DNA and Design - 180010

0:04 [Music] 0:30 welcome to the creator revealed my 0:33 name's Tim Standish and I'm a scientist 0:36 in fact I spent about 20 years of my 0:40 life getting a PhD that involved 0:45 studying DNA this incredible molecule 0:51 that contains the plan for much of what 0:57 goes on in our bodies and it is so 0:59 fascinating we're just so glad that you 1:01 are joining us and if you're like me 1:03 this is gonna be something that 1:05 sometimes you look at he go whoa why did 1:08 he just say but what you will see is the 1:12 creator's design I believe that's what I 1:14 see 1:15 it's exciting to understand how God 1:18 created us exactly I think of DNA as 1:21 being God's unique plan for each person 1:28 each organism out there that we see 1:31 because there are no two identical DNA's 1:35 I mean that's what makes our so unique 1:37 this that's right this is what makes 1:39 Shelly Quinn a six-foot tall blue-eyed 1:42 person that's it now we are more than 1:46 just DNA but DNA is really important 1:51 before we dive into this I want us to 1:53 consider these words that were written 1:55 by the Apostle Paul to people living in 1:58 a place called colossi okay say he's 2:01 writing to the Colossians and he says 2:03 fall by him this is God all things were 2:08 created that are in heaven and that are 2:11 on earth visible and invisible whether 2:15 Thrones or dominions or principalities 2:17 or powers all things were created 2:20 through him and for him and when we talk 2:25 about DNA we're really talking about 2:28 something that is invisible it's it's so 2:32 small we can't see it we can't see it 2:35 with our naked eyes we can't see it with 2:38 a light microscope if you use soup 2:41 dupa specialized kinds of techniques you 2:45 can visualize it however and there's DNA 2:49 in every molecule of our bajo yes and 2:52 well every cell of our body said the DNA 2:54 is a molecule and it's found in every 2:57 tiny little cell in our bodies and I 3:02 want to start out by talking a little 3:05 bit about one of the gentlemen who 3:08 received a Nobel Prize for figuring out 3:11 the structure of DNA this is me back 3:14 back in the olden days back when I had 3:18 just earned my PhD and I am standing 3:24 with a gentleman named Francis Crick now 3:29 if you know anything about DNA you know 3:31 that Francis Crick received a Nobel 3:34 Prize for figuring out the double 3:37 helical structure of DNA and we got to 3:40 get that into that in just a moment 3:42 but I want to say something about 3:44 Francis Crick because you know Francis 3:48 Crick in my very limited personal 3:51 experience was actually a very 3:53 gentlemanly man a kind man and and I 3:57 remember talking with him and and how 4:00 kind he was to me you know I was just a 4:02 new PhD I didn't feel that I knew very 4:07 much actually at the end of that and and 4:09 here is this man with a Nobel Prize and 4:12 his kindness really impressed me so I 4:15 want to be careful about what I say 4:17 about him I but I am going to quote 4:21 something that he said which really made 4:25 quite an impression on me he wrote this 4:28 he said biologists must constantly keep 4:31 in mind that what they see was not 4:34 designed but rather evolved you see 4:41 Francis Crick was a materialist he 4:46 believed that the only things that exist 4:48 are the atoms essentially and he was a 4:53 brilliant man 4:54 and here 8 I believe quite eloquently 4:57 about science and about DNA but at the 5:02 end of the day he imposed on himself a 5:07 philosophy that was in tension with what 5:11 he was observing in nature and so he had 5:15 to make this rule for himself and for 5:18 those who believed in the same way I as 5:21 a Christian do not have to impose 5:25 blinders like this on myself if 5:27 something looks designed then I am free 5:32 to interpret it as being designed if it 5:35 walks like a duck and it quacks like a 5:38 duck I'm allowed to say it's a duck ok 5:41 so that is a big difference between the 5:44 way that I think and the way that 5:47 Francis Crick a man who I profoundly 5:49 respect but disagree with on this 5:52 particular issue so this is the the 5:57 structure the double helix that Francis 6:02 Crick figured out so DNA this amazing 6:06 molecule that contains all sorts of 6:09 plans for how our body is going to be 6:12 this is what it looks like it's like you 6:14 can think of it as like two spiral 6:16 staircases that are spiraling around 6:19 each other and the steps in there are 6:23 things that we call bases so let's take 6:26 a look at look at those I'm getting a 6:27 sort of untwist this molecule a little 6:30 bit so