human language, the words have an agreed meaning so they can be recognised by the ribosomes and 'translated' into an alternative amino acid 'language'. 4. As in human languages, punctuation is used to demarcate genes. 5. As in human language, words are organised into instructions that specify which one of many possible proteins is to be made by copying a given gene. 6. As in human language, the cells language has a purpose - namely to construct protein sequences that will fold in specific ways to provide functional keys and catalysts to operate the cell.

In other words, the molecular information system in living cells not only resembles a language - it is a language and it looks remarkably like intelligent design." But it isn't any intelligent designer that Andrews is proposing but more specifically no other than the Creator God of the Bible. In his brilliant book which throughout argues a hypothesis for the God of the Bible he states that we shouldn't be surprised that life requires such an advanced language to exist. After all the Bible is quite clear that God spoke his creation into existance!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Neil

I believe you were at Teeside Uni? (or Poly I suppose it was back then?) What did you study? Science, per chance? I suspect not!

Draw a circle, put three dots in it arranged in a triangle, roughly in the top half of the circle. Now draw a semi circle beneath the three dots and you end up with what many would call a face. Of course it isn't, it is just lines on paper - but such is the human mind that it tries and imposes an order on something, even if there is no order there (it is how optical illusions work).

Reading the above seems, to use a technical theological term, a case of grasping at straws. Surely the Bible is either correct or it's not? One minute you're 'dissing' evolutionists, the next minute you're grasping at a sliver of hope that genes and things are all proof of God the creator.

Even if there IS an intelligent designer, it doesn't necessarily mean 'your' God does it? It could be Allah, or Vishnu - indeed the creator myths of other religions have more about them that fits in with the above than the Bronze Age fairy stories in Genesis.

Nice try with the above, but I think you are trying to convince yourself, rather than anyone else!

Regards!
Anon 1:

(who sugested a website for me to go on. Sorry I have learnt not to go on to websites suggested by anonimous people's - they have got me into trouble
Anon2

Perhaps you should read the whole book before siggesting that it is "a case of grasping at straws".

Edgar Andrews doesn't seem to be a 'grasping at straws kind of person'. His book is thorough and his reputation is world renowned. Andrews seems far more iformed than the atheist king Dawkins. Andrews is an internationally renowned expert on the science of large molecules, Professor of Materials at the University of London, he set up the depratment of Materials at the university of London and is often called upon as an expert scientific witness in court cases. This iscertainly not a kind of man that clutches at straws and I personally although not a scientist do not need to to do so! God bless. Neil
Edgar Andrews said…
Many thanks Neil for both citing and defending my book "Who made God?". Just one tiny correction ... the 'words' in the DNA 'language' are codons as correctly stated on p.187 of the book, not "CONDONS". Just a misprint, of course, but it's the kind of thing opponents will pick up when they claim that Bible-believers are ignorant!
Edgar
Thanks for this - 'condons' have become 'codons'.

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