HUNTSVILLE ALABAMA - NASA has announced their choice of evolutionary biologist, Dr Richard Dawkins to head the team that will be studying and analysing the UFO that landed intact in the Arizona desert six months ago.

Why Professor Dawkins? His research program came cheaper than all the other candidates for the post. The aerospace experts, quantum physicists and cosmologists were rejected because high on their research agenda was the costly question, “Where did it come from?”

Professor Dawkins will be saving the American tax payers millions of dollars in wasteful research by bringing his scientifically verified answer to this question from the outset, “It’s origins were just a Happy Chemical Accident.”

An un-named though reliable source at the CIA told our reporter, “We already know where the alien space craft came from, but that must remain classified information. National security could be endangered. With Dr Dawkins, we can be sure that he won’t go prying in forbidden areas. He has a world class reputation as the man who has a peer-reviewed aversion to origins. That’s why our official line is, and will remain, “Source – a Happy Chemical Accident.”

Dr Dawkins has made it work for evolution. He’ll make it work here. In the good old Cold War days we could have said it was a Soviet hoax, but times have changed, alas. Conspiracies are out, accidents are in. They are more scientific.”

PHOENIX ARIZONA - Starbucks Corporation will be presenting their new coffee in Arizona next week. It will be served free throughout the state between 6 and 8pm in what they are calling their new “Happy Chemical Accident Hour.”

Samir Rahis, head of Starbucks secretive R & D section revealed that the coffee’s ingredients are selected on a random basis from a massive selection of coffees from all over the world. He explained, “Thanks to our ground-breaking Random Coffee Percolator, nobody will know the origins of their coffee. Each cup will be a unique Happy Chemical Accident and the FDA can go jump in a lake.”

WASHINGTON DC - A new defense is being tried before the Supreme Court next month. Hundreds of prisoners on Death Rows throughout the country have been grouped in a unique class action by the New York lawyer, Ricardo D’Occins. His defense argument will be unique in judicial history, “Not guilty by reason of a Happy Chemical Accident”.

Speaking on the Daily News he explained, “Everybody accepts that Life came about by a Happy Chemical Accident. Our Supreme Court judges need to recognise that what’s good for the Origins of Life is good for the Cause of Death. My clients are all on Death Row on account of a Happy Chemical Accident. I believe they will all be free men by next week.”

“Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.”

-Raymond Thornton Chandler, writer, 1888-1959

What most people think they know about evolution is 30 to 70 years out of date.

The most popular books (even recent ones by very famous authors) make it sound as though the last five decades of scientific research never happened.

That’s a tall claim, I know. But James Shapiro’s new book “Evolution: A View From the 21st Century” is the first to spell it all out in a comprehensive way.

This is not in any sense a religious book. Nor does it indulge in any of the mud-slinging that is typical of creation-evolution arguments.

Shapiro is a bacterial geneticist from one of the world’s great research institutions, the University of Chicago. The late Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock mentored him and he discovered DNA transposition in bacteria. He has an Order of the British Empire medal from the Queen of England. Impeccable credentials.

In this new book, endorsed by two Nobelists, Shapiro sets the record straight.

I first encountered Shapiro’s work six years ago, when guy sent me a link to one of his papers. I had become fascinated with the question of evolution from the perspective of an Electrical Engineer.

I designed speakers for Honda, Mazda, Chrysler and Acura in the 1990′s. Then sold networks for manufacturing and robotics for 7 years; in 2002 wrote an Ethernet book. In e-commerce, I consulted in 200+ industries, optimizing sales processes on the web. As a specialist in Google advertising, I saw that Google’s #1 job was to accurately simulate natural selection.

Because of my work in communications, control systems and the web, in DNA I saw an utterly remarkable communications protocol. Something vastly superior to anything humans had ever designed. I found myself increasingly frustrated with the Darwin-design debate. One side charged that evolution was a fraud; the other claimed it happens by accident. I doubted both.

I couldn’t help but wonder: “If random mutation and natural selection are all you need to produce the most amazing machines, how come they never uttered a single word about these things in engineering school?”

And furthermore: “If evolution is true, what design principles should they be teaching in engineering school that they’re not teaching now?”

This really was THE question that drove me. I guessed all that “junk DNA” might possess some evolutionary function. I figured that once we understood exactly how evolution produces novel features, we’d be able to produce miraculous new technologies.

