If Darwin Had Known About DNA

From the Depths of the Universe
to the DNA Molecule

Too small to be seen with the naked eye, DNA serves as the data bank of our cells. Information about all the living things around you is concealed within this miniaturized data bank inside every cell of every organism. All the structural characteristics of a rose, an orange, a sparrow, a tiger or a human being are present in the nuclei of the cells that comprise these organisms. Look at your hand that is holding this book. These data stores exist in the nucleus of every single one of the cells that compose that hand.
These DNA molecules are invisible to the naked eye but in terms of their contents and data-storage capacity, they are equal to a library consisting of tens of thousands of books. As you observe the miraculous aspects of DNA, which can be seen only by magnifying it thousands of times, you will also appreciate how such minute essential component of life places the theory of evolution in an insuperable quandary. Examining the details of this extraordinary structure will give you the opportunity to ponder the infinite might, incomparable knowledge, scope and dominion of our Lord, Allah (God) and the universe He has created.
Every day, new discoveries are being made about the universe we inhabit. Billions of galaxies lie hundreds of thousands of light years away from one another. Millions of stars that fill those galaxies, whose dimensions defy our powers of conception. Giant planets constantly revolve in a complex order at speeds of thousands of kilometers without ever colliding with one another. Here, on one of the smaller of these planets, we examine the cells, the building blocks of life on Earth, themselves no bigger than a mere speck, under the electron microscope, an invention of the 20th century.
Each of the conditions that makes this planet suitable for life is indispensable to it. The Earth's environment exists and persists by the mercy of Allah.
Albert Einstein, one of the 20th century's most eminent scientists, expressed man's difficulty in comprehending the order in the universe in these terms:
The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn't know what it is. 1
Human beings have been equipped with all the systems they need within this extraordinary environment. The more details that we learn about the body, the more we realize how miraculous our lives are. As they discover the systems concealed inside their bodies, many people--who would otherwise live without reflection, caught up in the daily course of their lives--will reflect on the purpose behind their existence and become aware of their responsibilities to Allah, their Creator. Indeed, various scientists have acquired faith in the existence of Allah by seeing the greatness of His knowledge and the perfections He has created.
But some of them continue to refuse to see that they live in need of Allah, even though their consciences may tell them otherwise. Yet their refusal to admit the truth will not alter the facts. Allah reveals some people's approach in the Qur'an:

Do not mix up truth with falsehood and knowingly hide the truth. (Surat al-Baqara, 42)

O Humanity! You are the poor in need of Allah whereas Allah is the Rich Beyond Need, the Praiseworthy. (Surah Fatir, 15)



INTRODUCTION
The Most advanced Data Bank Known: DNA

The truth revealed by science as it progresses is that living things possess flawless and highly complex structures that could never have emerged by chance. This is evident proof that our Almighty and Omniscient Lord has created living things. The theory of evolution, which rejects the idea of our Creator and pins its hopes on coincidences, has been dealt one of its most severe blows by developments in the field of molecular biology, which demolishes–with clear and irrefutable evidence, the fundamental of Darwinism, which maintains that life originated based on supposedly simple structures.
As scientists discovered the complex structures inside the cell, which some have referred to as a "molecular machine," they also clearly saw that these could never have come into being as the result of chance.
One such structure is DNA, the cell's data bank, discovered in the 1950s with the invention of the electron microscope. DNA is a giant molecule contained in every cell. On that long molecular chain is encoded all the information that determines the physical and chemical structure of that cell and of the entire organism to which that cell belongs. However, the presence of such a data bank within the cell means nothing by itself. The information within that DNA must be read as needed, and processes carried out in the light of that information. It is impossible for inanimate substances to write and decipher codes, take progressive precautionary measures, and to establish a system to ensure that the information they possess comes to no harm.
Molecules made up of chemical elements from the earth and air cannot be expected to do these things spontaneously. Yet Darwinists are so blindly devoted to their theory of evolution that, as you shall see in the chapters that follow, they insist on claims that are utterly unscientific, violating reason and logic, solely for the sake of convincing themselves and others that everything is a coincidence.
Despite being an evolutionist, Francis Crick–a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and one of the scientists who discovered DNA–admits the facts in his book Life Itself:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.2
Richard Dawkins, known for his evolutionist views, describes the complexity concealed within the cell:
Physics books may be complicated, but . . . the objects and phenomena that a physics book describes are simpler than a single cell in the body of its author. And the author consists of trillions of those cells, many of them different from each other, organized with intricate architecture and precision--engineering into a working machine capable of writing a book. . . . Each nucleus . . . contains a digitally coded database larger, in information content, than all thirty volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together. And this figure is for each [individual] cell, not all the cells of the body put together.3
If you had found a CD on your desk 25 years ago, and even if you had never seen one before, you would still never try attempt to account for its existence in terms of chance. Despite its being a very thin, flat, round piece of plastic, the regularity of its shape would still make it clear that it had been produced by an intelligent, knowledgeable human being. Even if you never met the person who designed and manufactured that CD, you would still never claim that metals and plastics had assumed such a perfect form as the result of successive accidents.
And what if you learned, through a detailed examination of the CD's structure, that in indentations and protrusions on its surface, there was information coded in the form of the numbers 0 and 1? At first glance it appeared like just a flat plastic disc, but were it enlarged to the size of a football stadium, the indentations on it would be approximately the same size as grains of sand.4
All the CD's indentations and protrusions represent coded data containing text, sounds and images. The fact that dozens of books' worth of data has been compressed into this flat disk makes it obvious that intelligent, knowledgeable minds have had a hand in its manufacture. No one could possibly maintain anything different. On the contrary, the presence here of a highly advanced technology, the processes of recording, coding and compression of data are evidence that this CD was consciously produced, and for a specific purpose.
Yet some people, who see that claims of chance are impossible to account for a flat disk of plastic, fail to employ the same honest logic in the face of DNA's perfect creation. They maintain that the DNA molecules, too small to be seen with the naked eye but containing enough compressed and encoded data to fill thousands of encyclopedias, came into being as the work of chance. Yet the human brain that produced the CD and wrote the information it contains also consists of cells that function thanks to the information contained in DNA.
The illogicality here is obvious. In the same way that the information in the CD implies that it has been written there by someone, DNA–a far more comprehensive data bank with a far superior technology–shows the existence of a superior intellect, of a Creator. That intellect is the infinite mind of our Almighty Lord. DNA is a miracle of Allah, the sublime nature of the creation of which we have been able to comprehend through 20th-century technology.
Our Lord reveals the purpose of the things He created in one of the verses:


