The Secret World of DNA
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In the manufacture or management of a technological product or plant, the greatest tool employed is the experience and accumulation of knowledge that man has acquired over many centuries. The necessary knowledge and experience needed for the construction of the human body, the most advanced and sophisticated 'plant' on earth, is stored in DNA. The important point to note here is that DNA has always existed since the first human being in all its present perfection and complexity. As you read the lines below, you will also come to see clearly how unreasonable it is to claim, as evolutionists do, that such a molecule, with all its mind-blowing structure and properties, originated as a result of coincidences.
DNA is delicately protected in the nucleus located in the center of the cell. When it is recalled that human cells – numbering up to 100 trillions – have an average diameter of 10 microns(A micron is 10 -6 m.), the smallness of the area in question is better understood. This miraculous molecule is a clear evidence of the perfection and extraordinary nature of God's art of creation. It is so much so that even a special branch of science has been set up to explore the secrets of this molecule, many of which still remain hidden. The name of this branch of science is "Genetics". Recognized as the science of the 21 st century, genetics is still in the phase of crawling, as far as solving the mystery of DNA is concerned, despite all the technological means at its disposal.
Life in the Nucleus
If we compare the human body to a building, the body's complete plan and project down to its minute technical detail is present in DNA, which is located in the nucleus of each cell. All the developmental phases of a human being in the mother's womb and after birth take place within the outlines of a predetermined program. This perfect order in the development of man is stated as follows in the Qur'an:
Does man reckon he will be left to go on unchecked? Was he not a drop of ejaculated sperm, then a blood-clot which He created and shaped. (Surat Al-Qiyama, 36-38)
Right at the phase of a newly fertilized egg cell in the mother's womb, all the characteristics we will bear in the future have been determined within a certain destiny and coded in our DNAs in an orderly fashion. All our characteristics, such as our height, skin colour, blood type, facial features that we will bear when we come to our thirtieth year are encoded in the nucleus of our inaugural cell thirty years nine months beforehand, starting from the moment of insemination.
The body of information in DNA does not only determine the physical properties we have mentioned above; it also controls thousands of other operations and systems running in the cell and the body. For instance, even the highness, lowness, or normality of a person's blood pressure depends on the information stored in DNA.
The Huge Encyclopedia in the Human Cell
The information stored in DNA must by no means be underestimated. Though hard to believe, in a single DNA molecule of a human being, there is enough information to fill exactly one million encyclopedia pages. Do consider it; exactly 1,000,000 encyclopedia pages… This is to say that the nucleus of each cell contains so much information as to fill a one-million-page-encyclopedia, which is used to control the functions of the human body. To draw an analogy, we can state that even the 23-volume-Encyclopedia Britannica, one of the greatest encyclopedias of the world, has 25,000 pages. Therefore, before us lies an incredible picture. In a molecule found in a nucleus, which is far smaller than the microscopic cell wherein it is located, there exists a data warehouse 40 times bigger than the biggest encyclopedia of the world that includes millions of items of information. This means a 920-volume huge encyclopedia which is unique and has no equal in the world. Research puts it that this huge encyclopedia would be estimated to contain 5 billion different pieces of information. Were one piece of information present in human genes to be read every second, non-stop, around the clock, it would take 100 years before the process was completed. If we imagine that the information in DNA were put in the form of a book, then, these books put on top of each other would reach 70 meters high.
Let us repeat these two words just mentioned above; 'contain information'…
We should stop here and consider these two words which we pronounce so simply. It is simple to say that a cell contains billions of pieces of information. Yet, this is far away from being a detail that can be casually dropped as a remark. This is because what we talk about here is not a computer or a library, but just a cube that is 100 times smaller than a millimeter, simply made up of protein, fat and water molecules. It is an extremely amazing miracle for this infinitesimal piece of flesh to contain and store even a single bit of information-let alone millions of it.
The information necessary to specify the design of all the species of organisms which have ever existed on the planet, a number of approximately one thousand million, could be held in a teaspoon and there would still be room left for all |
In the modern era, people use computers to store information. The computer technology is today considered as the most advanced technology that paves the way to all other technologies. A body of information, which, 20 years ago, could be stored in a computer the size of a room, can today be stored in small "microchips", yet even the latest technology invented by human intelligence after centuries of accumulated knowledge and years of hard work is far from reaching the information storage capacity of a single cell nucleus. We think that the following comparison would be sufficient to give a sense of the smallness of DNA, which has such an immense capacity:
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The information necessary to specify the design of all the species of organisms which have ever existed on the planet, a number according to G.G. Simpson of approximately one thousand million, could be held in a teaspoon and there would still be room left for all the information in every book ever written. 1
How can a chain invisible to the eye, made up of atoms arranged sideways, with a diameter the size of a billionth of a millimeter, possess such an information capacity and memory? And also add the following to this question: While each one of the 100 trillion cells in your body knows one million pages of information by heart, how many encyclopedia pages can you, as an intelligent and conscious human being, memorize in your entire life?
