Evidence ID: BIO-EV10

Evidence: Unfathomable Biological Complexity

Summary: Peering into Darwin's "black box" has been an eye-opening experience for Neo-Darwinists. With recent discoveries in microbiology and genomics, scientists realize that constructing a plausible evolutionary theory is becoming more and more difficult. With the discovery of genetic and epigenetic information in the 20th century, one can only imagine what new layers of complexity will surface in years to come as biologists plumb the depths of our unfathomable biological world.

Description: Peering inside Darwin's "black box" has been regarded by many as a mind-blowing experience. While Darwin's view of the microbial world was rather simplistic and comprehensible, the structure of the genome is anything but simple and comprehensible.

In the past 150+ year, the field of microbiology has exploded with information. Research in biological information and body plan development has made tremendous strides forward in the fields of genetics [REF-GEN01] and epigenetics [REF-EPG01].

Peeling the Onion

As scientists continue to peer into Darwin's black box, they realize that any notion of a simple and comprehensible understanding is receding. The longer and deeper they look, the more complex things become.

In a recent roundtable discussion, mathematician David Berlinski painted a daunting picture of the state of scientific inquiry.

"Every time we look there’s an additional layer of complexity that emerges. Emergence of the complexity is hard to explain because we are continually behind the curve every time we look. The goal of constructing a plausible evolutionary theory is receding, becoming more and more difficult." [REF-HOV01]

Berlinski refers to this emerging complexity as combinatorial inflation because the number of combinations inflates dramatically as the number of characteristics in the sequence grows [BIO-EV02]. Essentially, the complexities of life are exponentially greater the Darwin could have imagined. Metaphorically speaking, biological inquiry is like "peeling an onion".

Genetics

The discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick was a milestone in the field of molecular biology. The double-stranded helix or twisted ladder of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) formed the basis of our understanding on how genetic information is stored. Their discovery rapidly gave way to other ground-breaking discoveries in heredity, protein synthesis, and cell reproduction.

With the evolution of DNA sequencing tools [REF-PACB01], microbiologists have been able to understand and quantify biological intelligence. What they found in the last 60+ years is astounding.

Every cell contains DNA genes in its nucleus. This is known as the nuclear genome. For humans, the nuclear genome is comprised of approximately 3,200,000,000 nucleotides pairs each consisting of two nucleic acids - Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), and Guanine (G). These nucleotides pairs are ordered into two connected strands to form a double helix. [REF-GEN01].

In 1990, an international committee known as the Human Genome Project was formed to sequence the human genome. It was not until 2003 that the committee was able to accurately specify the complete human genome [REF-HGP01].

Later in 2012, Cas Kramer and a group of scientists at the University of Leicester decided to print out the human genome [REF-UOL01]. The result was a 130-volume set color-coded by chromosome. Each page was printed on both sides in 4-point font, with approximately 43,000 characters per page. Each character represented a nucleotide base from the genetic alphabet A, T, C, and G.


Printed Human Genome - University of Leicester

Another analogy widely used to visualize the amount of biological information is the printed copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. For example, the amount of genetic information contained in a single dubia amoeba is equivalent to 1,000 printed sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Amazingly, the dubia amoeba genome contains 670,000,000,000 nucleotide pairs. This is 200 times greater than the human genome! [REF-DWK01]

Epigenetics and Beyond

During the mid-20th century biologists discovered that certain proteins act on DNA to determine how genes are decoded and used by cells [REF-SCM01] [REF-EPG01]. These epigenetic proteins represent additional biological information that govern the production of cells in the development of a body plan. This additional information is epigenetic and is not contained in the genome.

The main functions of these epigenetic proteins are to contextually decode DNA during the production of the different cells in the body plan and arrange and assemble the new cells into different body parts. These proteins also govern the sequence of cell and body plan production over time as the animal matures from an embryonic organism into full adulthood - a process is known as morphogenesis.

In 2003, MIT Press publish a collection of theoretical essays that describes the various types of epigenetic information [REF-MUL01]. This landmark publication legitimized epigenetics in the biological community as well as raised questions about its nature and origin.

More recently in 2015, the Nobel Prize was awarded to three chemists for their decades of DNA research [REF-NOB01]. Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar discovered that certain molecular systems within the cell are responsible for monitoring and repairing damaged DNA. These findings suggest that DNA is highly interdependent with other biological mechanisms, and at the same time, these biological systems are dependent on DNA for reproduction. This implies that both DNA and these supporting molecular systems must have come into existence simultaneously.

Essentially, this theoretical research calls into question the inadequacy of genetic information as it relates to developmental biology (vs. evolutionary biology).

These questions illustrate the deeper complexities of living organisms.

Many have likened biological intelligence to computer technology. Using this analogy, DNA is equivalent to computer data that specify the composition of body plans. While epigenetics is equivalent to computer algorithms that decode DNA to reproduce, sequence, and arrange body plans.

Observations

With the discovery of genetic and epigenetic information, one can only imagine what new layers of complexity will surface in years to come as biologists plumb the depths of our unfathomable world. Continued research will eventually unpack the mysteries of cognition, intellect, instinct, and the very essence of life itself, only to reveal that creation is far more complex than we can possibly imagine.

Michael Denton in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis acknowledges what most people intuitively know to be true.

"The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle." [REF-DEN01]

This unfathomable complexity poses a formidable challenge to Neo-Darwinists as they attempt to postulate credible theories to explain the intricacies of life. The more we discovery, the more the evidence challenges the orthodox Darwinian position.

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