It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and of the Earth the same number, the Command descending down through all of them, so that you might know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Surat at-Talaq, 12)



CHAPTER 1
Aspect of The Cell Discovered
In the 20th Century
In the second half of the 20th century, advances in the field of molecular biology entirely altered our perspective on the miniaturized world inside the cell. With today's rapidly developing technology, biologists have become aware of the flawless and complex mechanisms possessed by the cell, realizing that these could not have come into being by chance or spontaneously. Most of the systems that constitute the cell are smaller than the wavelength of visible light. Some details in the cell can be examined only by advanced techniques such as X-ray crystallography. However, at the time when Darwin launched his theory, the level of science was extremely backward. Not even the basic structure of the cell had been revealed, let alone the discovery of the helix structure and data capacity of the DNA molecule, which James Watson and Francis Crick revealed nearly 100 years after the publication of Darwin's book The Origin of Species
Darwin had no means of foreseeing the advances that molecular biology would subsequently make. Clearly, his theory of evolution built on fundamentally flawed knowledge and hypotheses cannot account for the existence of a structure like DNA, which amazes scientists.
The well–known Cambridge University philosopher Dr. Stephen C. Meyer compares modern science with that of Darwin's day:
During the last half of the twentieth century, advances in molecular biology and biochemistry have revolutionized our understanding of the miniature world within the cell. Research has revealed that cells--the fundamental units of life-store--transmit, and edit information and use that information to regulate their most fundamental metabolic processes . . . biologists now describe cells as, among other things, "distributive real-time computers" or complex information processing systems. Darwin, of course, neither knew about these intricacies nor sought to explain their origin. Instead, his theory of biological evolution sought to explain how life could have grown gradually more complex starting from "one or a few simple forms" . . . in the 1870s and 1880s, scientists assumed that devising an explanation for the origin of life would be fairly easy. For one thing, they assumed that life was essentially a rather simple substance called protoplasm that could be easily constructed by combining and recombining simple chemicals such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen.5
However, some scientists, the heirs of Darwin, still consider that atoms spontaneously combined to give rise to complex living things. In the light of the extraordinary advances made in the field of molecular biology especially over the last 50 years, it is quite astonishing that Darwin's claim should have survived this long. This state of affairs is admitted in a statement by Dr. Richard Lewontin, an evolutionist and Harvard University biologist and geneticist:
. . . evolution is not a fact, it's a philosophy. The materialism comes first (a priori), and the evidence is interpreted in light of that unchangeable philosophical commitment. 6
Because of their devotion to materialism, the inheritors of the theory of evolution are generally unable to accept scientific facts. They therefore insist on trying to carry an outdated 19th-century scientific conception into the present day. However, the facts are too evident to be covered up by any superstitious philosophy.
In the Qur'an, Allah reveals that there will be those who "use fallacious arguments to deny the truth" (Surat al-Kahf, 56). In another verse, He tells us:

Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through its brain and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray! (Surat al-Anbiya', 18)

The Cell Is More Complex
Than a Major City
Some four billion years ago, according to the evolutionist scenario, various inanimate chemical substances entered into reactions in the primitive Earth's atmosphere; these then combined with the effects of lightning and earthquakes–and thus the first living cell emerged. The fact is, however, that the structure of the cell is more complex that even the most populous and technologically advanced city. A great many systems operate non-stop with a flawless organization, from power stations that produce energy inside the cell to protein-producing factories, from a freight system that transports raw materials to decoders that translate DNA, and a dense and constant communications system.
For evolutionists to believe that the cell came into being by chance is as illogical and nonsensical as claiming that all the buildings, roads, transportation systems, electricity and water networks in a city such as Istanbul, with its almost 15 million population, came into existence spontaneously as the result of such natural phenomena as storms and earthquakes.
Prof. Gerald L. Schroeder, an Israeli scientist working in the fields of physics and biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) describes the order inside the cell:
The human body acts as a finely tuned machine, a magnificent metropolis in which, as its inhabitants, each of the 75 trillion cells, composed of 1027 atoms, moves in symbiotic precision. Seldom are two cells simultaneously performing the same act, yet their individual contributions combine smoothly to form life. 7
Despite being an evolutionist, the late astrobiologist Carl Sagan speaks of the amazing order in the cell as if it were a work of art:
A living cell is a marvel of detailed and complex architecture. Seen through a microscope, there is an appearance of almost frantic activity. On a deeper level it is known that molecules are being synthesized at an enormous rate. Almost any enzyme catalyzes the synthesis of more than 100 other molecules per second. In ten minutes, a sizeable fraction of total mass of a metabolizing bacterial cell has been synthesized. The information content of a simple cell had been estimated as around 1012 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica. 8
The nucleus inside the cell bears the DNA, the most important genetic material. Mitochondria inside the cell turn glucose (in the form of food products) into energy packets. Microscopic tubes extend throughout the cell, constituting vital pathways along which proteins and other required substances can be carried to the appropriate location. In addition, the billions of cells in our bodies build all their systems out of molecules, at the same time consistently maintaining and repairing themselves. As well as performing their own tasks, they also renew themselves.9 They also obtain their own energy.
Prof. Werner Gitt, director of the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, emphasizes how the cell is far superior to any machinery made by human beings: "The biological energy conversion system is brilliantly and cleverly designed that energy engineers can only watch, fascinated. Nobody has yet been able to copy this miniaturized and extremely efficient mechanism."10
In his book Blind Faith: Evolution Exposed, the science writer Howard Peth states that there is no such thing as a simple cell:
Formerly, it was thought that a cell was composed of nucleus and a few other parts in a "sea"' of cytoplasms, with large spaces in the cell unoccupied. Now it is known that a cell literally "swarms."' That is, it's packed full of important functioning units necessary to the life of the cell and the body containing it. The theory of evolution assumes life developed from a "simple"' cell - but science today demonstrates that there is no such thing as a simple cell.11
In conclusion, cells are not simple sacs of jelly, as was imagined in Darwin's day. On the contrary, as the 20th century physicist and astrobiologist Prof. Paul Davies puts it, they resemble computers with the most highly advanced technology, or complex cities.



