My last post took issue with the apparent commitment to naturalism among theistic evolutionists. Shortly thereafter I ran across a vivid example of what naturalistic bias looks like.
Cornelius Hunter blogs at Darwin's God. He quoted from a blurb at PBS regarding the Common Genetic Code. The blurb, still on the PBS website, is from 2001 and shows evidence of being outdated. The gist of Hunter's post is that how the evidence is presented shows a commitment to a viewpoint that completely colors the interpretation of the evidence. He quotes from the PBS article, but I'll add a longer part of the article for context.
British researchers demonstrated that a human gene could be inserted into the cells of a lowly yeast -- and it functioned perfectly well. In this landmark experiment, researchers Paul Nurse andMelanie G. Lee showed that the gene in question, one that controlled the division of cells, was extremely similar despite the fact that yeast and the distant ancestors of humans diverged about 1 billion years ago.
The Human Genome Project is revealing many dramatic examples of how genes have been "conserved" throughout evolution -- that is, genes that perform certain functions in lower animals have been maintained even in the human DNA script, though sometimes the genes have been modified for more complex functions.
This thread of genetic similarity connects us and the roughly 10 million other species in the modern world to the entire history of life, back to a single common ancestor more than 3.5 billion years ago. And the evolutionary view of a single (and very ancient) origin of life is supported at the deepest level imaginable: the very nature of the DNA code in which the instructions of genes and chromosomes are written. In all living organisms, the instructions for reproducing and operating the individual is encoded in a chemical language with four letters -- A, C, T, and G, the initials of four chemicals. Combinations of three of these letters specify each of the amino acids that the cell uses in building proteins.
The Human Genome Project is revealing many dramatic examples of how genes have been "conserved" throughout evolution -- that is, genes that perform certain functions in lower animals have been maintained even in the human DNA script, though sometimes the genes have been modified for more complex functions.
This thread of genetic similarity connects us and the roughly 10 million other species in the modern world to the entire history of life, back to a single common ancestor more than 3.5 billion years ago. And the evolutionary view of a single (and very ancient) origin of life is supported at the deepest level imaginable: the very nature of the DNA code in which the instructions of genes and chromosomes are written. In all living organisms, the instructions for reproducing and operating the individual is encoded in a chemical language with four letters -- A, C, T, and G, the initials of four chemicals. Combinations of three of these letters specify each of the amino acids that the cell uses in building proteins.
That is the context. Here is the punch line.
Biologically and chemically, there is no reason why this particular genetic code, rather than any of millions or billions of others, should exist, scientists assert. Yet every species on Earth carries a genetic code that is, for all intents and purposes, identical and universal. The only scientific explanation for this situation is that the genetic code was the result of a single historic accident. That is, this code was the one carried by the single ancestor of life and all of its descendents, including us.
That statement raised a question. Why is a historic accident the "only scientific explanation"?
Biologically and chemically, there is no reason why this particular genetic code, rather than any of millions or billions of others, should exist, scientists assert. Yet every species on Earth carries a genetic code that is, for all intents and purposes, identical and universal. The only scientific explanation for this situation is that the genetic code was the result of a single historic accident. That is, this code was the one carried by the single ancestor of life and all of its descendents, including us.
That statement raised a question. Why is a historic accident the "only scientific explanation"?
Quoting Hunter's response:
No reason for this particular genetic code? That is absurd. Thirty years ago it was shown to be an optimal code. Since then studies have shown a variety of unique characteristics, such as error-correction, of the genetic code.
In fact evolutionists have no scientific, credible explanation for how the code spontaneously arose. And yet leading evolutionists misguide people with the nonsensical and laughable claim that the genetic code is “'knockdown” evidence of evolution.
In other words, the PBS article claims on the one hand that the insertion of a human gene into a yeast cell resulting in a functional "replacement" is inarguable confirmation of a single genetic ancestor. Yet the only explanation that can be considered scientific for how this code exists is a cosmic accident. The incredible complexity of DNA, the immaterial information encoded on it, the optimization, the error correction, all are brushed aside with the words "scientific" and "accident".
The evidence is used to insist on common ancestry, while at the same time any competing explanation for the much more difficult question of how the genetic code arose is tacitly dismissed.
Hunter closes his posts with a regular quip "religion drives science, and it matters". By that he means that a metaphysical belief system underlies Darwinian thought, that belief system is naturalism and naturalism by definition excludes every cause that is not within nature.
Due to the commitment to naturalism, the PBS article trumpeted a particular effect of a gene similarity as confirmation of a naturalistic idea and completely missed the central point - there is no naturalistic explanation for the gene itself.
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