Computers Without Chips

Originally published in Creation 16, no 1 (December 1993): 13.

Like any other computer software, the DNA helix is packed with information, a complete set of instructions for the complex working of the cell.

Opinions differ as to how many species of life there are on earth. Estimates range into the tens of millions. Each of these millions of species has its own miniature computer program within each cell, written on a complex molecule known as DNA.

Like any other computer software, the DNA helix is packed with information, a complete set of instructions for the complex working of the cell. And, like any other computer, the ‘computers’ which are living things had to be programmed. Computers cannot program themselves, but require a source of information—an intelligence to devise and enter complex instructions.

A computer can be programmed by another computer. In the same way, today’s ‘living computers’ were programmed by their parents during reproduction; they in turn by their grandparents, and so on. As we never see information increasing during this act of programming (reproduction), but decreasing on occasion (harmful mutations), this points back to a time when the first organisms were programmed ‘from outside’.

The ability to program accurately so many DNA-carrying computers, all with different information, requires a super-intelligence with ability far beyond that of any human writer of programs. It clearly indicates the reality of a super-human programmer, known as the Creator.

There is no way that chance, or an accident of nature, could write even one DNA program, and certainly not the countless different programs that science has revealed this century in the living forms all around us.

Newsletter

Get the latest answers emailed to you.

Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

Learn more

  • Customer Service 800.778.3390