that we can see what those a T's 6:33 and G's and C's look like in there 6:37 because those are the really important 6:39 things that's where that information is 6:42 coded and you can see those those 6:45 molecules there I'll put the A's and T's 6:47 and GS and C's on there those are just 6:50 letters of the alphabet that we use to 6:52 symbolize these specific chemicals that 6:56 you can see there the great thing about 6:59 this structure well there are many many 7:01 many things but you can encode 7:04 information into that little alphabet 7:07 that for 7:08 letter alphabet all kinds of information 7:10 there are about 3 billion of these ATS 7:15 Jesus sees in the human genome and if I 7:21 was to take the DNA that is inside one 7:24 of yourselves it would stretch out to 7:27 approximately 2 meters long so it is 7:31 longer than you are tall in just one 7:35 microscopic cell there it's all packed 7:40 up in there and that contains a huge 7:42 amount of information ok what did the P 7:45 stand for protein there are those stand 7:48 for phosphates yes so you can see that 7:51 they're joined together by this 7:53 it's a phosphate and then a sugar and 7:55 then a phosphate and then a sugar and 7:57 these bases that a T's GS and C's stick 8:00 off the sugar part so the backbone is 8:04 that sugar phosphate backbone there oh I 8:06 would love to spend all the time talking 8:08 about that but we'd better not let's 8:10 talk about these A's and T's and GS and 8:13 C's you can see the A's and T's always 8:15 match up with each other and GS and C's 8:18 always match up with each other if we do 8:21 if we write out a whole bunch of them 8:23 they would look something like this now 8:25 the great thing about this double 8:27 helical structure is that each side each 8:31 strand contains 100% of the information 8:35 because of the rule that a is always 8:37 match up with T's and G's always match 8:40 up with C's ok let's see how it works if 8:43 you pull the double helix apart the the 8:46 two strands apart you can see you get 8:49 something like this well in that top 8:52 strand there the light pink one the a is 8:56 are going to match up with what with a T 8:59 right so there's I can know what the 9:02 other strand is going to be on the basis 9:04 it's going to start with Timlin top team 9:06 exactly precisely the a ok ok so if you 9:11 match things up you see that you get two 9:14 identical strands when this machinery of 9:18 DNA replication comes in and adds 9:21 so how often is our body replicating 9:25 this we're talking about millions of 9:27 times a day billions of these 9:32 replication events occur in our body and 9:35 you can see that because of the 9:37 structure of DNA the way that you can 9:39 unwind that double helix and get two 9:43 strands each of which has a hundred 9:44 percent of the information you can see 9:46 why it is so incredibly accurate it is 9:52 unbelievably accurate what is going on 9:55 there now 9:56 the important thing about DNA is well 9:59 it's obviously an amazing molecule but 10:02 it it contains a language information is 10:06 encoded in there we're not even going to 10:08 talk about that language but let's just 10:09 say this is this is the the title of a 10:13 scientific paper the genetic code is one 10:16 in a million 10:17 it is just a fantastic language and 10:20 we'll leave it at that okay let's look 10:24 at what a gene looks like now genes are 10:29 what are encoded in DNA they are like 10:33 the recipe for making the proteins that 10:37 are found inside our bodies and in every 10:40 other living thing I want to point out 10:44 something interesting about genes genes 10:48 are made up of segments they're called 10:51 exons so you can see I've numbered the 10:54 segments of this pip X 2 gene as exons 1 10:59 through 6 the cool thing about each of 11:02 these exons each of these segments is 11:05 you can mix and match them so if you put 11:08 them together if you use exons one two 11:12 five and six you make a protein called 11:15 pip X to isoform a don't worry about the 11:19 language there just understand that 11:21 that's one kind of protein now this gene 11:25 can make another kind of protein by 11:27 taking different segments if it takes 11:29 one two three five and six it makes 11:32 what's called isoform 11:34 be it's a related protein but it's 11:38 different so how does that working in 11:40 our body what this means is yeah oh and 11:43 it can keep on doing this it can make an 11:45 isoform see as well the point is one 11:49 protein can make many different sorry 11:54 one gene can make many different 11:55 proteins that's why we have a little 11:58 