© 1993 Allan Lane
© 1993 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
Allan Lane, Perth
While reading a series of articles recently by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a brilliant researcher, whose work in the field of biology and in particular evolution, displays an exhilarating open-mindedness, and one by Colin Wilson in the same book, I began to contemplate the challenging ideas presented regarding the existence of such an astounding diversity of life forms on earth: it is estimated that there are currently millions of different species sharing the planet with us, and that there have been hundreds of millions of different species since life appeared here.
Why, I found myself asking more than ever before, such breathtaking variety? Our planet is home to at least 300,000 species of beetles, at least 20,000 species of wild orchids, about 200,000 different kinds of moths and butterflies, hundreds and hundreds each of wattles and eucalypts, and who knows how many spiders!
I will try in this article to stick mainly to this issue of diversity while examining the theories for its explanation as presented by established science and The URANTIA Book. In later articles I would like to investigate the thorny topic of the inheritance of instinct and form.
Molecular biologists and theoretical physicists are the high priests of today’s scientific establishment, and their discoveries and theories have emboldened many of them to decree that life is nothing more than a complex interaction between matter and energy that one day will be routinely created in the laboratory. Many who have dared to suggest otherwise have been vehemently attacked and ridiculed, as sadly evidenced in the editorial article of the 24th September 1981 issue of ‘Nature’ entitled ‘A Book for Burning?’, wherein Sheldrake’s suggestion that as yet unidentified nonmaterial agencies may work with and through an organism’s genetic coding in the DNA of its cells, to help produce the life phenomena of our world, is given the third degree. This hair-trigger reaction to ideas that challenge the mechanistic world view is a symptom of a religiously fanatical faith in the correctness of this belief, and ironically, such behaviour is most unscientific.
¶ Neo-Darwinism’s Explanation
Neo-Darwinism is the doctrine used by a majority of the scientific establishment to account for the diversity of living things. It claims that the entire blueprint for an organism, determining form, function, and behaviour, is present in the DNA molecules within its first embryonic cell formed from the union of its two parents’ sex cells. For offspring to differ markedly from their parents and so be a new species immediately [punctuationalism], or, as preferred by the neo-Darwinists, to differ slightly in the direction of a new species [gradualism], rearrangements of the position and hence order of certain submolecules must occur along the DNA supermolecule, thereby altering the code ensconced along its length. This altered code produces the altered organism, differing in form or function or behaviour, or as is often the case, all three.
These molecular rearrangements which alone produce the hereditary variations are caused, they tell us, only by accidental and purposeless random mutations, triggered by such things as chemical reactions and bombardment by radiation, or by the random shuffling of genes as in the process of meiosis — the production of sex cells by the parent organism in which the likelihood that any two cells will carry identical information is minimized.
Once such a new organism has appeared it is subjected to the ruthless pressures of natural selection, so that if it possesses attributes favorable to survival and it reaches sexual maturity, it is likely to cement its altered DNA coding by successfully reproducing, asexually or sexually, depending on the type of organism. It may even compete for similar life needs better than its parent species and contribute to its extinction. Its numbers may increase sufficiently to include it as another successful species in the atlas of living things.
Multiplying the above described process by many millions over millions of years results in the abundant diversity of life on earth today. As there is no higher purpose guiding the evolution of life forms — it being completely accidental — it is ultimately a meaningless phenomenon.
¶ The Urantia Book’s Explanation
The URANTIA Book puts forward an explanation for the great diversity of life, both in the present and as preserved in the fossil record, which is markedly different in certain key respects and very similar in others to that of the neo-Darwinists. The major difference is that there is nothing accidental and purposeless about the course of the evolution of life: indeed highly intelligent beings were involved in the creation of its initial physical vehicles; the research for the genetic coding it required for its evolutionary adventure; the impartation of the divine life spark to animate it; the implantation of the ‘in vitro’ — so to speak — single celled organisms into the future biosphere; and the subsequent monitoring of progress, with alterations of environmental conditions where deemed necessary, to help the forward march of the advancing life forms — the antithesis of the neo-Darwinists’ mindless, pointless, purposeless, expanding soup of matter and energy containing some curious, but unimportant, matter and energy interactions named ‘life’ by some form of that ‘life’.
Important roles are ascribed to both the apparently [I will have more to say on this later] random mutations of the genetic material — DNA is not mentioned by name: prior to the 1950’s geneticists thought that proteins were the carriers of the cell’s genetic codes, and I assume that the claimed revelators did not want to pre-empt our discovery as is their brief in these scientific matters — and to natural selection.
