Up a Crick Without a Paddle
Sunday, December 7th, 2008Today’s Creation Moment - “The World’s Smallest Computer” - reminds us of the two men who discovered the “DNA computer” back in 1953. When James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double-helix DNA molecule, it was the best of times and the worst of times for Dr. Crick. Though he enjoyed his worldwide celebrity status, how was he to explain the incredible amount of information encoded in the strands of DNA? A self-described agnostic with “a strong inclination towards atheism,” it was inconceivable to Crick that an intelligent Creator had anything to do with it.
So he resurrected a nifty little idea from the eighteenth century called “panspermia” - a hypothesis that seeds of life exist all over the universe. He postulated that one or more of those seeds hitchhiked a ride to earth on a comet, giving rise to life on our planet. (No, we’re not making this up.)
Of course, panspermia doesn’t even begin to explain how those seeds of life came to be. It just enabled Crick to sidestep the issue and avoid the obvious - that information-laden DNA molecules are far too complex to have arisen by chance and undirected processes.
No “seeds” have ever been found anywhere in the universe. Though panspermia is nothing but pure speculation, Crick’s belief in it underscores the fact that so many scientists today - including evolutionary biologists with their “goo to you” just-so stories - are willing to believe in anything … anything other than God.
Those are our thoughts. What are yours?