over 20,000 genes but we have a whole 12:02 lot of proteins a lot more hundreds of 12:06 thousands of proteins different one of 12:09 your presentations the proteins are the 12:11 drive shafts 12:12 well the that's one protein in one of 12:15 the molecular machines those molecular 12:16 machines are all made up of many 12:18 different proteins all have to work 12:21 together in very precise ways so yes 12:26 what we see is that the genes are 12:29 actually information processing systems 12:31 they have to decide which protein to 12:33 make it we could go on and on and on 12:35 forever but there's so much more that we 12:39 could talk about but there is just a 12:41 couple of things that I want us to get 12:43 out of this information the Creator is 12:46 revealed in these molecules of life the 12:48 DNA his wisdom is shown in his choice of 12:52 materials like DNA with its stability 12:55 high coding efficiency an Associated 12:58 mechanism of copying and his wisdom 13:00 appears clearly in the information 13:02 that's actually encoded in the DNA that 13:06 is so amazing and I know everybody's 13:09 head is swimming but please stay tuned 13:11 we're going to be back in just one 13:12 minute and we will be talking with a 13:15 nano chemist who can tell us 13:19 [Music] 13:24 oh we're so glad you're still with us 13:26 and we are going to explore DNA in human 13:31 design just a little bit more with a 13:34 doctor of chemistry that's right dr. 13:37 Ryan Hayes 13:38 he teaches chemistry at Andrews 13:40 University in the Department of 13:42 Chemistry and biochemistry there he 13:44 sounds like a smart man he is a smart 13:46 man it's a very good department I know 13:48 because I personally studied there for a 13:50 number of years yes as an undergraduate 13:52 I was a chemistry and zoology double 13:55 major I never finished the chemistry 13:57 which makes me weak I guess I guess you 14:01 say I love the chemistry I just ran out 14:03 of time and money and there been times 14:05 when I thought maybe I should go back 14:07 and be like dr. Ryan Hayes become a 14:10 genuine a genuine chemist instead of an 14:13 amateur chemist which is really what 14:15 biologists are so thank you dr. Hayes 14:18 for joining us 14:19 we really appreciate it we've been 14:21 talking about DNA and we know that DNA 14:26 is is a chemical but I guess the 14:32 question that I would have is what 14:33 what's so special about it why why would 14:37 DNA be such an important molecule in 14:41 humans and every other living thing yeah 14:47 I think there's a lot of important 14:50 aspects to DNA from a chemistry 14:53 perspective and I think one of the 14:55 things that strikes me about the 14:59 chemical structure of DNA is how 15:01 flexible it is chemically to allow all 15:06 sorts of code and arrangement of its 15:10 structure what we call the the basis of 15:14 it to allow a wide variety almost an 15:17 infinite number of chemical combinations 15:21 so when you talk about when you talk 15:22 about the bases you're talking about the 15:24 eighties geez and sees that and then 15:28 they can be arranged in any sequence 15:29 yeah that's correct and that actually 15:34 you would think would be something 15:36 obviously every counter 15:38 but even as a PhD chemist I am looking 15:41 at the the structure of DNA for you know 15:45 many years it wasn't until I was reading 15:49 the book by Stephen Meyer signature in 15:52 the south and pondering the structure 15:54 once again that it struck me that there 15:58 isn't anything about the chemistry that 16:01 is driving the arrangement of the 16:03 letters and the bases there that a the T 16:06 in the gene C that is a completely 16:09 chemically neutral till just allows 16:12 essentially any combination that you 16:15 need so let's say you have very so let's 16:17 say you had a T in the sequence anything 16:21 could come after it's it's there's 16:22 there's nothing chemically that says an 16:25 a must come immediately after a T or or 16:28 something like that they're actually no 16:29 rules in the sequencing of it that's 16:34 correct it's so much like oh there's a 16:38 number of analogies that really work 16:39 here but you know it seems like well 16:42 maybe we're missing something about the 16:44 chemistry that maybe is driving the 16:46 arrangement of the ladders there and 16:49 actually it was Steven Mayer and I 16:52 really like his analogy he actually 16:54 likened it to here's my really bad 16:56 magnetic board with some landers on it 16:58 that the DNA structure itself chemically 17:02 just allows any arrangement of letters 17:04 the a and the T the G and C now we know 