Layers of Information

I’ve noted previously the September 2012 announcement by ENCODE – a worldwide collaboration of 450 top scientists – that most and likely all of our 3.2 billion letters of DNA code serves a purpose. That made the front page of newspapers worldwide. This week I want to focus on their lesser known but equally stunning announcement in December 2012 – DNA contains two layers of information.

How can chance build a code with more than one layer of information? Physicist Rob Sheldon is reminded of a Bach fugue that can be played by flipping the music upside-down on the music stand. That’s a highly designed, incredible piece of music.

There’s a good argument that layers of information are predicted by intelligent design. A designing, powerful intellect would want to make maximum use of the available space. Humans do this with phone, radio, and television frequencies, and many other places. Space is often limited, and we want to transmit as much information as possible in that space.

Other scientists have found evidence that our DNA contains even more information. Some studies show that the amount of information in a section of DNA is proportional to the cube of the length of DNA. According to these studies, twice as much DNA typically contains eight times as much information. That is mind-boggling design.

All of these findings contradict Darwin’s theory of unguided evolution; that our DNA code arose through natural selection acting on random mutations. Personally, I’m not aware of any Darwinist response to ENCODE’s announcement that DNA contains two layers of information. As Paul Simon put it, “A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”

Thanks for reading.