CHAPTER 2
The Source of the Data of Life


DNA, the basic genetic material of all living things, is a long molecule resembling a spiral staircase, whose details we shall be examining in due course. DNA exists in all living things–human beings, flowers, birds, flies, and even bacteria. It contains all the necessary information regarding the features of the living cell and its regular operations. In addition, detailed information regarding a living thing's external appearance, the kind of structure it will have, how it will grow and how its organs will work, are all determined beforehand in DNA. For example, an individual's DNA contains information about such details as height, eye color and physical structure, how the body will defend itself in the face of which dangers, and how it will produce proteins, the building blocks of the cell. The DNA of a rosebush contains millions of pieces of detailed, coded information about its flower's scent and color, the structure of its thorns, the shape of its leaves and the thickness of its stems. DNA molecules are rather like blueprints that determine how a living thing will be constructed and function.
Human beings carry this molecule, which exhibits far greater knowledge than themselves, in every one of their cells. For example, a DNA chain is packaged in every cell in your eyes as you read these lines. There are DNA molecules in every cell in the fingers that turn over the pages of this book, in the cells of your heart and bones, and in every cell that makes up your body. What is more, they are constantly at work to keep the individual alive.
The information theoretician Dr. Werner Gitt expresses the extraordinary range of the data in DNA:
It seems necessary to assume that in addition to its protein-coding portions, DNA contains countless additional levels of structure and function. Such stored information concepts are just as much required to code for the development of the smallest organelles such as the mitochondria and ribosomes, as for building the large organs (e.g., heart, kidneys, brain) and the overall integrated organism. As yet, no one has been able to decode this incredibly complex system.12
As noted by Professor Gitt, the sphere of operation of the DNA's information is very broad. DNA does not determine just physical characteristics; at the same time it plans thousands of different functions throughout the cell, the body's organs and systems. Thanks to the information placed in DNA:
*The bones grow in exactly the right place, shape and size. The skull, ribs, pelvic bone and vertebrae all have special shapes and thickness in line with specific purposes. The vertebrae, for instance, possess just the right shape for the vitally important spinal cord to be able to pass through them. Similarly, the skull has been specially shaped to protect the brain, and the ribs to shield the lungs and heart. The balanced development of every one of these is part of the total blueprint recorded in the DNA.
*The 206 separate bones in the human body are connected to one another by ligaments and muscles in such a way as to allow them to move. The elasticity and mobility of these muscles that allows us to go up and down stairs, run, bend down and stand up again is again recorded in DNA. Thanks to the information set out by Allah in DNA, we can move our muscles in almost any direction we desire. Thus a human being can hold a glass of water, turn the pages of a book, sit in a chair without falling out of it, or carry packages weighing many kilograms.
*The cartilage that prevents friction between bones is a very special tissue in terms of its shape, structure and position. In the knees, for example, cartilage acts as a shock absorber that allows those joints to carry the whole weight of the body–tens of kilograms–without feeling stress. The detailed blueprint for the knee is also set out in DNA.
*The veins that stretch approximately 100,000 kilometers (62,140 miles) and carry vitally important blood to nourish all the body's tissues. The veins work jointly with the heart's special pumping system. Some are thinner than a hair, carrying red blood cells to every corner of the body, from the eyelids to the fingertips, from the brain to the kidneys.
*The way that the nerves interpenetrate the entire body lets them react very quickly to changes that the senses perceive, allowing different parts of the body to work together as a single unit.
*The 200 or so different kinds of cell in the body possess the same basic features and mechanisms, but perform very different activities. A liver cell, for example, carries out 500 different chemical processes within a matter of milliseconds (thousandths of a second), while a heart cell can produce its own electricity over a whole lifetime.
*The production of the energy you need to stand up and walk, remain standing, breathe and to open and close your eyes–in short to survive–is part of the blueprint recorded in each cell. Thanks to this blueprint, every cell knows how to obtain the most energy from foodstuffs consumed and how to make the most efficient use of them.
*The stomach secretes acids that digest meat, but do not break down its tissues. Up to 20 enzymes go into action to make blood clot during the repair of a deep cut. These are just two of the precautionary measures recorded in DNA.
*The hormonal system is a highly efficient communications system among the cells, permitting the regulation of all the balances in the body. It functions according to the information set out in DNA. How much of which substances the body will use, and how surpluses are to be stored or expelled, are also included in this specific blueprint.
*On the other hand, DNA also determines how the cells in the immune system are to exchange information. In the event of a tissue being wounded or infected, for instance, the immune system initiates reactions. Defense cells identify the site of the wound in a very short time to counter-attack the microbes entering the body through the injury. They then analyze the threat and transmit messages that begin the war against those microbes.
Whole libraries of books could be written about the details in the human body, both known and as yet undiscovered. All are parts of a blueprint recorded in the DNA's data bank. In short, DNA acts as a planning center in every living thing, literally undertaking the responsibilities of architects, engineers, scent experts, botanists, laboratory technicians, interior designers, designers, artists, doctors and countless other experts and scientists. At every moment, Our Almighty Lord creates and controls these molecules that are in constant operation so that you can read these lines, see, breathe, think and in short, remain alive.
This fact is revealed in one verse of the Qur'an:

[Hud said,] "I have put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord. There is no creature He does not hold by the forelock. My Lord is on a Straight Path." (Surah Hud, 56)

