| The Databank of Life: DNA
 The
progress of science makes it clear that living beings
have an extremely complex structure and an order too
perfect to have come into being by coincidence. This
is evidence to the fact that living beings are created
by an All-Powerful Creator with superior knowledge.
Recently, for instance, with the unravelling of the
perfect structure in the human gene which became a prominent
issue due to the Genome Project, the unique creation
of God has once more been revealed for all to see.
From the U.S.A. to China, scientists from all over
the world have given their best efforts to decode the
3 billion chemical letters in DNA and to determine their
sequence. As a result, 85% of the data included in the
DNA of human beings could be sequenced properly. Although
this is a very exciting and important development, as
Dr. Francis Collins, who leads the Human Genome Project
states, so far, only the first step has been
taken in the decoding of the information in DNA.
In order to understand why the decoding of this information
takes so long, we have to understand the nature of the
information stored in DNA.
The Secret World of DNA
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 21st 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.
The DNA, which is found
in the nucleus of each of the 100 trillion cells
in our body, contains the complete construction
plan of the human body. It is evident that such
a complex molecule could not be formed by coincience
spontaneously, as a result of an evolutionary
process. |
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
the information in every book ever written. |
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:
The cell resembles a big
factory which contains conveyor systems, information
storing centers, special compartments where chemical
processes are made, energy generating power stations,
and packaging centers. The only difference between
the cell and such a factory is the cell's microscopic
size. |
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?
1 Michael Denton,
Evolution:A Theory in Crisis, London: Burnett Books,
1985, p. 334. 
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