Chapter 8a:
DNA & Protein
Why DNA and Protein could not
be Produced by Random ChanceThis chapter is based on pp. 265-313 of Origin of the Life (Volume Two of our three-volume Evolution Disproved Series). Not included in this chapter are at least 110 statements by scientists. You will find them, plus much more, on our website: evolutionfacts.com.
One of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century was the discovery of the DNA molecule. It has had a powerful effect on biological research. It has also brought quandary and confusion to evolutionist scientists. If they cared to admit the full implications of DNA, it would also bring total destruction to their theory.
This chapter goes hand in hand with the previous one. In that chapter (Primitive Environment), we learned that earthly surroundings—now or earlier—could never permit the formation of living creatures from non-living materials. This present chapter will primarily discuss the DNA code, and the components of protein—and will show that each are so utterly complicated as to defy any possibility that they could have been produced by chance events.
Yet random actions are the only kind of occurrences which evolutionists tell us have ever been used to accomplish the work of evolution.
The significance of all this is immense. Because of the barrier of the multi-billion DNA code, not only was it impossible for life to form by accident,—it could never thereafter evolve into new and different species! Each successive speciation change would require highly exacting code to be in place on the very first day of its existence as a unique new species.
As with a number of other chapters in this book, this one chapter alone is enough to completely annihilate evolutionary theory in regard to the origin or evolution of life.
1 - DNA AND ITS CODE
GREGOR MENDEL—(*#1/7 Gregor Mendel’s Monumental Discovery*) It was Mendel’s monumental work with genetics in the mid-19th century that laid the foundation for all modern research work in genetics. The complete story will be found on our website.
YOUR BODY’S BLUEPRINT—(*#2 The Story of DNA*) Each of us starts off as a tiny sphere no larger than a dot on this page. Within that microscopic ball there is over six feet of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), all coiled up. Inside that DNA is the entire code for what you will become,—all your organs and all your features.
The DNA itself is strung out within long coiling strips. DNA is the carrier of the inheritance code in living things. It is like a microscopic computer with a built-in memory. DNA stores a fantastic number of "blueprints," and at the right time and place issues orders for distant parts of the body to build its cells and structures.
You have heard of "genes" and "chromosomes." Inside each cell in your body is a nucleus. Inside that nucleus are, among other complicated things, chromosomes. Inside the chromosomes are genes. The genes are attached to chromosomes like beads on a chain. Inside the genes is the complicated chemical structure we call DNA. Each gene has a thousand or more such DNA units within it. Inside each cell are tens of thousands of such genes, grouped into 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Inside the DNA is the total of all the genetic possibilities for a given species. This is called the gene pool of genetic traits. It is also called the genome. That is all the traits your species can have; in contrast, the specific sub-code for YOU is the genotype, which is the code for all the possible inherited features you could have. The genotype is the individual’s code; the genome applies to populations, the entire species.
(For clarification, it should be mentioned here that the genotype includes all the features you could possibly have in your body, but what you will actually have is called the phenotype. This is because there are many unexpressed or recessive characters in the genotype that do not show up in the phenotype. For example, you may have had both blue and brown eye color in your genotype from your ancestors, but your irises will normally only show one color.)
COILED STRIPS—(*#3/33 The Origin of DNA*) Your own DNA is scattered all through your body in about 100 thousand billion specks, which is the average number of living cells in a human adult. What does this DNA look like? It has the appearance of two intertwined strips of vertical tape that are loosely coiled about each other. From bottom to top, horizontal rungs or stairs reach across from one tape strip to the other. Altogether, each DNA molecule is something like a spiral staircase.
The spiraling sides in the DNA ladder are made of complicated sugar and phosphate compounds, and the crosspieces are nitrogen compounds. It is the arrangement of the chemical sequence in the DNA that contains the needed information.
The code within each DNA cell is complicated in the extreme! If you were to put all the coded DNA instructions from just ONE single human cell into English, it would fill many large volumes, each volume the size of an unabridged dictionary!
