Creation/evolution and DNA?

Question

what does creation say about DNA and what does evolution say about DNA???

Answer 1

Both sides accept the existence of DNA, and its function as the basis for inheritance.

Neither side says anything much about the *origins* of DNA. Creationism holds that God created *everything*, and therefore God created DNA ... but this really doesn't say anything substantial (i.e. it doesn't actually *explain* anything) ... much less anything scientific (as in testable). Evolution holds that DNA may be the result of evolution from an RNA-only based inheritance system ... but this is just in the hypothesis stage at this point. Stay tuned. But for the most part, evolution is not as concerned with the *origins* of DNA, but with the *changes* in DNA over time.

Both sides look to DNA for *evidence* of their respective viewpoints.

Creationists typically use DNA in two ways. First, as a way of *quantifying* improbabilities. However, these arguments have always turned out to be shoddy logic. For example, they will take the DNA of some existing organism (sometimes some simple virus, sometimes a human being), point out (correctly) the *huge* numbers of nucleotides represented by that DNA, and then conclude (incorrectly) that such a combination is so improbable that it could not have come about by randomness and so this "proves" that evolution is impossible. The incorrect leap of logic is (1) assuming that *ONLY* one such combination will do; (2) forgetting that any existing organism is the result of about 4 *billion* years of NON-random natural selection.

The second DNA-related argument used constantly by creationists is to recognize DNA as a carrier of information, and then simply declare that "mutations cannot produce new information." This again is an example of taking a small (correct) step followed by large (incorrect) leaps in logic. The correct step is in recognizing DNA as a carrier of information. The missing step is defining what they actually *MEAN* by "new information." And the incorrect step is failing to recognize that while *individual* mutations may not produce new information (depending on what you mean by "new information"), a series of several mutations ... perhaps generations apart ... *CAN* produce new information by ANY definition of that term.

On the other side, evolution theory uses DNA as evidence of *shared* genetics, and therefore *shared* ancestry. In other words, the same techniques that can establish shared ancestry between two people known to be related to each other ... also works between any two people anywhere on the planet (it allows us to pinpoint how far back their common ancestor lived) ... or between any two members of *ANY* species ... or between any two individuals of any two *DIFFERENT* species.

In other words, the more recent the common ancestry between any two living individuals (human or not), the more the DNA in common. This is not just a percentage of shared DNA ... but entire sequences that are letter-for-letter identical. The key point is that this relationship does not stop at the species boundary!

A second *huge* piece of DNA evidence in favor of evolution is "junk DNA." This is DNA that doesn't actually code for anything. First, there is *so much* of it ... as much as 98% of our DNA has no function ... a small amount of useless DNA could be the result of random mutations over the last few thousand years ... but the fact that *most* DNA is unused is evidence of millions of years of accumulated mutations that have long lost any function. The second point is that this "junk DNA" is also *shared* ... in many cases letter-for-letter ... between species.

Creationism simply cannot explain why many species would share the same junk DNA ... letter-for-letter ... when that information serves no purpose for *any* of those species. Evolution explains it beautifully ... the shared junk DNA is there because it was *inherited from a common ancestor*.

Bottom line ... both sides talk about DNA. But the more you know about DNA, the more likely you are to be an evolution supporter. People with nothing but high-school Biology have about an even split between Creationism and Evolution. People with some college-level Biology, or even a bachelor-level degree in it have a much higher support for evolution. To the point that anyone with a PhD in any biological field, is almost guaranteed to be an evolution supporter (support is about 98% to 99% among biologists and geneticists).

Answer 2

I don't know what creation says about DNA. And I honestly don't care, because creationism isn't science, unless you mean a science that also includes astrological readings, ghosts, and rain dances.

Evolution rests on three things: a) that living organisms have the capacity to reproduce; b) that the genetic information (DNA) of organisms can change (mutate); and c) that these genetic changes are carried through a population on the basis of natural selection forces.

