Every now and then, someone tells me something that is way out there……unbelievable. And I say to myself, “you must be kidding”. Sometimes I even say it to their face, though usually, out of courtesy, I just smile. Today, I want to talk about one of those things. This is something that 9 out of 10 people accept as a fact…..but that, in my opinion, is utterly absurd.
When I was young, somebody was explaining large numbers to me……it was an unusual conversation for a redneck kid growing up in western Kentucky, to say the least. They said, “if you give enough monkeys enough typwriters and enough time and enough paper, they will type the “Encyclopedia Brittanica”.” For those of you who grew up with cell phones, you can google typewriter and encyclopedia.
So……I looked it up……..on Google. The Encyclopedia Brittanica has about 1/3 of a billion characters. We’ll forget about the graphics for now. And it’s true. Given enough time and monkeys, the Encyclopedia Brittanica could be generated by a cumulative series of random keystrokes……theoretically speaking, of course. And yet, if I showed you a set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and told you that it was typed by monkeys, you would think I was nuts. You certainly wouldn’t believe me. Because you and I both understand the difference between what is theoretically possible and what is practically achievable. We understand the difference between an abstract theory and a hard fact. The monkeys and the typwriters is an entertaining intellectual exercise……..a fun theoretical discussion, but it would be unwise to run your life based on that type of analysis. It would be unwise to wager your future on such a theory.
And then…….there is the human genome……not to mention the trillions of other genomes out there. The human genome is basically a chemical alphabet……a chemical language that contains the instructions for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the human body. It contains roughly 200 billion atoms…..200 billion characters. The human genome is roughly 600 times larger than the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
I reject the concept that monkeys could type the “Encyclopedia Brittanica” on the grounds that the theory behind it is not practically scalable. The problem with evolution of the human genome is the same. It is not practically scalable. There just hasn’t been enough time.
The great minds of our culture tell us that the human genome accumulated by a series of cumulative, positively adaptive, random biochemical accidents. They tell us that there is no creative intelligence behind it. They call this theory evolution. It is the intellectual equivalent of saying “the monkeys did it”.
The truth is that Darwinian evolution is a theory……not a fact.
But, most of us buy it. Some even ridicule those of us who reject it.
And I say, “you must be kidding! There just aren’t enough monkeys.”
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis, 1:27, ESV
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Genesis, 2:7, ESV
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
Charles Darwin