DOUBLE-STRANDED HELIX—Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a double-stranded helix found within the chromosomes, which are located inside the nucleus of every living cell. The molecule consists of just four nucleotide units, one containing adenine, one guanine, one cytosine, and one either thymine (in DNA) or uracil (in RNA). The sides of the helix consist of alternating deoxyribose sugars and phosphates.
The illustration on page 244 shows the strange shape of DNA. It has that shape because it must fit inside the chromosome. It does this by squashing an immense length into the tiny chromosome. It could not do this if it did not have a twisted shape. The four illustrations show progressively smaller views of a DNA molecule and what is in it.
DIVIDING DNA—DNA has a very special way of dividing and combining. The ladder literally "unhooks" and "rehooks." When cells divide, the DNA ladder splits down the middle. There are then two single vertical strands, each with half of the rungs. Both now duplicate themselves instantly—and there are now two complete ladders, where a moment before there was but one! Each new strip has exactly the same sequence that the original strip of DNA had.
This process of division can occur at the amazing rate of 1000 base pairs per second! If DNA did not divide this quickly, it could take 10,000 years for you to grow from that first cell to a newborn infant.
Human cells can divide more than 50 times before dying. When they do die, they are immediately replaced. Every minute 3 billion cells die in your body and are immediately replaced.
THE BASE CODE—(*#7 Coding in the Information*) The human body has about 100 trillion cells. In the nucleus of each cell are 46 chromosomes. In the chromosomes of each cell are about 10 billion of those DNA ladders. Scientists call each spiral ladder a DNA molecule; they also call them base pairs. It is the sequence of chemicals within these base pairs that provides the instructional code for your body. That instructional code oversees all your heredity and many of your metabolic processes.
Without your DNA, you could not live. Without its own DNA, nothing else on earth could live. Within each DNA base pair is a most fantastic information file. A-T-C-T-G-G-G-T-C-T-A-A-T-A, and on and on, is the code for one creature. T-G-C-T-C-A-A-G-A-G-T-G-C-C, and on and on, will begin the code for another. Each code continues on for millions of "letter" units. Each unit is made of a special chemical.
The DNA molecule is shaped like a coiled ladder, which the scientists describe as being in the shape of a "double-stranded helix." Using data from a woman researcher (which they did not acknowledge), *Watson and *Crick "discovered" the structure of DNA.
UTTER COMPLEXITY—In order to form a protein, the DNA molecule has to direct the placement of amino acids in a certain specific order in a molecule made up of hundreds of thousands of units. For each position, it must choose the correct amino acid from some twenty different amino acids. DNA itself is made up of only four different building blocks (A, G, C, and T). These are arranged in basic code units of three factors per unit (A-C-C, G-T-A, etc.). This provides 64 basic code units. With them, millions of separate codes can be sequentially constructed. Each code determines one of the many millions of factors in your body, organs, brain, and all their functions. If just one code were omitted, you would be in serious trouble.
AN ASTOUNDING CLAIM—The evolutionists applied their theory to the amazing discoveries about DNA—and came up with a totally astonishing claim:
All the complicated DNA in each life form, and all the DNA in every other life form—made itself out of dirty water back in the beginning! There was some gravel around, along with some dirt. Nearby was some water, and overhead a lightning storm. The lightning hit the dirty water and made living creatures complete with DNA. They not only had their complete genetic code, but they were also immediately able to eat, digest food, move about, perform enzymatic and glandular functions, and all the rest.
Instantly, they automatically knew how to produce additional cells; their DNA began dividing (cells must continually replenish themselves or the creature quickly dies); their cells began making new ones; and every new cell could immediately do the myriad of functions that the entire creature must do.
That same stroke of lightning made both a male and a female pair and their complete digestive, respiratory, and circulatory organs. It provided them with complete ability to produce offspring and they, in turn, more offspring. That same stroke of lightning also made their food, with all its own DNA, male and female pairs, etc., etc.