As a very simple example, compare the information in DNA with a book. Obviously, no book can write itself. Even if we assume that this was in some way possible, it still will be absolutely impossible for anything written in that book to be meaningful. Based on this analogy, Prof. Phillip Johnson states that random coincidences can have no such power, ability or intelligence:
. . . just everybody (including Richard Dawkins) agrees that it is essentially impossible to produce a coherent book of average length by randomly combining letters, spaces and punctuation marks. Even a single sentence–like "In the beginning was the Word"–is extremely unlikely to come from pouring out a random mix of letters and spaces.13
No doubt that the data recorded in DNA have an incomparable structure more complex than the sentence. In the beginning was the Word, and that this complex structure cannot possibly have come into existence spontaneously or by chance. Moreover, all the trillions of DNA molecules possessed by billions of living things for millions of years have all been encoded with a perfect system, placed within an area too small to be seen with the naked eye and yet used in the most rational manner. That being so, there is a Creator Who plans and arranges human beings, their cells and their DNA in that flawless and perfect manner. That Creator is Almighty Allah. To maintain the opposite is to ignore the facts, reason and logic.
However, many who would quickly agree it is impossible for letters to arrange themselves into even three small words still manage to listen with no objection to the deceit that millions of atoms combined together by chance, one by one, in a specific sequence to create a molecule containing the equivalent of whole libraries of information. The sole reason for this is their blind devotion to Darwinism, which prevents some intelligent people from seeing the evident fact of Creation and leads them into the most irrational beliefs. Everyone freed from this preconception to use his intellect will clearly see that an infinite data bank such as DNA can only come into existence through being created.

When they are told, "Follow what Allah has sent down to you," They say, "We are following what we found our fathers doing." What, even though their fathers did not understand a thing and were not guided! The likeness of those who do not believe is that of the beast which, call out to it as one may, can hear nothing but a shout and a cry. Deaf–dumb–blind. They do not use their intellect. (Surat al-Baqara, 170-171)





CHAPTER 3
The DNA Molecule's Miraculous Structure


In discussing the chemical structure of the DNA molecule, our objective is not simply to provide the kind of information you can find in a great many books on biology, but to show the details in human creation and the extremely sensitive order on which our existence depends–and thus, to properly appreciate our Lord's greatness and His mercy upon us.
Some people prefer to remain far removed from technical details and don't want to tire their minds with them. But they reflect that same superficial perspective in their analyses, comments and statements. In fact, there is sublime wisdom in every detail of creation, and each of those details has been created for a specific purpose.
In one verse of the Qur'an our Lord tells us that:

We did not create the heavens and Earth and everything between them, except with truth. The Hour is certainly coming, so turn away graciously. Your Lord, He is the Creator, the All-Knowing. (Surat al-Hijr, 85-86)

Let's examine some of the details in the creation of the DNA in the trillions of cells inside every one of the billions of people on Earth.

Chemical Structure of the DNA Helix
The giant molecule of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that plays a role in all the cell's vital functions consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphate atoms. There are billions of these atoms in a single human DNA molecule,14 all arranged in a manner particular to that individual.
DNA is an acronym of the words deoxyribo, nucleic and acid that express the molecule's chemical structure. This molecule in the nucleus of every human cell consists of nucleic acid arranged in a helix shape like a miniature sphere just 5 microns in diameter.15 (One micron equals one thousandth of a millimeter.) Nucleic acids are exceedingly important compounds, despite making up only 2% of our bodies. The basic structural units of nucleic acids are nucleotides. Some 6 billion nucleotides combine in the double helix that gives rise to DNA.16
The DNA molecule's structure resembles a spiral staircase, and its architectural regularity amazes scientists. The sides of the staircase, made up of various sugars and phosphates, represent the DNA molecule's dual backbones. The steps, on the other hand, consist of pairs of four conjoined chemical substances known as bases: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. Bases are molecules consisting of between 12 and 16 atoms including carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen.17 These chemicals are also specially arranged on the DNA spiral. Only two combinations of arrangements are possible: adenine (A) always bonds to thymine (T), and cytosine (C) always bonds to guanine (G).18
Scientists have established the special sequence in which the atoms making up DNA give rise to nucleotides. But knowing the structure of the building blocks of life is not the same thing as producing them. Indeed, although the correct materials–atoms and the technology to combine them–are available to scientists, they are utterly incapable of making a living DNA molecule.
In the Qur'an our Lord reveals that:

It is He Who gives life and causes to die. When He decides on something, He just says to it, "Be!" and it is. (Surah Ghafir, 68)

Your deity is Allah alone, there is no deity but Him. He encompasses all things in His knowledge'. (Surah Ta Ha, 98)

A special creation is evident in the arrangements of the atoms. Every nucleotide contains some 34 atoms. Since there are 6 billion nucleotides in DNA, 204 billion atoms (34 times 6,000,000,000) need to combine chemically to form a single DNA molecule.19 Were you able to process one atom a second and worked eight hours a day for 350 days a year, it would still take you longer than 20,000 years to produce a single DNA molecule.20 Since this is beyond the capacity of even rational human beings, can anyone imagine that the DNA molecule came into existence by chance? Such a thing is of course out of the question. In addition, bear in mind that in the absence of DNA molecules, living things could not exist.
Indeed, the slightest error in DNA's structure gives rise to very serious consequences, as the well-known science writer Richard Milton describes:
… [E]ach nucleotide has to be "written" in precisely the correct order and in precisely the correct location in the DNA molecule for the offspring to remain viable, and as described earlier, major functional disorders in humans, animals, and plants are caused by the loss or displacement of a single DNA molecule, or even a single nucleotide within that molecule.21
Every base sequence in the DNA strip–the arrangement of the nucleotides adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine in the cell nucleus–constitutes a genetic text containing information needed for the building of essential proteins. From that point of view, it is noteworthy that DNA maintains its regular structure on the one hand while on the other having an arrangement that permits information diversity.


