from a Ted Talk; dbl click to enlarge snapshot
Let’s start at the beginning
Werner Gitt worked and researched at the Institute of Control Engineering at the Technical University of Aachen. He received his PhD suma cum laude in only 2 years. He became the Director and Professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology. He has written numerous scientific papers in the field of information science, mathematics, and control engineering.
In 1994 he wrote “In the Beginning was Information”, and in 1997 it was translated into English.
The book is a rigorous, technical analysis of what information is, different kinds of information, and how they arise. The main theme is that information does not come from matter. It can only come from an intelligent source. (The Creator)
The physical medium that carries and codes for the information is not the information. If a thought or idea is written with symbols like letters and words and sentences with paper and ink, the intelligence is not in the paper and ink. The source of the information or intelligence is the writer.
Morse Code is sent with dots and dashes. The message is not in the dots or the dashes themselves; they are just symbols. They would make no sense if they weren’t arranged in such an order as to convey a message. The source of the message is not in the dots; the source is the sender. Also, there would be no purpose in sending a message if there was no receiver, and the receiver needs to know the language of the sender. So sending and receiving information is a form of communication. Both the sender and the receiver have to have the intelligence to understand the language and the message.
In the same way, the information in a living cell is not in the molecules of DNA itself. The amino acids and nucleotides in a biological cell don’t have any intelligence of their own, but they are intelligently arranged and engineered for specific purposes to duplicate, grow, control, and maintain life.
How does a living cell know what to do? Where did the information in DNA come from? Where did the intelligence to create the language of the coded sequences come from? How does a cell know and understand that language?
The fairly new science of epigenetics is especially interested in how the information in DNA is engineered for control. Without intelligently engineered control, chaos would reign and the cell could not survive.
“Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence. Gene expression refers to how often or when proteins are created from the instructions within your genes. While genetic changes can alter which protein is made, epigenetic changes affect gene expression to turn genes “on” and “off.”” read whole article
2 minute video on epigenetics, cartoon style
another great description, in a short Ted Talk - watch Here
…for more details, here’s a 12 minute biology talk
The genome
When the human genome was first being mapped, DNA sequences that were recognized as coding for the production of proteins in the cell only accounted for less than 20% of the total DNA. The rest was considered “junk” because it didn’t have any known function. This fit in nicely with the theory of evolution because the apparently ‘useless’ DNA was presumed to be left over material from millions of years of random trial and error.
As more and more of the genome is starting to be understood, scientists are discovering that the so-called “junk” may actually be the most important part of the cell. What good is a gene that codes for protein if it doesn’t have instructions for when to produce and when not to produce? Take the bone in your big toe, for example. Genes need to be turned on or off; some permanently and some as the need arises, with perfect timing. Suppose the protein for that bone was produced, but the manufacturing process was never turned off? How would you like to have a big toe that was bigger than the whole rest of your body?
Information and intelligence
The previously unknown functions of most DNA are actually the brains, or intelligence, behind the information that makes us who we are. They are the controls that manage and direct the whole operation of the factories of our cells.
if Darwin only knew
In Darwin’s day, all that was known about our bio cells was that there was a cell wall, holding cytoplasm, with a nucleus. If he had had any idea of just how complex a living cell is, I think he would have thrown in the towell on his attempt to explain life without God, as if life could just appear all by itself like magic.
The more I study microbiology and epigenetics, the more fascinated I become. I hope to write next week about the beginning of a baby’s growth - how the embryo knows how to start converting stem cells into the specialized cells that are need for skin , bone, nerves, blood, etc, etc. Without research in epigenetics, we might observe what is happening in the embryo and be amazed by it, but we wouldn’t have a clue as to why or how the drama of scheduled and precisely timed events happen as a baby forms in the womb.
That was a scientific read. The OT King who was going to die but prayed for a longer life. Could God have changed some of his DNA coding to have done this? It would have been a miracle if he could do this. But He is God. I used to think and believe that the people in the USA were the smartest people but other people in the world are gifted with special drives and imaginations they use to discover things that I don't think people in the USA are even aware of. Good read even if I understood little of it. Keep going to alert people and open the eyes of the younger scientist minded people to search deeper.