And that, according to this children’s story, is where we all came from! But it is a story that only very little children would find believable.
"Laboratory experiments show that the basic building blocks of life, the proteins and organic molecules, form pretty easily in environments that have both carbon and water."—*Star Date Radio Broadcast, January 24, 1990.
In this chapter, we will not consider most of the above claims. Instead, we will primarily focus on the DNA and protein in each cell within each living creature.
TRANSLATION PACKAGE NEEDED AT BEGINNING—The amount of information in the genetic code is so vast that it would be impossible to put together by chance. But, in addition, there must be a means of translating it so the tissues can use the code.
"Did the code and the means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost incredible that any such coincidences could have occurred, given the extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre-Darwinian (or a skeptic of evolution after Darwin) this puzzle surely would have been interpreted as the most powerful sort of evidence for special creation."—*C. Haskins, "Advances and Challenges in Science" in American Scientist 59 (1971), pp. 298.
Not only did the DNA have to originate itself by random accident, but the translation machinery already had to be produced by accident—and also immediately! Without it, the information in the DNA could not be applied to the tissues. Instant death would be the result.
"The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell’s translation machinery consists of at least fifty macromolecular components which are themselves encoded in DNA [!]; the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo [‘every living thing comes from an egg’]. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine."—*J. Monod, Chance and Necessity (1971), p. 143.
This translation package has also been termed an "adapter function." Without a translator, the highly complex coding contained within the DNA molecule would be useless to the organism.
"The information content of amino acid sequences cannot increase until a genetic code with an adapter function has appeared. Nothing which even vaguely resembles a code exists in the physio-chemical world. One must conclude that no valid scientific explanation of the origin of life exists at present."—*H. Yockey, "Self Organization Origin of Life Scenarios and Information Theory," in Journal of Theoretical Biology 91 (1981), p. 13.
"Cells and organisms are also informed [intelligently designed and operated] life-support systems. The basic component of any informed system is its plan. Here, argues the creationist, an impenetrable circle excludes the evolutionist. Any attempt to form a model or theory of the evolution of the genetic code is futile because that code is without function unless, and until, it is translated, i.e., unless it leads to the synthesis of proteins. But the machinery by which the cell translates the code consists of about seventy components which are themselves the product of the code."—*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 147 [emphasis his].
DESIGNING CODES—*Sir Arthur Keith, a prominent anatomist of the 1930s (and co-producer of the Piltdown man hoax), said: "We do not believe in the theory of Special Creation because it is incredible." But life itself and all its functions and designs are incredible. And each true species has its own unique designs. A single living cell may contain one hundred thousand million atoms, but each atom will be arranged in a specific order.
Yet all this is based on design, and design requires intelligence—in this case an extremely high order of intelligence. Man’s most advanced thinking and planning has produced airplanes, rockets, personal computers, and flight paths around the moon. But none of this was done by accident. Careful thought and structuring was required. Design blueprints were carefully crafted into products.
The biological world is packed with intricate, cooperative mechanisms that depend on encoded and detailed instructions for their development and interacting function. But complexity, and the coding it is based on, does not evolve. Left to themselves, all things become more random and disorganized. The more complex the system, the more elaborate the design needed to keep it operating and resisting the ever-pressing tendency to decay and deterioration.
DNA and other substances like it are virtually unknown outside living cells. Astoundingly, they produce cells and are products of cells; yet they are not found outside of cells. DNA is exclusively a product of the cell; we cannot manufacture it. The closest we can come to this is to synthesize simple, short chains of mononucleotide RNA—and that is as far as we can go, in spite of all our boasted intelligence and million-dollar well-supplied, well-equipped laboratories.
MESSENGER RNA—Special "messenger RNA" molecules are needed. Without them, DNA is useless in the body. Consider the story of s-RNA:
"The code in the gene (which is DNA, of course) is used to construct a messenger RNA molecule in which is encoded the message necessary to determine the specific amino acid sequence of the protein.