The DNA Strip is Wound around Bobbins
A single DNA strip in human cells consists of around 3 billion base pairs and is approximately 2 meters long. Both chains of that length need to be reduced in size to dimensions invisible to the eye. Similarly to the way in which a long thread is wound around a reel, the DNA is packaged and installed in the nucleus through a similar cellular mechanism. The DNA strip is packaged by being wound around nucleosomes, which give rise to chromosomes. The job of the nucleosomes is undertaken by proteins known as histones.
There is a 15-turn section of the DNA spiral in one nucleosome; and this is the length of 150 nucleotides.22 This 15-turn section is wound twice around a protein nucleus, made up of eight histones containing a large number of positively charged amino acids. These perfectly complement the negatively charged phosphates on the DNA.
When information written anywhere on the DNA is needed for protein production, the nucleosome opens and the DNA strip is released for "reading." After this, the DNA winds back around the histones, protected from the damaging effects of the molecules around it, until the next time need arises. Genetic data require not just content, but also a sensitive order in their structure and in the features of the surrounding environment.
This order is just one of the works of our Almighty Lord, Creator of the Earth and sky. In one verse, we are told that:

. . . My Lord is kind to anyone He wills. He is indeed All-Knowing and All-Wise. (Surah Yusuf, 100)

Genes: Data Packages
A single cell nucleus, invisible to our eyes, contains a DNA strip that is 4 meters (13.12 feet) long, packaged inside the nucleus in the form of groups known as chromosomes. The nuclei of the cells in your body contain a total of 23 chromosome pairs. When chromosomes are magnified under an electron microscope, the DNA molecule inside these chromosomes are seen to be compressed in a spiral form. Despite occupying a very small volume, this packaging system possesses a stunning data-storage capacity, as you'll see in a later chapter.
DNA strips contain all the information required to form proteins of all kinds–enzymes, molecular motors, hormones and other building blocks.23 The information encoded in the DNA molecule determines the symmetrical formation of the eyes and ears, the pumping of blood by the heart, the transportation of oxygen to the cells via that blood, the gastric acid that breaks down foodstuffs, and all the body's other physical features. There are around eighty thousand of these kinds of information packets, known as genes, in the human body.24
If the total amount of genetic information–the genome, in other words–is compared to a library, every book in that library represents a chromosome, and the chapters in the books are genes. Genes are rather like the headings in a giant encyclopedia, containing a detailed blueprint of a human being's biologic characteristics.25
The chromosomes passed on by way of inheritance are determined by the different arrangements of the four chemical bases constituting the DNA steps. Thousands of these steps, or base pairs, constitute a single gene. James Watson, one of the co-discoverers of DNA's structure, notes that base sequences are the source of the differences in genes:
The four nucleotides were not however, completely different, for each contained the same sugar and phosphate components. Their uniqueness lay in their nitrogenous bases, which were either a purine (adenine and guanine) or a pyrimidine (cytosine and thymine) . . . If the base sequences were always the same, all DNA molecules would be identical. And there would not exist the variability that must distinguish one gene from another.26
From these four base sequences, Allah has created billions of different human beings and keeps creating. Thanks to the flawless order that Allah created in DNA, human beings emerge with a detailed and complex structure and the rich characteristics they possess.
In verse 45 of Surat an-Nur it is revealed that:

. . . Allah creates whatever He wills. Allah has power over all things. (Surat An-Nur, 45)

DNA is a Stable Molecule
DNA is the most suitable molecule for carrying information. Chemists refer to it being stable, which means the molecule is not easily damaged or dissolved. Scientists engaged in research in the field of molecular biology are well aware of the importance of this stability, because DNA's structure is far more resistant than most biochemicals used in the laboratory. Unlike many biochemicals, it can preserve its stability for months in solution, even at room temperature.27 Prof. Daniel Dennet expresses the stable nature of the bases in DNA:
One of the important features of DNA is that all the permutations of sequences of adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine are about equally stable, chemically. All could be constructed, in principle, in the gene-splicing laboratory, and, once constructed, would have an indefinite shelf like a book in a library.28
All shows that the DNA molecule is specially created to contain and conceal information. It is absolutely impossible for all of DNA's properties to have come into existence togather instantaneously, as the result of chance. Each one of these has been consciously brought together at our Almighty Lord's command.
In one verse of the Qur'an, Allah reveals that:

. . . That is Allah, your Lord. The Kingdom is His. Those you call on besides Him have no power over even the smallest speck. (Surah Fatir, 13)
The Astonishing Order in DNA's Spiral
Structure
Imagine the coiled cord that leads from a telephone receiver. A long cable has been squeezed into a much shorter distance, but in such a way that it can be extended if necessary. Nobody seeing that cable could possibly imagine that it had assumed that shape by chance, because the place where the cable is used, its purpose and the ease it affords are all signs of an intellect and conscious knowledge.
The DNA in human cells has a similarly spiral shape, but is far more regular, longer and more convoluted. There is enormous wisdom behind the use of this shape. DNA's extraordinary data capacity, which we shall be discussing shortly, and the way it is compressed into a minute space, are made possible thanks to this special form. DNA, which measures 4 meters (13.12 feet) when its spiral is fully extended, takes up no more space than one two millionth of a millimeter, and is hard to see even under an electron microscope.29

DNA is Reminiscent of a Highly Regular
Spiral Staircase
The DNA molecule is a coiled helix, consisting of two spirals, rather like a staircase. The coils in the DNS spiral have an exceedingly regular structure. The vertebrae consisting of sugar and phosphate in both DNA chains revolve at an equal distance around a common axis and twist in the same direction, from right to left. Moreover, there is no haphazard sequencing in the steps between the two arms. The bases that make up the rungs form an angle of 90 degrees to the spiral axis, giving the DNA strip its highly regular, staircase-like appearance.
The steps are joined to one another with a special locking system. The four different components of the rungs –adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine– are of different sizes. The adenine and guanine bases are large, and cytosine and thymine are small molecules. The dimensions of the molecules that will be opposite one another have been determined in such a way as to ensure equal spaces at every point on the spiral staircase.
In order for the steps to be always regular, guanine always pairs with cytosine, and adenine with thymine. Thus small bases always being opposite large ones in the DNA molecule means the distance is stable at every point. The result is a regular staircase extending with no interruptions. However, if the base adenine were to be paired with guanine just once, instead of with thymine, it would be impossible for the helix structure to proceed in a regular manner. Any error in the sequence might thus entirely impair the molecule's chemical structure and prevent the data being used, copied and transmitted. This again indicates that the sequence cannot be the work of chance.
The distance between the turns of neighboring base pairs is also stable. This system ensures equidistance between the staircase coils, some 10 base pairs –in other words, 10 steps– form a complete revolution of 360 degrees.30 DNA coils a billion times a second, and the staircase steps twist by performing their spiral movement.31 This action plays a very important role in DNA's performing two vital functions--directing the formation of protein and self-replication.
Prof. Werner Gitt, director of the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, says this about this special structure:
The coding system used for living beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint. This fact strengthens the argument that it was a case of purposeful design [Creation] rather than fortuitous chance .32