17:07 the a and teen must match together and 17:11 the G and the C must match with each 17:13 other across the strand but in any order 17:17 of the rungs of this ladder they can 17:20 come in any arrangement so there isn't a 17:23 chemical property that is driving that 17:26 arrangement it has to come from another 17:28 source there has to be a source of 17:31 information that is driving what we see 17:35 in the code I find that utterly amazing 17:38 there's nothing in the structure they 17:40 call it the sugar and the phosphate 17:42 backbone of the DNA nothing there is 17:45 driving the structure and the base pairs 17:47 themselves there's nothing there that's 17:49 driving the chemistry 17:51 if it did this was the thought that 17:53 struck me if there was something 17:55 chemically driving it we would see 17:57 patterns there we would see you know so 18:00 many T's and then an a so many G's 18:02 followed by a T 18:04 there's no patterns it is completely 18:06 random to our eyes well I guess that if 18:08 there were patterns there then you 18:10 actually wouldn't be able to code very 18:12 much information into it I mean if if if 18:16 the letters of the alphabet had to be 18:17 arranged in just one specific order 18:20 every time we wouldn't be able to spell 18:21 millions of different words with it and 18:24 so here we're basically dealing with an 18:26 alphabet a relatively simple alphabet 18:28 with only four letters the a D G and C 18:32 and yet we can come up with assent for 18:36 all practical purposes infinitely 18:38 different sequences to code different 18:41 things into the genome but I think what 18:44 I hear if I'm understanding you 18:46 correctly dr. Hayes what you're saying 18:48 is there's no chemical rule here as far 18:54 as how its strung together so it's the 18:58 signature of the Creator I mean 19:01 something designed as something 19:03 engineered it but it's that what you're 19:05 saying that's right how does how do you 19:10 get if every arrangement is allowed for 19:13 ladders or these codes that's in there 19:16 where did the arrangement come from that 19:20 we see there could it you know after you 19:23 know billions of years and you know 19:25 trial and error event come up to the 19:28 right one 19:28 the problem is when there's even one 19:30 ladder that's wrong you you get you know 19:34 you get molecules and proteins and 19:36 enzymes that don't work so the code 19:38 fails you need the correct code right 19:41 from the beginning and without it you 19:45 get failed results you get failed 19:47 chemicals that don't do anything or 19:49 react improperly you need a working 19:51 system from the get-go and you cut you 19:54 can't do that incrementally you've got 19:56 to have the information before you can 19:58 keep the information so information 20:00 technology is really built into our DNA 20:04 we've got all the 20:05 little codes that are going back and 20:07 forth right and just like a computer 20:10 absolutely we are and that was that was 20:14 a reluctance of mine was to give up I 20:16 wanted us to be full of chemicals that 20:18 we were driven by chemical information 20:20 but honestly it's just information that 20:24 has a chemical component it's an 20:26 alphabet for letters so if you have a 20:30 shortened alphabet with just four 20:32 letters then your words need to be 20:34 longer in order to have a wider variety 20:36 of words and combinations of letters so 20:41 that's what DNA does it's just longer 20:43 words they're really long in some cases 20:45 but you can do a lot with four letters 20:49 when you can have short words in long 20:52 words you can make a lot of unique 20:55 components from that or important 20:57 sentences in words if you want to use 20:59 the information concept they're so 21:02 utterly amazing it's a great design 21:04 that's a it's a it's actually a fairly 21:06 robust structure chemically so that's 21:09 kind of nice to know well that was 21:10 actually something I wanted to I wanted 21:12 to ask about a little bit I mean 21:13 obviously if you have a bunch of 21:15 information and it's encoded in 21:17 something that's really delicate and can 21:19 fall to pieces that information isn't 21:21 going to last very well but I'm assuming 21:24 that DNA is a fairly stable molecule 21:28 that it can last for a reasonable period 21:30 of time it doesn't it doesn't just keep 21:32 falling to pieces inside our cells it 21:35 must be quite robust it's it's a fairly 21:41 robust molecule so that's good yeah that 21:45 keeps it from changing spontaneously so 21:48 that's helpful so in order to work with 21:51 the code that's there you