"The cell must synthesize the sub-units (nucleotides) for the RNA (after first synthesizing the sub-units for each nucleotide, which include the individual bases and the ribose). The cell must synthesize the sub-units, or amino acids, which are eventually polymerized to form the protein. Each amino acid must be activated by an enzyme specific for that amino acid. Each amino acid is then combined with another type of RNA, known as soluble RNA or s-RNA.
"There is a specific s-RNA for each individual amino acid. There is yet another type of RNA known as ribosomal RNA. Under the influence of the messenger RNA, the ribosomes are assembled into units known as polyribosomes. Under the direction of the message contained in the messenger RNA while it is in contact with polyribosomes, the amino acid-s-RNA complexes are used to form a protein. Other enzymes and key molecules are required for this.
"During all of this, the complex energy-producing apparatus of the cell is used to furnish the energy required for the many syntheses."—Duane T. Gish, "DNA: Its History and Potential, "in W.E. Lemmerts (ed.), Scientific Studies in Special Creation (1971), p. 312.
THE LIVING COMPUTER—DNA and its related agencies operate dramatically like an advanced computer.
"All this is strikingly similar to the situation in the living cell. For discs or tapes substitute DNA; for ‘words’ substitute genes; and for ‘bits’ (a bit is an electronic representation of ‘yes’ or ‘no’) substitute the bases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine."—*Fred Hoyle and *C. Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 106.
Everywhere we turn in the cell we find the most highly technical computerization. Electrical polarity is a key in the DNA. This is positive and negative electrical impulses, found both in the DNA and about the cell membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus. The result is a binary system, similar to what we find in the most advanced computers in the world, but far more sophisticated and miniaturized. In computer science, a "byte" is composed of eight bits and can hold 256 different binary patterns, enough to equal most letters or symbols. A byte therefore stands for a letter or character. In biology the equivalent is three nucleotides called a codon. The biological code (within DNA) is based on these triplet patterns, as *Crick and *Brenner first discovered. This triad is used to decide which amino acid will be used for what purpose.
THE BIOLOGICAL COMPILER—The code in both plants and animals is DNA, but DNA is chemically different from the amino acids, which it gives orders to make. This code also decides which of the 20 essential proteins (proteins your body must have to survive) the amino acids will then form themselves into. There is an intermediate substance between DNA and the amino acids and proteins. That mediating substance is t-RNA. But now the complexity gets worse: Each of the 20 essential proteins requires a different intermediate t-RNA! Each one works specifically to perform its one function; and chemically, each t-RNA molecule is unlike each of the other t-RNA molecules.
The biological compiler that accomplishes these code tasks is m-RNA. It changes DNA code language into a different language that the cells can understand—so they can set about producing the right amino acids and proteins. Without these many m-DNA molecules, the entire code and what it should produce would break down.
DNA INDEXING—Information that is inaccessible is useless, even though it may be very complete. Every computer requires a data bank. Without it, needed information cannot be retrieved and used. Large computer data banks have libraries of disc storage, but they require an index to use them. Without the index, the computer will not know where to look to find the needed information.
DNA is a data bank of massive proportions, but indexes are also needed. These are different from the translators. There are non-DNA chemicals, which work as indexes to specifically locate needed information. The DNA and the indexes reciprocate; information is cycled around a feedback loop. The index triggers the production of materials by DNA. The presence of these materials, in turn, triggers indexing to additional productions. On a higher level of systems (nervous, muscular, hormonal, circulatory, etc.), additional indexes are to be found. The utter complication of all this is astounding. The next time you cut your finger, think of all the complex operations required for the body to patch it up.
CELL SWITCHING—"What is most important; what should be done next?" Computers function by following a sequential set of instructions. "First do this, and then do that," they are told, and in response they then switch from one subroutine to another. But how does the cell switch its DNA from one process to another? No one can figure this out.