Importance of the Bonds used in the Building
the Spiral
The dual backbones of the long DNA molecule –or the banisters of the staircase– are very strong, made up of consecutive sugar and phosphate molecules. These molecules attach to one another with a special bond known as ester covalent bonds. These are exceptionally strong and it is very difficult to break them. This strength provides protection against harmful factors that might impair genetic information.33 The existence of these bonds makes the DNA molecule resistant and stable even while the DNA molecule is in a single-strand form.
However, there is a risk of damage to the DNA spiral structure as the coils unfold. For that reason, the spiral needs to be strong and stable enough to protect its structure but also elastic enough to be opened up very quickly so that the information can be easily used. In fact, a combination of powerful covalent bonds that protect DNA's basic molecular structure of, and weaker hydrogen bonds that can be broken more quickly, enables the elasticity-solidity problem to be overcome. Since the hydrogen bonds forming between the four opposed nucleotides are not as strong as ester bonds, they can easily be separated with less energy by means of such factors as pH variation (acid-base equilibrium), heat, and pressure. Weak bonds play a very important role in the shaping of the large molecules in an organism, and endow with elasticity the substance they compose. However, no breakage in the bonds ever takes place. Thanks to this distinguishing feature of hydrogen bonds, the information in the DNA molecule can be used whenever required.
The significance of the elasticity in the bonds is that the vital function of protein production is made possible by DNA being copied when cells divide, and that transmission is made possible by the elastic property of the bonds between them. Since the two chains of the DNA molecule are attached to one another only by hydrogen bonds, they can easily be unraveled and separated from one another. They can also, when necessary, recombine and form a new helix structure. No breakage or impairment ever takes place in the nucleotides that constitute the steps of the DNA chain during detachment or separation. While the hydrogen bonds in the center can easily separate from one another, no breakage or stretching ever develops in the long chains at either side, attached by means of covalent bonds.
The molecular biologist Michael Denton describes the perfection in the biochemical structure of DNA:
The geometric perfection of the molecule is particularly evident in the fact that the strength of each of the five hydrogen bonds –the two between adenine and thymine and the three between guanine and cytosine– is optimal because each of the hydrogen atoms points directly at its acceptor atom, and the bond lengths are all at the energy maximum for hydrogen bonds. This is most remarkable, for it confers great stability on the molecule and makes for highly accurate base pairing during replication.34
On the one hand, there is a need for a sound and stable structure for the containing of genetic information, while on the other a flexible structure is required for the genes to be read and copied. So the strength of the bond between the two arms that make up the DNA helix has to be just right for it to fulfill its essential functions. And indeed, the DNA helix does have just the right level of strength and elasticity. If the bond between the DNA strips were any stronger, the two arms would stop moving and become fixed. But if the bond were weaker, the molecule would break apart.35 Yet by the will of Allah, the bonds that constitute DNA have the ideal structure to make the helix both highly regular and exceedingly functional.

The Importance of Phosphate in DNA
Phosphates keep together the nucleotide bases on DNA, because the DNA helix functions in an environment containing water, and water breaks down the bonds between phosphates and sugars. Thus it is both advantageous and essential that the phosphate groups in DNA be negatively charged. That negative charge eliminates the danger of the DNA being broken down in the watery environment surrounding it.
What compounds, other than phosphates, could establish a chemical bond and still manage to remain negatively charged? There are various possibilities. Yet none of these can form genetic information in the way that phosphate does. Silicic acid and arsenic esters break down rapidly in water. Although citric acid dissolves more slowly in water, it lacks the stability to maintain the molecule's geometry.36
Therefore, if phosphate did not have its own unique properties, the DNA's double helix could not form. No self-replication biochemical system could be established, and life would be impossible. The well-known professor of chemistry Frank Henry Westheimer says this: "All of these conditions are met by phosphoric acid and no other alternative is obvious."37 This situation and all the other details we have examined so far clearly show that our Lord has created the DNA molecule with miraculous properties. In one verse of the Qur'an, it is revealed that:

He knows what is in front of them and behind them. But their knowledge does not encompass Him. (Surah Ta Ha, 110)




