BreakPoint with Charles Colson
Commentary #011031 - 10/31/2001
XP and I.D.: Lessons in Origins from Microsoft
In one aisle, the local computer store sells a single
CD for between $99 and $299. In the next aisle, they
carry multi-pack CDs for less than a dollar per disc.
Why the drastic price discrepancy? They're both made
of the same plastic.
The difference is, of course, that the cheap compact
discs are blank -- while the expensive ones are
encoded with various versions of Microsoft's new
Windows XP operating system.
The analogy for explaining the difference is the
chemist who calculated the value of the chemicals in
his body. Computing the cost of the carbon, iron,
calcium, and the other elemental chemicals on the
periodic table of the elements -- he found his body
was worth ninety-seven cents.
But that's not the way the chemicals appear in living
bodies. When he calculated the value of the
hemoglobin, insulin, and other complex organic
compounds that actually composed his body, he
realized he was worth more than $6 million!
That's what the body's programming does. It's
information technology from the DNA, which is why
many scientists are now talking about Intelligent
Design of the body.
When I was in high school, my science teacher said
everything consisted of matter and energy. Now
scientists know better. Caltech president and Nobel
laureate David Baltimore says, "Modern biology is a
science of information," noting that DNA is matter
that is alive because it contains complex
informational codes.
But Dr. Baltimore thinks the DNA software wrote
itself. Last year, shortly before the White House
announced completion of the preliminary mapping of
the human genome, Baltimore wrote in the New York
Times, "It will take many decades to fully comprehend
the magnificence of the DNA edifice . . . held in the
nucleus of each cell of the body . . ." Yet, he says,
even our limited understanding confirms that human
genes "look much like those of fruit flies, worms,
and even plants. . . . [W]e are all descended from
the same humble beginnings . . . That should be, but
won't be, the end of creationism."
Now let's think about that for a moment. Deciphering
DNA and the human genome is very similar to what
computer scientists call "reverse engineering." They
take a software program and work backwards to find
out how it was written.
Can you imagine anyone reverse engineering the new
Microsoft software, and concluding that natural
processes put it together? Does Windows XP somehow
prove that Bill Gates or his engineers don't exist? I
don't think so.
Yet some materialists explain the complexities of
nature by ingenious intellectual headstands to avoid
recognizing an Intelligent Designer. Former atheist
Dr. J. Budziszewski remembers the efforts he expended
in that direction, and summarizes, "There are certain
forms of stupidity that one has to be highly
intelligent and educated to commit."
The person who tries to dodge the conclusion of
Intelligent Design, is like the customer who tries to
convince himself that Windows XP wrote itself -- and
therefore he needn't be concerned about copyright
rules. If we have a Creator, we're accountable to him
-- and some people prefer to avoid that conclusion.
The recent release of Windows XP illustrates the
concept of intelligent design. If Windows XP points
to Bill Gates, how much more do the marvelous
complexities of DNA point directly to God, the great
Intelligent Designer?
|