In other words, evolution doesn't really say anything about DNA, but uses what is already known about DNA to help explain the variety and amount of life on Earth.

Edit:
Don't confuse information with design. Or with meaning. I could find information in the molecular arrangement of chocolate chip cookie dough, but it could mean anything I want it to mean, and it probably wasn't designed that way.

Answer 3

Evolution says that DNA is the mechanism for inheritance in most organisms, and that changes in the DNA (in the genes) result in phenotypic changes which can be inherited by offspring. Some of these changes will be advantageous, and will be selected for by environmental pressures, resulting in a change in frequency across a population as generations proceed: evolution by natural selection.

However - I'm guessing you are actually asking what these viewpoints say about how DNA came into being? If so, then evolution says nothing, because evolution is not the study of the origin of life, but how it changes (and has changed).

Answer 4

Creation point of view:

Life is more than just physics and chemistry; life is built on information. Tightly coiled up inside the center of every cell, this information is contained in that molecule of heredity, called “DNA” which has a digital code inscribed alone its spine.

Now, information is something different from matter and energy. For example, a book contains information, but the paper and ink are not the information—they can only transmit it.

Life is an information-based process in which the DNA contained within each cell is based on a genetic language using four nucleotide bases. It has been estimated that if transcribed into English, the DNA in the human genome would fill a 300-volume set of encyclopedias of approximately 2,000 pages each.

And, of course, an order of letters is meaningless unless there is a language system and a translation system already in place that makes it meaningful. The language system that reads the order of the molecules in the DNA is itself specified by the DNA. And so you have another one of the chicken-and-egg problems for evolutionists. There are so many of these “machines” (if you will) that must already be in existence and fully formed, or life won’t work.

It has also been said that if the amount of information in just a pinhead volume of DNA was written into paperback books, it would make a pile 500 times the distance from here to the moon. The knowledge currently stored in all of the libraries of the world would only take up about 1% of that. Living things have by far the most compact information storage and retrieval system in the known universe.

And we know from experience: If you have a computer program, you need a computer programer. Any time we find information, whether it is in the form of a hieroglyphic inscription or a newspaper article, there was invariably an intelligent agent behind that information.

Evolutionists have not been able to explain the origin of information in cells; information has not been shown to spontaneously arise from matter and energy. The existence of the information can only be explained through a pre-existing intelligence that put it there.

Dr. Werner Gitt (an information scientist who was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology) said, “A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor) … It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required ...There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.”

I think we can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must have originally come from an intelligence, which had to have been far superior to ours, as scientists are revealing every day.

When being interviewed by Tavis Smiley, Dr. Stephen Meyer said, “There are developments in some technical fields, complexity and information sciences, that actually enable us to distinguish the results of intelligence as a cause from natural processes. When we run those modes of analysis on the information in DNA, they kick out the answer, ‘Yeah, this was intelligently designed’ . . . There is actually a science of design detection and when you analyze life through the filters of that science, it shows that life was intelligently designed.”

Oh, and take a look at what these websites have to say against what secretsauce is pontificating:
http://www.trueorigin.org
http://www.answersingenesis.org

Answer 5

Creation says that DNA (humans) was created by God.

Evolution says that DNA is the result of billions of years of mutations which started with nothing and resulted in very complex creatures.

I like to think that there is a good middle ground. A non-earthly being, through direct manipulation, guided our evolution.

Answer 6

Creationists would say that DNA is fixed and does not change. Evolutionists would show exactly how DNA changes through time, including mutations.

Answer 7

Creation says that a divine being capable of ID wrote the genetic codes on DNA. It is too complicated and mathematically impossible for it to have just happened.

The religion of evolution says with blind faith, that it just happened trillions upon trillions of times over and over. That is a lot of faith

Answer 8

It is late and I am tired, so go here and you will see the creationist incoherence refuted by evolutionary scientists.

http://www.talkorigins.org