"In bacteria, for example, Jacob and Monod demonstrated a control system that operates by switching off ‘repressor’ molecules, i.e., unmasking DNA at the correct ‘line number’ to read off the correct (polypeptide) subroutines. With eukaryotes [a common type of bacteria], Britten and Davidson have tentatively suggested that ‘sensor genes’ react to an incoming stimulus and cause the production of RNA. This, in turn, activates a ‘producer gene,’ m-RNA is synthesized and the required protein eventually assembled as a ribosome. Many DNA base sequences may thus be involved, not in protein or RNA production, but in control over that production—in switching the right sequences on or off at the right time."—*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 124.
THE FIVE CHEMICALS IN DNA AND RNA—DNA is an extremely complex chemical molecule. Where did it come from? How did it form itself back in the beginning? How can it keep making copies of itself? There are two kinds of bases in the DNA code: purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (thymine or, in RNA, uracil; and cytosine). Where did these five chemicals come from? Charlie, you never told us the origin of the species; now help us figure out the origin of DNA!
Do you desire fame and fortune? If you want a Nobel prize, figure out how to synthesize all five DNA chemicals. If you want a major place in history, figure out how to make living, functioning DNA. If sand and seawater are supposed to have done it, our highly trained scientists ought to be able to do it too.
Scientists eventually devised complicated ways in expensive laboratories to synthesize dead compounds of four of these five, using rare materials such as hydrogen cyanide or cyanoacetylene. (Thymine remains unsynthesizable.) Sugar can be made in the laboratory, but the phosphate group is extremely difficult. In the presence of calcium ions, found in abundance in oceans and rivers, the phosphate ion is precipitated out. Enzymes in life forms catalyze the task, but how could enzymatic action occur outside of plants or animals? It would not happen.
Then there are the polynucleotide strands that have to be formed in exactly the fit needed to neatly wrap about the DNA helix molecule. A 100 percent exact fit is required. But chemists seem unable to produce much in the way of synthesized polynucleotides, and they are totally unable to make them in predetermined sizes and shapes. (*D. Watts, "Chemistry and the Origin of Life," in Life on Earth, Vol. 4, 1980, p. 21).
If university-trained scientists, working in multimillion-dollar equipped and stocked laboratories, cannot make DNA and RNA, how can random action of sand and dirty water produce it in the beginning?
NON-RANDOM: ONLY FROM INTELLIGENCE—Non-random information is what is found in the genetic code. But such information is a proof that the code came from an intelligent Mind.
Those searching for evidence of life in outer space have been instructed to watch for non-random signals as the best evidence that intelligent people live out there. Ponnamperuma says that such a "non-random pattern" would demonstrate intelligent extraterrestrial origin (*C. Ponnamperuma, The Origins of Life, 1972, p. 195). *CarI Sagan adds that a message with high information content would be "an unambiguously artificial [intelligently produced] interstellar message" (*Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980, p. 314).
"To involve purpose is in the eyes of biologists the ultimate scientific sin . . The revulsion which biologists feel to the thought that purpose might have a place in the structure of biology is therefore revulsion to the concept that biology might have a connection to an intelligence higher than our own."—*Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 32.
EACH CHARACTERISTIC CONTROLLED BY MANY GENES—The more the scientists have studied genetics, the worse the situation becomes. Instead of each gene controlling many different factors in the body, geneticists have discovered that many different genes control each factor! Because of this, it would thus be impossible for the basic DNA code to gradually "evolve." The underlying DNA code had to be there "all at once"; and once in place, that code could never change!
"However it gradually emerged that most characteristics, even simple ones, are regulated by many genes: for instance, fourteen genes affect eye color in Drosophila. (Not only that. The mutation which suppresses ‘purple eye’ enhances ‘hairy wing,’ for instance. The mechanism is not understood.) Worse still, a single gene may influence several different characters. This was particularly bad news for the selectionists, of course . . In 1966 Henry Harris of London University demonstrated, to everyone’s surprise, that as much as 30 per cent of all characters are polymorphic [that is, each character controlled several different factors instead of merely one]. It seemed unbelievable, but his work was soon confirmed by Richard Lewontin and others."—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 165-166.
