Congratulations to the Human Genome Project! After more than 20 years the human genome is fully mapped.
As reported by USA Today, “Scientists are finally done mapping the human genome, more than two decades after the first draft was completed, researchers announced Thursday.” An excellent timeline of this achievement can be found HERE.
The human genome–our DNA code–is the internal coded building instructions inside each of us. To “map” it–that is to reproduce its order–took 20 years and millions of dollars. The complexity of the human DNA code is difficult to describe in quality or quantity. Like describing the quality and quantity of stars and galaxies, at some point numbers become disconnected from our frame of meaningful reference.
To put our genome in more understandable language, suffice it to say that it is very much like a long, well-written book having an extremely complex plot line.
For example, consider the following quotes from the USA Today article, in which our human genome is likened to a “book of life” that can be read from “Page 1 to the final chapter.” Further, DNA is considered the “blueprint of life.”
Earlier maps, he said, were missing entire chapters of the book of life. Now, “we can continuously read the book with almost no errors,” he said, “we can get from Page 1 to the final chapter.” DNA, considered the blueprint of life, consists of four base pairs of nucleotides, simplified as the letter A, C T and G. An individual’s genome is the complete set of these sequences. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/03/31/human-genome-dna-mapping-complete/7229428001/
How did this coded matter described as a book of life or blueprint of life get created in us?
We must realize that the language of “creation” is necessary and appropriate. We can not speak of a “blueprint” simply “arising” or “forming” as if some passive natural force of nature like the wind and rain simply moved atoms around to make the blueprint slowly appear.
Natural forces of nature cannot write a book.
The Garvan Institute of Medical Research confirms our view of the natue of DNA in an excellent video discussing its role in living beings. The very first words of the narrator state: “Your DNA is like an instruction book. It contains the instructions for living things, like you, to develop, grow, and function.” It’s an excellent, short video. Check it out!
Did mindless forces of nature create our internal instruction book? According to some scientists, our human genome that took 20 year to untangle and finally map was created by random mutations that re-programmed a different genome that included the programmed instructions to build a sea sponge!
Do we have any reason to believe that random genetic mutations can re-program a perfectly good sea sponge instruction book into a perfectly good human construction book?
Science magazine reports on completing the sequencing of the human genome. The article begins with the following abstract. Read this and ask yourself: “Is there any part of this that makes me confident that my internal coded building instructions are a result of random re-programming of the sea sponge genome?“:
Since its initial release in 2000, the human reference genome has covered only the euchromatic fraction of the genome, leaving important heterochromatic regions unfinished. Addressing the remaining 8% of the genome, the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium presents a complete 3.055 billion–base pair sequence of a human genome, T2T-CHM13, that includes gapless assemblies for all chromosomes except Y, corrects errors in the prior references, and introduces nearly 200 million base pairs of sequence containing 1956 gene predictions, 99 of which are predicted to be protein coding. The completed regions include all centromeric satellite arrays, recent segmental duplications, and the short arms of all five acrocentric chromosomes, unlocking these complex regions of the genome to variational and functional studies. Science, The complete sequence of a human genome, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj6987
If you have normal sensibilities you will–like most people–read the abstract above and conclude that whatever it is talking about, it is describing coded information so intelligently concocted that it is practically unintelligible to mere humans.
What are we mere humans to make of our growing understanding of our human coded blueprint building instructions?
Think about it.
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