Shapiro’s work was a revelation. He described how cells, like wireless routers, militantly guard against copying errors. He lifted the hood on the splendid information processes of the cell. He described how the genome is like an operating system, organizing information, cleaning up files, repairing damage, regulating activity.

He even had the humility to point out that sexy new 21st century computer metaphors are dangerous because they limit our thinking. The truth of mother nature, he said, is even more amazing than that.

He referenced the Nobel Prize winning work of Barbara McClintock. I was surprised her name wasn’t a household word in biology, because her discoveries had radical implications for evolutionary theory.

He defined an alternative to both creationism and Darwinism, a “Third Way.” In this view, the information capacities of the cell are the real star of the show. He recounts how molecular geneticists showed a protozoan under stress splicing its own DNA into 100,000 pieces, re-arranging them to produce a new functional nucleus, freshly adapted to its environment.

As I probed further, I discovered that thousands of PhD’s are aware of this. Any cell biologist worth his paycheck knows that bacteria exchange genes with each other, much the same way musicians trade guitar riffs. This is how germs battle antibiotics. They do this very deliberately, and at tremendous speed.

But John Q. Public knows nothing of this. He’s been told it happens so slowly that it can hardly even be replicated in the lab. He’s been led to believe it all happens by accident.

Until now.

In his book, “Evolution: A View from the 21st Century,” Shapiro outlines the adaptive systems of evolution in detail:

• “Natural Genetic Engineering” refers to cells’ innate ability to re-organize their genomes in response to hundreds of kinds of inputs. This is the star of the show. Not natural selection.
• Horizontal Gene Transfer, cells exchanging segments of DNA to instantly gain new features;
• Inter-species hybridization – new species form when unlikely mates cross from two different species;
• Symbiogenesis, when completely different organisms merge to form a new species;
• Epigenetics, switching genes on and off without altering the DNA sequence;
• Whole Genome Duplication – DNA doubling to expand “hard drive space” and make room for novel features.

These purposeful systems, in combination, generate the huge diversity we see on planet earth. Not random copying errors.

At last count, I have 114 books that address the question of evolution in some way, shape or form. They span a century and a half.

Dr. Lynn Margulis, for example, does an outstanding job of explaining symbiogenesis in “Acquiring Genomes” – but symbiogenesis is only about 15% of the story. Other books describe Horizontal Gene Transfer but that too is only part of the story.

Shapiro’s book is head and shoulders above the others. No other text assembles the picture as completely and coherently as this.

Remarkably, he accomplishes all this in 150 pages. This thing is dense. It’s like the richest chocolate cake you’ve ever eaten. You can spend a week digesting one page. Most evolution books are cotton candy.

For example, Richard Dawkins’ “The Greatest Show on Earth” asserts that evolution is driven by random changes in genes. Then, in 450 pages, Horizontal Gene Transfer is briefly mentioned once. Epigenetics is dismissed as a confused theory that will enjoy 15 minutes of fame. Symbiogenesis and transposition are never discussed at all. Nor is whole genome duplication.

When it comes to the exact mechanisms of evolution – the systems that make it possible – many books have almost no content at all.

Last year I attended a lecture at Fermilab by Dr. Shapiro. After his talk, a group of people huddled around him in the cafeteria, peppering him with questions. One guy suddenly ‘got’ what he’d been saying all night long.

“You mean the mutations aren’t random?” he asked.

“No sir. They’re not random at all. “When bacteria are comfortable and well-fed, certain DNA changes occur at a frequency of less than one per billion cells. But when they’re starving, the mutation rate skyrockets by a factor of 100,000. They develop new adaptations so they can survive.”

The man looked to be in his fifties and I imagine he’d bought into the random mutation myth decades ago and never questioned it since. I watched the guy’s face. You could see the gears grinding inside his head.

So will it be for many readers of this book. It challenges widely accepted dogmas and replaces them with systems. If you doubt Shapiro, consult the 1162 references he provides. Then decide for yourself.

In any case, be prepared to discover things nobody else told you. Be prepared to ask yourself why the “evolutionists” never bothered to show you how evolution really works.

This book is written at a college level. Lay readers may only be comfortable with a third of it, and he has suggestions for what portions to read first. But you’re far better reading 50 pages of real research from the University of Chicago than 500 pages of “evolution thru random copying errors” by the Darwin lobby.

If you are remotely interested in the “behind-the-scenes” truth of evolution and its systematic mechanisms, you must own this book.