(A clarification is needed here about the basic DNA code in a true species which never changes: Chapter 11, Animal and Plant Species, will explain how the DNA gene pool within a given true species can be broad enough to produce hybrids or varieties. This is why there are so many different types of dogs or why some birds, when isolated on an island—such as Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos—can produce bills of different length. This is why there are two shades of peppered moth and various resistant forms of bacteria.)
In order to make the evolutionary theory succeed, the total organic complexity of an entire species somehow had to be invented long ago by chance,—and it had to do it fast, too fast—within seconds, or the creature would immediately die!
2 - MATHEMATICAL POSSIBILITIES OF DNA
SCIENTIFIC NOTATION—This is a number plus a small superscript numeral. Using it, small numbers can be written to denote numbers that are so immense that they are incomprehensible and can only with difficulty be written out. Thus, 8 trillion (8,000,000,000,000) would be written 8 x 1012, and 1 billion (1,000,000,000) would be written simply as 109. Here are a few comparisons to show you the impossible large size of such numbers:
Hairs on an average head 2 x 106
Seconds in a year 3 x 107
Retirement age (0 to 65) in seconds 2 x l09
World population 5 x 109
Miles [1.6 km] in a light-year 6 x 1010
Sand grains on all shores 1022
Observed stars 1022
Water drops in all the oceans 1026
Candle power of the sun 3 x 1027
Electrons in the universe 1080
It is said that any number larger than 2 x 1030 cannot occur in nature. In the remainder of this chapter, we will look at some immense numbers!
MATH LOOKS AT DNA—(*#4/37 More Mathematical Impossibilities*) In the world of living organisms, there can be no life or growth without DNA. What are the mathematical possibilities (in mathematics, they are called probabilities) of JUST ONE DNA molecule having formed itself by the chance?
"Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene in its complexity must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.
"A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1000 links could exist in 4x101000 different forms.
"Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41000 is equivalent to 10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 10 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension."—*Frank Salisbury, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher, September 1971, pp. 336-338.
So the number of possible code combinations for an average DNA molecule is a fabulously large number! That is not 4000 (4 followed by 3 zeros), but 4 times itself a thousand times—or a little more than 10602! How could random action produce the right combination out of that many possibilities for error?
LIFE REQUIRED—In addition to DNA, many other materials, such as proteins, enzymes, carbohydrates, fats, etc., would have to be instantly made at the same time. The beating heart, the functioning kidneys, the circulatory vessels, etc. They would all need to be arranged within the complicated structure of an organism,—and then they would have to be endued with LIFE!
Without LIFE, none of the raw materials, even though arranged in proper order, would be worth anything.
One does not extract life from pebbles, dirt, water, or a lightning bolt. Lightning destroys life; it does not make it.
GOLEY’S MACHINE—A communications engineer tried to figure out the odds for bringing a non-living organism with few parts (only 1500) up to the point of being able to reproduce itself.
"Suppose we wanted to build a machine capable of reaching into bins for all of its parts, and capable of assembling from those parts a second machine just like itself."—*Marcel J.E. Goley, "Reflections of a Communications Engineer," in Analytical Chemistry, June 1961, p. 23.
Likening a living organism to a machine that merely reached out and selected parts needed to make a duplicate of itself, Goley tried to figure the odds for 1,500 needed items—requiring 1,500 right choices in a row. Many different parts would be needed, and Goley assumed they would all be lying around near that manufacturing machine! Goley assumes that its mechanical arm will have only a 50-50 chance of error in reaching out and grabbing the right piece! Such a ratio (1,500 50.50 choices) would be impossible for the randomness of chance ("natural selection") to produce. Goley then figures the odds based on such a one-in-two success rate of reaches. But if such a high rate of accurate selection were possible, Goley discovered there was only one chance in 10450 that the machine could succeed in reproducing itself! That is 1 followed by 450 zeros! The more it tried to reproduce itself, the further it would get from success.
