I came to computer programming later in life.  The first time I did some programming on my own it occurred to me that this DNA to RNA to protein process was a lot like a subroutine.  Now any user input I was trying to program for, passed through a whole lot of repetitive computer code before the appropriate subroutine could be identified and activated.  Was it possible, I wondered, that junk DNA was like that repetitive code, analyzing inputs to determine the appropriate subroutine to activate?  Repressor molecules, at least part of the answer, proved to be far more efficient and intelligent than my meager programming skills.

In E. coli bacteria lactose is broken down into two simpler sugars by an enzyme called beta-galactosidase.  A repressor molecule binds to the DNA near where the recipe for this enzyme, a protein, is coded.  The DNA can’t unzip; transcription can’t take place.  Lactose also binds to the repressor molecule whenever it is present in the cell.  So when lactose is present the repressor molecule binds preferentially to lactose rather than to the DNA strand.  The DNA recipe is free to unzip.  The recipe for beta-galactosidase is transcribed into messenger RNA, exported from the nucleus, translated into an amino acid chain that folds into a three dimensional shape, becomes an active enzyme and breaks lactose down into two simpler sugars.  The repressor molecule is itself a protein—an object, I thought?—coded somewhere presumably in E. coli DNA.

Suddenly, object oriented programming made a lot more sense to me.  There was a whole chapter on it in the book I read to learn programming.  I understood the basics of how to do it.  I didn’t grasp why.  My point here is simply that had I known about repressor molecules before I started writing code, I might have understood why I should use object oriented programming more than I did.  (And the cost bidding software I wrote to do my job better might have run more efficiently.)

“While E. coli is a relatively simple system in which to investigate gene-switching,” Watson wrote, “subsequent work on more complicated organisms, including humans, has revealed that the same basic principles apply across the board.”¹

Perhaps my larger point is that my faith that Jesus is the creator of the DNA-RNA-protein complex makes it easy for me to learn something about computer programming from DNA.  I respond to the mind behind the artifact, and can freely acknowledge that He is a cleverer software engineer than I am.  Now to some it might seem that my faith and its consequent bias against the theory of evolution blinds me to the fact of evolution.  I want to set this matter straight.

I am persuaded that the fact of evolution is, for all practical purposes, beyond the realm of serious debate.  But those facts make the theory of evolution very difficult to swallow.  One fact of evolution is simple, straightforward and right before our eyes, sickle cell anemia.  This genetic disease is selected for in certain environments because it so disfigures the red blood cells they are not healthy enough to be infected by another fatal disease; namely, malaria.

While the horror of that sinks in, I will go on to say that every genetic disorder and disease is a fact of evolution.  Sickle cell anemia at least gives one some protection from malaria.  But it is difficult to see any selective advantage in genetic diseases like Huntington’s or cystic fibrosis.  We—as a people—spend the lives of our most brilliant researchers and millions of hard-earned dollars searching for cures and palliations to the ravages of evolution against our genome.

So the fact of evolution—that time, chance, cosmic rays and copying errors make alterations to a complex information storage and retrieval system like the DNA-RNA-protein complex—is, I think, well beyond dispute.²  But the theory that these same or similar random processes are also responsible for the creation of this complex information storage and retrieval system in the first place, not to mention the information stored in that system, information which is being destroyed by evolution at a rather alarming rate, is a leap of faith I can’t make.  I will admit to being a pessimist by nature, but this is optimism to the point of absurdity in my opinion.

Addendum: December 9, 2021
Tables comparing Ecclesiastes 9:11 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and comparing the Greek of Ecclesiastes 9:11 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor) follow.