At first glance the neo-Darwinists’ explanation is tempting to subscribe to, but upon deeper reflection gaping holes start to appear. One of the main difficulties for me are the unbelievably low probabilities I am called upon to virtually ignore for the random events to occur that are so crucial to their whole argument.
¶ Unravelling DNA’s Genetic Gode
Leaving aside the question of the origin of life, with the random and accidental events so beloved of the mechanists used to account for it, let us take a closer look at ‘living’ DNA and the mutation process, with a view to account for the enormous diversity of life saturating the biosphere.
The DNA molecule is composed of millions of atoms which are arranged in a long twisting shape, like a very long spiral staircase, whose steps are made from 2 each of only 4 kinds of smaller molecules, called bases, symbolized by the letters A, C, G, T, with the further limitation that only A and T can join with each other while C and G can also only join together; these ‘base pairs’ are the steps in the analogy. Starting from one end of the ‘stairs’ different ‘words’ can be spelt out in a coded language as illustrated in the diagram below, which shows the spiral staircase untwisted and laid flat.
Take, for example, the top row of letters and note that the 4 different bases are arranged in a differing order along this stretch of DNA, but with patterns evident [the astute reader will deduce that this DNA is from the feline family of mammals — “Is he serious?” I hear you asking!]. Joking aside, a major achievement of genetic researchers has been to discover that particular segments — called genes — of the DNA string, containing from hundreds to thousands and thousands of these chemical ‘letters’, form precise codes which help determine outcomes such as hair colour, brain cells, and heart muscle, and, when added to the codes in the DNA of all of an organism’s chromosomes, represent the blueprint for that organism.
¶ Big Numbers, Big Options
Highlighting the probabilities involved for positive changes in an organism will require a closer look at the coding method used on the DNA molecule. The smallest usable pieces of information are held by the base pairs in units of 3 side by side, called triplets, as illustrated below. Each position can be filled with 4 different letters, making a total of 64 different triplets possible in a tiny portion of DNA.
These triplets are responsible, through a multistepped process, for the selection, and joining together in chains, of amino acids in precise orders to make the all important proteins, of which there are thousands of different kinds, which indispensably govern the design and running of the huge variety of living cells. This crucial protein manufacturing process, in which the amino acid sequence represented by the order of the triplets is faithfully preserved throughout, is illustrated schematically below.
¶ From DNA Goding To Protein Molecule
Looking now at a slightly longer stretch of DNA containing 5 tripiets, the number of possible different sequences can be calculated for that segment. Despite there being 64 different triplets that can occupy each of those 5 consecutive spaces, they can only cause selection, through the involved process illustrated above, of one amino acid per triplet from a pool of only 20 amino acids essential to life on earth. All of these amino acids are able to be selected by more than one triplet, except for methionine and tryptophan, with 3 of them having 6 triplets which can choose them, thus using the surplus triplets to their advantage. So each of the 5 triplet spaces illustrated below has 20 different amino acids that can be chosen, making the surprising total of 3,200,000 different amino acids sequences possible from such a tiny section of DNA!
DNA can be regarded as the pages of an instruction book on which are printed the details for the construction of proteins, the genes being the chapters. Some chapters are very long, spelling out the manufacture of proteins containing thousands of amino acids in precisely ordered strings [via thousands of precisely ordered triplets]. The number of potential different proteins is enormous.
¶ The Low Odds For Accidental Improvement
The proteins studied by our scientists so far range in amino acid numbers from about 50 to several thousand. Consider an imaginary protein with 300 amino acid building blocks, manufactured from the DNA instructions by the transcription-translation process outlined above. It will be only one of 20 to the power of 300 possible protein chains that the 300 triplet long stretch could be encoded to make [that’s a number over 300 digits long]. What do numbers like this mean? By comparison, it is estimated that there are only 1076 protons and neutrons in the known universe. Mathematical calculation estimates the odds in favour of all of the known proteins used by cells arising by chance to be one in 1040,000 — that’s a 1 followed by 40,000 zeros.
I am in awe of the ingenuity of this molecular coding system, which can punish severely or reward greatly for relatively small changes in the code, as, in the first case, in a disease like haemophilia, or, in the second, in changes to skin colour to enhance an animal’s camouflage.
That accidental mutations could produce enough of the right instructions to counteract the virtually inestimable wrong instructions possible, in the right DNA positions at the right times, efficiently building upon previous advantageous accidental mutations, to produce the wonderful diversity of living things around us today, is beyond my capacity to seriously entertain. To my admittedly limited understanding the probability of such a long series of propitious events is surely so close to zero, as to be practically impossible.