CHAPTER 4

DNA's Extraordinary Data-storge Capacity


Modern technological progress in the field of data storage is truly amazing. Computer hard discs, CDs, diskettes, data sticks and similar products are becoming more advanced and efficient every day. Computer firms are seeking answers to how the maximum amount of data can be stored in the minimum space without being impaired, and how that information can be downloaded in the fastest possible manner. Even though whole encyclopedias of data can be compressed onto a single CD, it is still large enough to cover your hand. The astonishing data-miniaturizing or data-compression ability of DNA, on the other hand, far surpasses modern technology.
According to calculations by Leonard Adleman of Los Angeles South California University, just 1 gram (0.0022 pounds) of DNA can contain the equivalent amount of data to 1 trillion CDs.38 This shows that data are concealed in a million, million times more efficiently in DNA than in a CD.39
The volume of a human being's DNA is 3 billionths of a cubic millimeter (3 x 10-9 mm3).40 According to G. G. Simpson, if all the features of all the species that have ever lived were to be loaded onto DNA, the resulting total volume of DNA would fill only a small part of a teaspoon. Enough space would even be left over the rest of the teaspoon to contain all the books that have ever been written.41
Dr. Leonard Adleman, the inventor of the DNA computer, which represents a new sphere of technology, says this about the mechanism in DNA and the cell:
If we look inside the cell, we see extraordinary machines that we couldn't make ourselves. It's a great tool chest. 42
According to Darwinists, however, this giant data bank in the cell –capable of holding the equivalent of tens of thousands of books– came into being spontaneously as the result of chance. In the eyes of Darwinists, who have no qualms about building another total impossibility on top of that one, chance has compressed all the data in a library large enough to fill an entire football stadium, undamaged, into a space too small to be seen with the naked eye. Darwinists still blindly advocate such a total impossibility. Yet neither the cell nor DNA, its data bank, can emerge from the chance combination of unconscious atoms. Even the very smallest components of living things have been created for a specific purpose, and every one of them are far too complex to admit any possibility of chance.
Michael George Pitman, a professor of biology from University of Sydney, uses the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's words to express how life is not just a collection of inanimate substances:
Every organism is organic through and through in all its parts, and nowhere are these, not even in their smallest particles, mere aggregates of inorganic matter.43
If we were to express the volume of data in DNA in numerical terms, then a 4-meter (13.12-foot) long DNA molecule has been packaged and compressed into a cell only 3 to 5 microns in diameter (1 micron = 1/1000 millimeter). If the DNA codes in every one of the body's 100 trillion cells were laid out end to end, the resulting length would stretch to the Sun and back 600 times.44
Prof. Jerry Bergman, known for his scientific papers, emphasizes the engineering in DNA in an analogy:
Suppose you were asked to take two long strands of fisherman's monofilament line –125 miles [201 kilometers] long– then form it into a double-helix structure and neatly fold and pack this line so it would fit into a basketball. Furthermore, you would need to ensure that the double helix could be unzipped and duplicated along the length of this line, and the duplicate copy removed, all without tangling the line. Possible? This is directly analogous to what happens in the billions of cells in your body every day. Scale the basketball down to the size of a human cell and the line scales down to six feet [2 meters] of DNA. . . . The DNA packing process is both complex and elegant and is so efficient that it achieves a reduction in length of DNA by a factor of 1 million. 45
The molecular biologist Michael Denton describes the extraordinary nature of DNA's data compression ability:
. . . it is clear that cells are immensely complex entities. . . more than a number in a jumbo jet. . . the complexity of a jumbo jet packed into a speck of dust invisible to the human eye. It is hardly conceivable that anything more complex could be compacted into such a small volume. Moreover, it is a speck-sized jumbo jet which can duplicate itself quite effortlessly46
DNA's ability to hold information is so efficient that all the data concerning to a human being can be compressed into an area weighing just a few trillionths of a gram.47 According to Yale University's Prof. George Gaylord Simpson, the data belonging 1 billion living things can be squeezed with ease into a single grain of salt.48
Prof. Francis S. Collins, a physicist and geneticist and also director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, describes the results of his study of DNA:
Now fifty years since Watson and Crick unraveled the structure of the double helix, I think it is amazing to contemplate the elegance of DNA carrying information . . . This digital code allows, in a very easily copyable form, such a massive amount of information to be carried inside each cell of the human body. This double helix DNA is made up of base pair letters. The whole human genome consists of three billion of these base pairs all packaged inside the cell's nucleus. . . The three billion letters are able to direct all of the biological properties of a human being.49
The well-known molecular biologist Michael Denton mentions that biological information to be packed into the tiny volume of the cell nucleus seems to be specifically arranged for human beings.50 If DNA did not have this data compression ability, the cell would have to be very much larger in order to hold irregular DNA strips. But it is impossible for cells to be any larger, because the cell's sources of oxygen and nutrients are efficient only given the existing diameter of the cell.51 From that point of view, the cell's size and therefore, its ability to hold DNA, is of vital importance.
This glorious packaging system is made possible by the DNA molecule's ability to coil and form long spirals that bend and give rise to intertwined, regular helixes. This packaging technology evidencing highly advanced engineering, can be seen in the nucleus of every cell. By means of this packaging system that our Almighty Lord created in our cells, millions of kilometers of DNA "letters" remain contained in a volume we cannot see with the naked eye.

The Giant Encyclopedia in the Human Cell
So extraordinary is the amount of information recorded in DNA that a single DNA molecule contains enough information to fill a million encyclopedia pages. To put that another way, 1,000,000 pages of data that control the functioning of the human body have been encoded inside the nucleus of every cell. You can obtain a better idea of this amount when you consider that even the 23-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, has only 25,000 pages. This gives rise to an extraordinary picture. Inside the nucleus, itself far smaller than the microscopic cell in which it is contained; is a data bank 40 times larger than one of the largest encyclopedias on Earth, equivalent to a 920-volume encyclopedia. Research has shown that this giant encyclopedia contains some 5 billion different pieces of information. Let's repeat those two words, "contains information"
We now need to stop and think about what this means. It is easy enough to say that a cell contains billions of pieces of information. However, we are discussing not a computer or a library, but an area 100 times smaller than a millimeter made up solely of protein, fat and water molecules. It would be astonishing for only a single piece of information, let alone millions, to be contained inside this tiny molecule. Moreover, books and encyclopedias are inert and inanimate. Someone possessed of consciousness needs to read the information and act on the instructions it contains. Yet DNA is a living source of information that does not just contain data, but also uses that information and acts upon it.
How can a chain consisting of atoms arranged one behind the other, in a space just a billionth of a millimeter in diameter, possess such knowledge and memory? While each of the 100 trillion cells in your body are capable of learning a million pages by heart, how many pages could you –an intelligent individual– learn during the course of your lifetime? Any rational person will conclude that the cell is the work of a superior mind and superior knowledge. It is impossible, as evolutionists maintain, for DNA to have arisen by chance in one single cell, let alone in an organism consisting of billions. Almighty Allah (is the Creator of all things. Allah reveals in one verse of the Qur'an as follows:
They do not measure Allah with His true measure. Allah is All-Strong, Almighty. (Surat al-Hajj, 74)

