Naturalistic processes are simply incapable of explaining the complex, information rich nature of the cell. But there is a third option, if someone is open to looking beyond nature itself. Biochemist Fazale Rana explains,
Human experience consistently teaches that information emanates from intelligence. Whether written in plain or elegant scripts, messages initiate in a mind. In whatever form information takes, it’s not limited to communicating ideas, needs, and desires between human minds. Information has become an integral part of modern technology. Designers and engineers routinely develop and refine information systems. Computer technologies, among many other developing innovations, fundamentally depend upon such constructs. Over the last forty years, biochemists have come to recognize that the cell’s biological systems are also, at their essence, information-based. Proteins, DNA, and even oligosaccharides are information-rich molecules. By analogy, these discoveries reinforce the biochemical design argument (Rana, CD, 166).
This is not a God-of-the-gaps argument, using God as an explanation for a phenomenon presently inexplicable. While scientists certainly have an incomplete understanding of life’s chemistry, the argument to design from DNA is based upon positive evidence of what we do know about the abilities of intelligent agents to produce information rich systems. As with the origin of the universe, and the fine-tuning of the laws of nature, the origin of life poses a seemingly intractable problem for naturalism.
Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell. Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World.