The Wisdom in the Cell
In this case, you must admit that any cell in your stomach or ear is much more learned than you, and since it makes use of this information in the most correct and perfect way, it is much more wise than you.
What, then, is the source of this wisdom? How come every one of the 100 trillion cells in your body has come to possess such an incredible wisdom? These are, after all, piles of atoms, and they are unconscious. Take the atoms of all the elements, combine them in different forms and numbers, obtain different molecules, still you can never obtain wisdom. Whether these molecules are big or small, simple or complex does not matter. You can never obtain a mind that will consciously organize any process and accomplish it.
Then how can it be that DNA, which is composed of the arrangement of a certain number of unwise and unconscious atoms in certain sequences, and enzymes, working in a harmonious way, is able to achieve much work and organise countless complicated and diverse operations in the cell in a perfect and complete manner? The answer to this is very simple; wisdom is not in these molecules or in the cell that contains them, but in the self who has brought these molecules into being, programming them to function as they do.
Shortly put, wisdom is present not in the work done, but in the creator of that work. Even the most developed computer is the product of a wisdom and intellect that has written and installed the programs to operate it, and then used it. Likewise, the cell, DNA and RNAs in it, and the human being made up of these cells are nothing but the works of the One Who created them as well as what they do. No matter how perfect, complete and striking the work is, the wisdom always lies with the owner of the work.
One day, if you found a diskette on the table in the computer laboratory, and after looking inside, discovered that it contains billions of items of information about you, the first question that would come to your mind would be who has written these pieces of information and why.
So, why don't we ask the same question for the cell? If the information in the diskette was written by someone, then by whom DNA, which has a much more superior and advanced technology, is designed in the most perfect manner, created, and placed in the tiny cell, which, by itself, is another miracle. Besides it has not lost any of its properties for thousands of years until our day. (Bear in mind that the brain of the human being who makes the diskette and saves the data in it, is also made up of these cells.) What can be more important for you than to question by whom and why these cells, that function non-stop for you to read these lines, see, breathe, think, in brief, to exist and continue to exist, have been brought into being?
Is not the answer to this question that which, in life, you must wonder about most?
A Few More Examples
It is a well-known method: the travellers, who get stuck in an isolated land as a result of a plane crash, draw a big 'X' to show their places to the rescue team that looks for them from the air. Using their belongings or the objects they have collected, they make a big cross-shaped sign. In this way the rescue team that sets out on reconnaissance from the air, sees this sign which is a 'product of wisdom' and understands that there are conscious living beings, that is, human beings in that place.
While travelling along on Turkish highways, you sometimes see inscriptions made of white stones on the slopes of the hills like; 'Everything is for the motherland'. How these writings have come to form on those hills is quite clear. In most cases, there is a military unit around and they write such inscriptions with white stones on the hill while clearing the zone.
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Well, can anybody come up and say that these inscriptions are not written by a conscious mind, in this case the soldiers, and instead formed by coincidence? Can anybody say that 'these stones came side by side by chance while rolling down the hill and formed the sentence 'Everything is for the motherland'"?
Or if a 'scientist' comes up and says 'there are trillions of stones in the world and they have been rolling over for millions of years, so it is possible that some of these stones came together by coincidence as to make this meaningful sentence', would he not be ridiculed even by children? In addition to this, if he uses a scientific style, makes some scientific explanations, and puts forward some probability calculations, would everybody not further doubt about his mind?
The main idea we would like to give with these examples is this: If there is even the slightest sign of something planned somewhere, there certainly lies the traces of an owner of wisdom in that place. No product of wisdom would form by chance. If you roll white stones down the mountain billions of times, you would never obtain even a proper 'H', let alone a sentence such as "Everything is for the motherland". If there is a letter somewhere, everybody accepts that that letter is written by somebody. There would be no letter without a writer.
The human body is trillions of times more complicated than the sentence 'Everything is for the motherland', and it is definitely impossible for this complex structure to have been formed on its own, or by sheer "coincidence". Therefore, there is a Creator Who has planned and designed both the human and his cell and his DNA excellently and perfectly. To claim the contrary would be the most unwise thing possible, and moreover a greatest insincerity and insolence. This would be a great disrespect against the owner of that wisdom and power.
Nevertheless, many people, who would readily say that it is impossible for stones to be arranged within themselves and form even three little words, can listen without objection the deceit that it was all as a result of "coincidences" that billions of atoms came together one by one in a planned sequence and formed a molecule such as DNA, which performs such a super-complex task. This is just like a hypnotized person's submitting to the hypnotist and accepting by suggestion that he is a door, tree or a lizard…