Let us assume that placental mammals sprang suddenly from reptile parents as described in The URANTIA Book (UB 61:0.1). In order to produce a new and unique organism obviously new and unique cells have to be made. Simplistically, to make a new cell requires at least one new protein, and to make a new protein requires a new effective DNA code [not all changes in the code cause changes in the proteins produced], and a new DNA code requires at least one rearrangement of a base molecule on the DNA string [a mutation]. How likely is an accidental random to produce the exact code(s) needed for this enormous leap? Or, assuming the giraffe’s neck lengthened in steps over a long period of time — refer to the neo-Darwinists — how likely is it that the necessary neck length altering mutations would have randomly kept occurring, in the chronologically correct order, in the right parts of the appropriate ‘neck stretching’ genes? [For the URANTIA Book’s version of the giraffe’s neck episode, see (UB 61:4.4).]
¶ Higher Purpose?
Starting with the first human ancestor living cell to appear on earth, and leaving alone the issue of the mindboggling low odds in favor of its accidental birth for a future discussion, was the long chain of events and recoding activity within the cells’ DNA, leading to the appearance of humans and hundreds of millions of different life forms along the way, a series of accidents, or was higher purpose involved? I place my bet on the latter, if even only because of the probabilities concerned in the issue. Geneticists tell us that more mutations are harmful than helpful. I think also that the more complex an organism becomes, the likelihood of harm from accidental unguided mutations would have to grow. If an abacus is dropped into a pool of water it can still perform its counting function, yet a speck of dust in the right place will render a computer useless.
If the myriad of living things on earth are the result of the work and planning of higher intelligences, how do we account for the role played by random mutations?
Imagine that I have built a roof, and I decide that I want to fill a rainwater tank for my drinking water needs. The falling of raindrops is a very random process in terms of what spots they will land on, and when the showers will come, and so on. It would be accidental if one tile received 2 extra drops during a shower than its neighbour. Yet if I place a gutter around the roof and lead a downpipe from it to the tank below, I achieve my objective. If I want to be ensured of the best results I will dutifully keep the gutter clear of leaves.
Just such a purposeful procedure is described in The URANTIA Book. The Life Carriers laboured long in their laboratories to produce the necessary formulas to enable life on earth to be successful (UB 65:4.4), and to have the important and essential capacity for great diversification (UB 65:4.10).
“The manifold by-products of biologic evolution are all essential to the final and full function of the higher intelligent forms of life…” (UB 36:2.17).
The Divine Minister involves herself with the course of evolution through the agency of the adjutant mindspirits (UB 36:5.1). The original physical formulations of the Life Carriers can be likened to the roof, gutters, downpipe, and tank system described above, while the activities of the adjutant mind-spirits can be considered to be helping to keep the gutters clean.
If a being, who was ignorant of the meaning of the roof and tank system and the existence of me the designer and gutter cleaner, should come across it and start to study it through the seasons, that being may conclude that the wonderful periodic replenishment of the tank was an accidental eventuality of random events, and miss the careful planning that went into it. I could only marvel at the being’s ingenuity in attempting to explain me away.
In my opinion, the general principle of intelligently created and guided life, implanted on planets to evolve into a multiplicity of higher forms, by beings of greater ability than us is far, far, and away better supported by the mathematics involved than the general principle of a totally accidental series of life evolving events.
As for the precise details of the more probable of the two competing theories, as described at great length in The URANTIA Book, only the passage of time allowing for a great deal more research, deep thinking, and perhaps, further revelation, will help establish their degrees of accuracy.
My definition of true science is: the honest attempt to understand objective reality. My earnest hope is that large numbers of true scientists — including you and me and regardless of our formal education — will work on the puzzle, fearlessly looking at the data no matter what the consequences for cherished theories, for articles of faith, and refuse to invent the universe but rather describe it.
¶ Reference
- Brookesmith, Peter (editor) (1984). ‘Thinking the Unthinkable — Ideas that Overturn Conventional Thought’ (Orbis Publishing)
Universe Limits
The simple truth is that life is not explainable in terms of itself. This is the basis of the religious teachings which have accompanied man’s progress through the ages…If we base our concepts of logical thinking on the belief that the universe can be explained by our normal mind, we limit ourselves to a universe having no greater intelligence than our own.
From “The Universe of Relationships”, by J.H. Reyner