The Data Storage Technology in DNA
Is Greater Than That of Computers
The computer is the most advanced technology through which large quantities of information can be stored. The information possessed by room-sized computers 50 years ago can now be stored on small discs. Yet the latest computer technology, developed by human intelligence as the result of centuries of accumulated knowledge and many years of effort, comes nowhere near to approaching the data-storage capacity of DNA.
A strand of DNA is only one 2 millionth of a millimeter in thickness. Despite this extraordinary thinness and the fact it is 4 meters (13.12 feet) long, DNA strips never become tangled up with one another. Thanks to its special structure, the DNA is folded up perfectly inside the cell's nucleus - an example of incomparable engineering.
One of the main goals of computer engineers is to be able to store as much information as possible in as small a space as possible. At present, the highest level storage capacity on Earth is that belonging to DNA molecule.52 In his book The Road Ahead, Bill Gates, the president of Microsoft, writes:
Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created.53
The well-known American philosopher Prof. Daniel Dennet describes the density of information contained in DNA in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea:
Even to those of us accustomed to the "engineering miracles" of the computer age, the facts are hard to encompass. Not only molecule-sized copying machines, but proofreading enzymes that correct mistakes, all at blinding speed, on a scale that super computers still can not match. Biological macromolecules have a storage capacity that exceeds that of the best present-day information stores by several orders of magnitude.54
The sequencing of the codes in DNA resembles that of the digits in a computer system. The numbers in a computer environment can contain an image, the instructions for a computer game, or the text of a book. The codes in DNA contain information that serves to produce new proteins.55 But no computer engineer can imitate DNA, which contains sufficient information to fill a million encyclopedia pages in a space invisible to the naked eye. To claim that DNA emerged by chance is even more irrational than maintaining that the most advanced computers could have done so. DNA exhibits evident proofs of Allah's sublime creation. Allah reveals this matchless creation in the Qur'an:

He is the Originator of the heavens and the Earth. . . (Surat al-An'am, 101)


Astonishing Comparisons That Elucidate
the Giant Data Capacity in DNA
Instead of using units of measurement, scientists resort to various comparisons to emphasize the vast amount of genetic data in human beings. Here are some examples that stress the breadth of the data capacity in DNA:
*If the information in the human genome could be written down using the alphabet, it would fill 1,000 books of 1,000 pages each, each page containing 3,000 letters.56 1,000 books times 1,000 pages times 3,000 letters equals 3,000,000,000 (3 billion) letters.
*If those 3 billion letters in the human genome were written out as a single sentence, it would stretch from the North Pole to the Equator. Someone working at a typewriter at a rate of 300 letters per minute for 8 hours a day, 220 days a year, would take 95 years to complete the task.57
*For the genetic information to be written out would require 12,000 160-page books. Compared with computer chips with a 16 MB capacity (a megabyte is 1 million bytes, the smallest data units in a computer), the DNA strip in the human genome contains 1,400 times more information.58
*If a pinhead 2 millimeters (0.078 of an inch) in diameter were stretched out to the thinness of the DNA molecule, it would be 33 times longer than the Equator.59
*The information in DNA is sufficient to fill a library consisting of 100 sets of a 30-volume encyclopedia.60
*Were the information in DNA to be placed in books piled one on top of the other, those books would attain a height of 70 meters (229 feet). Alternatively, that information could fill 200 phone books of 500 pages each.61
*If the DNA in all the cells in the human body were flattened out and laid end to end, they would stretch for some 50,000,000 kilometers (31,070,000 miles.) That distance is enough to go from the Earth to the Solar System. Light would take approximately two days to travel the entire length of the DNA in your body.62
*According to professor Jérôme Lejeune, a genetics expert, the genetic data belonging to all the human beings on Earth could be contained in a quantity of DNA no larger than a few aspirin tablets.63
*The information in the DNA in a single human cell could fill 1 million encyclopedia pages. Individuals could not live long enough to read their own genetic data. Where they to read the DNA code every day, 24 hours a day, non-stop, it would take 100 years to complete the task.
*To envisage the density of the data in the DNA molecule, assume that you have enough DNA to cover a pinhead. Now consider that this same information is written down in books of 160 pages each. The data in such a small amount of DNA could fill 15 trillion (15 times 1012) of those 160-page books. If you placed that many books one on top of the other, their height would be 500 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon (384,000 kilometers, or 238,600 miles). Alternatively, if these books were equally distributed among the 6 billion or so people in the world, every individual would receive 2,500 volumes.64
The boundless information that these examples try to express is stored inside every cell nucleus. The presence of DNA, storing the equivalent amount of information to a large library, in some 100 trillion cells, means 100 trillion of these libraries. Were we to compare that level of information with the level so far achieved by mankind, we would be unable to find an example sufficiently large. In addition, if we multiplied that quantity by the 6 billion people currently living on the Earth and the billions of others who lived in the past, a boundless quantity of data would appear before us.
Moreover, we are now speaking only of human genetic information. Bearing in mind the genetic information possessed by the millions of living creatures that have ever existed, the level rises to heights that exceed comprehension. The knowledge that our Omniscient and Almighty Lord has manifested in DNA leaves absolutely no room for claims based on chance.
In one verse, it is stated that:

There is no one in the heavens and Earth who will not come to the All-Merciful as a servant. He has counted them and numbered them precisely. (Surah Maryam, 93-94)

Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray! (Surat al-Anbiya', 18)

DNA Is an Example of the
Artistry and Intellect of Allah,
the Lord of Infinite Knowledge
The basic claims of the theory of evolution are based on blind chance, which cannot give rise to information. If the chemical formula for a drug that cures cancer is written down one day, all the authorities would join forces to identify the discoverers and even give them an award. Nobody would wonder if that formula was the result of ink being spilled on the page, Any rational mind would think that it could have been written only by someone with expertise in chemistry, physiology, oncology (the branch of medicine that studies cancer) and pharmacology (the branch that studies drugs).
Evolutionists seek to account for the origin of