In future installments I’ll peer inside its pages and share more with you. Meanwhile . . . pick up a copy for yourself.

Perry Marshall

Get Evolution: A View from the 21st Century by James A. Shapiro on Amazon

Richard had a radical conversion experience in 2008. Not only did it rock his world in an instant, it incited a riot on the Dawkins Internet discussion board. Despite his mannerly approach, he was quickly banished from the forum.

In this video, Richard tells you his strange yet wonderful story. (It’s featured in the book “The Dawkins Letters” by David Robertson, 2nd edition.)

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He asked me to offer citations from the literature showing that evolution is non-random. This is what I sent him:

1. Genomic evolutionary change is a systematic response to the environment, not a result of random copying errors:

From James A. Shapiro, “A 21st century view of evolution” http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/21st_Cent_View_Evol.html. Emphasis mine:

“…the prevailing theory of biological evolution postulates a random walk to each new adaptation. In the last 50 years, molecular genetics has revealed features of DNA sequence organization, protein structure and cellular processes of genetic change that suggest evolution by natural genetic engineering. Genomes are hierarchically organized as systems assembled from DNA modules, which themselves generally constitute systems at lower levels. Each genome is formatted and integrated by sequence elements that do not code for proteins. These formatting elements constitute codons in multiple genetic codes for distinct functions such as transcription, replication, DNA compaction and genome distribution to daughter cells. Consequently, the genome has a computational system architecture.”

“Natural genetic engineering functions are sensitive to biological inputs, and their non-random operations help explain how novel system architectures can arise in evolution.”

“Moreover, the fact that natural genetic engineering changes are neither random in nature nor restricted to a single site in the genome means that they can create novel distributed (multilocus) systems and new genome system architectures.”

“One source of this latter view is the conventional theory that evolution occurs by a random walk through adaptive space and produces a virtually endless series of sui generis inventions. One alternative to this conventional view is that there exist design principles and procedures that are used repeatedly in evolution (in other words, evolution occurs as an engineering process).”

“In terms of a 21st Century view of evolution, the major importance of natural genetic engineering is that this capability removes the process of genome restructuring from the stochastic realm of physical-chemical insults to DNA and replication accidents. Instead, cellular systems for DNA change, place the genetic basis for long-term evolutionary adaptation in the context of cell biology where it is subject to cellular control regimes and their computational capabilities.”

“Non-randomness and Regulation of Natural Genetic Engineering Activities

The foregoing discussion and an extensive literature that cannot be cited here make it clear that MGEs and other natural genetic engineering functions have the capacity to reorganize genomes in just the ways needed to reformat modular genome system architectures. This point is increasingly recognized (e.g. 21,22). However, the degree to which these genome reorganization activities are not random is poorly appreciated. Non-randomness is evident at three levels: mechanism, timing, and sites of action.”

“These examples make it clear that natural genetic engineering occurs episodically and non-randomly in response to stress events that range from DNA damage to the inability to find a suitable mating partner.”

“We have come to realize some of the basic design features that govern genome structure. Combining this knowledge with our understanding of how natural genetic engineering operates, it is possible to formulate the outlines of a new 21st Century vision of evolutionary engineering that postulates a more regular principle-based process of change than the gradual random walk of 19th and 20th Century theories.”

“Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock’s discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can “sense danger” and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself. “

2. Jean-Claude Perez’ discovery of the golden ratio in the ergodic patterns of DNA:

Codon patterns in DNA conform to a checksum matrix to a precision of 0.1%. Microorganisms like bacteria and HIV all the way to most human chromosomes follow this unusual mathematical pattern.

Layman’s version http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/mathematics-of-dna/
Published journal article: http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/bioinformatics/journal/12539
PDF free of charge: http://www.resurgence.be/pdf/ADN-perez.pdf

3. Biologist Lynn Margulis, advocate of the theory of Symbiogenesis:

“Many ways to induce mutations are known but none lead to new organisms. Mutation accumulation does not lead to new species or even to new organs or new tissues… Even professional evolutionary biologists are hard put to find mutations, experimentally induced or spontaneous, that lead in a positive way to evolutionary change.”

-Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, “Acquiring Genomes”

4. I’ve had over 3 million visitors to my Cosmic Fingerprints website over the last 7 years, I have an email list of 200,000 people. I’ve challenged skeptics on my blog email list to come forward with experimental evidence that shows that random changes to DNA produce new features. No one has ever been able to come up with one.

