Excerpt: But the problem of information origin in biology is far bigger than most people realize. Information by itself is useless unless the cell knows how to use it. Evolution not only requires new information, it also requires extra new information about how to use that new information. Information about information is called meta-information. We can see how it works in making a cake. If you want to make a cake, you need a recipe that contains: (a) a list of ingredients, and (b) instructions on how to mix and cook the ingredients to produce the desired outcome. The list of ingredients is the primary information, and the instructions on what to do with the ingredients is the meta-information. The human genome contains an enormous amount of information, far more than we ever (until recently) imagined. But we now know that most of it is not primary information (protein-coding genes) but meta-information—the information that cells need to have in order to turn those protein-coding genes into a functional human being and maintain and reproduce that functional being. ... The amount of meta-information in the human genome is thus truly enormous compared with the amount of primary gene-coding information. ...
Now comes the impossible conundrum. Keeping in mind the cake analogy, lets recall that the vast majority of information in humans is not ingredient-level information (code for proteins) but meta-information—instructions for using the ingredients to make, maintain and reproduce functional human beings. Evolutionists say that all this information arose by random mutations, but this is not possible. Random events are, by definition, independent of one another. But meta-information is, by definition, totally dependent upon the information to which it relates. It would be quite non-sensical to take the cooking instructions for making a cake and apply them to the assembly of, say, a child’s plastic toy (if nothing else, the baking stage would reduce the toy to a mangled mess). Cake-cooking instructions only have meaning when applied to cake-making ingredients. So too, the logistics solution to the cell division problem is only relevant to the problem of cell division. If we applied the logistics solution to the problem of mate attraction via pheromones (scent) in moths it would not work. All the vast amount of meta-information in human beings only has meaning when applied to the gene content of the human genome. ...
Even if we granted that the first biological information came into existence by a random process, the meta-information needed to use that information could not come into existence by the same random (independent) process because meta-information is inextricably dependent upon the information that it relates to.There is thus no possible random (mutation) solution to this conundrum. Can natural selection save the day? No. There are at least 100 (and probably many more) bits of meta-information in the human genome for every bit of primary (protein-coding gene) information. An organism that has to manufacture, maintain, and drag around with it a mountain of useless information while waiting for a chance correlation of relevance to occur so that something useful can happen, is an organism that natural selection is going to select against, not favour! Moreover, an organism that can survive long enough to accumulate a mountain of useless information is an organism that does not need useless information—it must already have all the information it needs to survive!
What kind of organism already has all the information it needs to survive? There is only one answer—an organism that was designed in the beginning with all that it needs to survive.
The idea of millions of years came from the belief that the fossil record was built up over a long time. As soon as people allow for millions of years, they allow for the fossil record to be millions of years old. This creates an insurmountable problem regarding the gospel. The fossil record consists of the death of billions of creatures. In fact, it is a record of death, disease, suffering, cruelty, and brutality. It is a very ugly record. The Bible is adamant though, that death, disease, and suffering came into the world as a result of sin. God instituted death and bloodshed because of sin so man could be redeemed. As soon as Christians allow for death, suffering, and disease before sin, then the whole foundations of the message of the Cross and the Atonement have been destroyed. The doctrine of original sin, then, is totally undermined. If there were death, disease, and suffering before Adam rebelled-then what did sin do to the world? What does Paul mean in Romans 8 when he says the whole of creation groans in pain because of the Curse? How can all things be restored in the future to no more death and suffering, unless the beginning was also free of death and suffering? The whole message of the gospel falls apart if one allows millions of years for the creation of the world. - The Necessity for Believing in Six Literal Days by Ken Ham, emphases added. Also hear Six Day Creation & The Eisegesis Problem by Ken Ham (Free MP3)
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