Far smaller are all the words in all the books ever published. They would only amount to 1020, and that would be equivalent to only 66 of those 1,500 50-50 choices all made correctly in succession!
TOO MANY NUCLEOTIDES—Just the number of nucleotides alone in DNA would be too many for Goley’s machine calculations. There are not 1,500 parts but multiplied thousands of factors, of which the nucleotides constitute only one.
(1) There are 5,375 nucleotides in the DNA of an extremely small bacterial virus (theta-x-174). (2) There are about 3 million nucleotides in a single cell bacteria. (3) There are more than 16,000 nucleotides in a human mitochondrial DNA molecule. (4) There are approximately 3 billion nucleotides in the DNA of a mammalian cell. (People and many animals are mammals.)
Technically, a "nucleotide" is a complex chemical structure composed of a (nucleic acid) purine or pyrimidine, one sugar (usually ribose or deoxyribose), and a phosphoric group. Each one of those thousands of nucleotides within each DNA is aligned sequentially in a very specific order! Imagine 3 billion complicated chemical links, each of which has to be in a precisely correct sequence!
NOT POSSIBLE BY CHANCE—Many similar mathematical comparisons could be made. The point is that chance cannot produce what is in a living organism—not now, not ever before, not ever in the future. It just cannot be done.
And even if the task could be successfully completed, when it was done, that organism still would not be alive! Putting stuff together in the right combination does not produce life.
And once made, it would have to have an ongoing source of water, air, and living food continually available as soon as it evolved into life. When the evolutionist’s organism emerged from rock, water, and a stroke of lightning hitting it on the head,—it would have to have its living food source made just as rapidly.
The problems and hurdles are endless.
"Based on probability factors . . any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.8 x 1050. Such a number, if written out, would read:
480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 1050 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the ‘benefit of the doubt’). Any species known to us, including ‘the smallest single-cell bacteria,’ have enormously larger numbers of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means, that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random mutations (to use the evolutionist’s favorite expression)."—*I.L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 205.
Wysong explains the requirements needed to code one DNA molecule. By this he means selecting out the proper proteins, all of them left handed, and then placing them in their proper sequence in the molecule—and doing it all by chance:
"This means 1/1089190 DNA molecules, on the average, must form to provide the one chance of forming the specific DNA sequence necessary to code the 124 proteins. 1089190 DNAs would weigh 1089147 times more than the earth, and would certainly be sufficient to fill the universe many times over. It is estimated that the total amount of DNA necessary to code 100 billion people could be contained in ½ of an aspirin tablet. Surely 1089147 times the weight of the earth in DNAs is a stupendous amount and emphasizes how remote the chance is to form the one DNA molecule. A quantity of DNA this colossal could never have formed."—R.L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy, p. 115.
A GEM OF A QUOTATION—Evolutionists claim that everything impossible can happen by the most random of chances,—simply by citing a large enough probability number. *Peter Mora explains to his fellow scientists the truth about evolutionary theorizing:
"A further aspect I should like to discuss is what I call the practice of avoiding the conclusion that the probability of a self-reproducing state is zero. This is what we must conclude from classical quantum mechanical principles, as Wigner demonstrated.
"These escape clauses [the enormous chance-occurrence numbers cited as proof by evolutionists that it could be done] postulate an almost infinite amount of time and an almost infinite amount of material (monomers), so that even the most unlikely event could have happened. This is to invoke probability and statistical considerations when such considerations are meaningless.
"When for practical purposes the condition of infinite time and matter has to be invoked [in order to make evolution succeed], the concept of probability [possibility of its occurrence] is annulled. By such logic we can prove anything, such as that no matter how complex, everything will repeat itself, exactly and innumerably."—*P.T. Mora, "The Folly of Probability," in *S.W. Fox (ed.), The Origins of Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices (1965), p. 45.