need helper 21:54 molecules enzymes that come in and read 21:57 it and split it apart because at our 22:01 body temperature and pH the DNA molecule 22:06 will want to stay together okay so this 22:09 this would be what you wanting to read 22:10 the information off it then it will make 22:12 a copy of it it has to that double helix 22:15 has to be opened up 22:17 that's right you have to have a can 22:20 opener do you have to have a little 22:22 machine that can go through and open it 22:24 at at our body temperatures if you heat 22:28 it I believe it's to about 90 degrees 22:31 Celsius it will unravel on its own 22:34 that's quite a high temperature and we 22:36 would die before then that's almost a 22:38 boiling water temperatures so at that 22:40 high temperature it will fall apart but 22:44 at lower temperatures that our bodies at 22:46 37 degrees Celsius or 98 degrees 22:49 Fahrenheit the DNA molecule wants to 22:52 stay together and so you need a machine 22:53 to pull it apart so you can read the 22:56 individual bases that are there humans 22:59 it is so what would be the possibility 23:02 then of if you're wanting to to make 23:05 life using just you know just starting 23:08 with simple chemicals or something would 23:10 it be possible to start with something 23:11 like just DNA and and work your way up 23:16 to all of these other protein machines 23:19 that we also know are necessary for life 23:21 today yeah this is a this is a great 23:25 question and what a lot more chemists 23:28 are getting involved with because it's 23:30 an enigma we can't see a real clear way 23:33 chemically to create life from some of 23:38 these few simple molecules and so there 23:40 was the original theory that that 23:43 somehow these DNA molecules are you know 23:47 parts of it were able to come together 23:49 but honestly that that theory was 23:51 discarded pretty quickly and replaced 23:54 with while we need proteins because you 23:56 need the tools which we call proteins 23:59 and enzymes to make DNA so but the funny 24:03 thing is DNA is needed to make the 24:05 proteins but you need the proteins to 24:08 make the DNA so which one of these 24:09 chickens and eggs comes first and so 24:12 those both have been discarded 24:14 chemically because that they you need 24:16 both of them at the same time and so 24:18 this hybrid theory of well maybe it's 24:20 ribonucleic acids the RNA somehow is 24:23 able to be one of the first molecules 24:27 that was spontaneously made 24:30 and honestly I think that's pretty much 24:32 a dead end because we know that even in 24:35 the simplest living organism you need 24:37 thousands of chemicals together it's not 24:39 just DNA sure you need the code that's 24:42 important but you need the proteins and 24:44 you need the chemical environment to all 24:46 be there just to even have the simplest 24:49 life so what does there's like three or 24:50 four thousand chemicals unique chemicals 24:53 in the simplest of organism and they all 24:56 have to come together at the same time 24:58 what does this tell you about the 25:00 creator's design of the body could you 25:07 repeat the question sorry what does this 25:08 tell you about the creator's design of 25:12 the human being well and every other 25:14 living thing because every yeah well 25:18 first of all he's an amazing chemist so 25:21 my hats off to our creator because when 25:26 you actually going into the lab and 25:28 actually try to make these molecules or 25:31 things like it or even simpler things 25:33 you realize all of the problems that can 25:37 occur all the side reactions not having 25:41 pure starting materials or having impure 25:44 reactions that can take place and things 25:47 that can get in the way and go down 25:50 different tracks so we're not we're not 25:51 seeing that this chemistry can just 25:54 happen spontaneously and easily so it 25:57 really really actually it takes it takes 26:00 a master chemist to make these must' 26:03 chemicals absolutely and that's what 26:06 we're seeing now is that the more we 26:08 learned the more we know how many 26:11 factors had to be accounted for just an 26:14 even make life happen and we'll sustain 26:17 it 26:18 just get it started but I want to really 26:21 thank you for taking this time with us 26:22 dr. Hayes it's been a great pleasure I 26:24 appreciate it well you know this is so 26:29 fascinating in what I want to encourage 26:32 you we're just touching on the surface 26:36 of this open your mind to science and 26:41 how it 26:43 that we have a creator god and he is the 26:48 master of all science join us again next 26:51 time thank you 26:54 [Music]