The closest anyone has come is citations of Richard Lenski’s bacteria experiments, where he simply assumes the mutations were random without backing up his statement. And as I’ve said before, it’s mathematically impossible to prove randomness; it’s entirely possible to prove non-randomness.

5. The patterns in DNA are linguistic, they follow the rules of universal grammars.

“The Linguistics of DNA: Words, Sentences, Grammar, Phonetics and Semantics” by  Sungchul Ji of Rutgers University – www.rci.rutgers.edu/~sji/Linguistics%20of%20DNA.pdf In this paper, Dr. Ji explains that human language has 13 linguistic characteristics and DNA has 10 of them. He says cells speak a language called “cellese.”

The opening sentence of his paper says this:

“There are theoretical reasons to believe that biologic systems and processes cannot be fully accounted for in terms of the principles and laws of physics and chemistry alone, but they require in addition the principles of semiotics – the science of symbols and signs, including linguistics.”

The italicized words are his, by the way, not mine. He goes on to say:

“Recently it was postulated that language is more than just a metaphor and that linguistics provides a fundamental principle to account for the structure and function of the cell. The conclusion is supported by the facts that cells use a language, called cell language or cellese, defined as “a self-organizing system of molecules, some of which encode, act as signs for, or trigger, gene-directed cell processes,” and (2) that cell language has molecular counterparts to 10 of 13 design features of human language (humanese) characterized by Hockett and Lyon, thus suggesting an isomorphism between cellese and humanese.”

I challenge you to offer any example of any language that can be subjected to random mutations and not be systematically destroyed. After all, why do computer systems devote so many resources to error detection and correction?

6. Cells actively repair damaged DNA. E. coli reproduces with less than one mistake for every billion new nucleotides. “The extraordinarily low error frequency results from monitoring the results of the polymerization process and correcting incorporation mistakes after the fact, not from the inherent precision of the replication apparatus.” -from the book Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, James A Shapiro, 2011. He goes on to describe two separate error correction mechanisms which monitor for mistakes and correct in real time.

Also see “Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century” http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/2008.GenContext.Salbzburg.pdf

7. The genetic code is 2/3rds redundant, mapping 64 combinations to 20 amino acids; ie GGA, GGG and GGC all code for Glycine. This is a form of Forward Error Correction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_error_correction. I quote from “Nanoscale Communication Networks” by Stephen F. Bush, p. 51: “…Forward error correction (FEC) techniques which are clearly used in biological systems such as DNA…”

DNA uses parity to detect errors as well. From the same book, further down in the page: “Each of the DNA bases has a sequence of three connecting structures, either hydrogen donors or hydrogen acceptors. Thus, each nucleotide base can be considered a sequence of three binary values. The fact that the base is either a pyrimidine or a purine appears to serve as the final parity bit.”

Another form of error detection found in DNA is checksums. In most chromosomes of single-stranded DNA, the total number of times each codon appears is controlled to within 0.1% by a checksum matrix. The cell adds up the total number of codons and checks for errors. Checksums are the subject of Perez’ paper, cited above.

One may ask: If there are thousands of books and papers that say evolution is random, why should I pay attention to a minority that say it is not?

Quite simply, because these people methodically proved their assertions and the Neo-Darwinists did not.

The #1 problem is that randomness is not experimentally or mathematically provable. If you think that the sequence of numbers 2905739303023745748 is random, you may or may not be right, but it’s not possible to prove it. However you can calculate the statistical odds of whether the number sequence 111122223333444 is random or not – odds are 99.99+ percent that it is not random.

Those who claim evolution is random have no proven this assertion and it is impossible for them to do so. However those who claim it is non-random offer systematic, documented, predictable mechanisms that produce evolutionary change.

Given a choice between a hypothesis that a process is random vs. a hypothesis that a process is non-random, the non-random hypothesis is always inherently more scientific. Why? Because science is the presumption of discoverable underlying order, not disorder. The “random mutation” paradigm of 20th century biology is contrary to the most basic aims of science.

This has obscured many of the discoveries cited above, because science is the presumption of discoverable underlying order, not disorder. The “random mutation” paradigm of 20th century biology is anti-scientific and has obscured many of the discoveries cited above.

Other blog posts dealing with the non-randomness of evolution:

Evolution: The Untold Story, Part 1

Intelligent Bacteria: Cells are Incredibly Smart

7 Biology Myths No Electrical Engineer Would Ever Tolerate

A New Theory of Evolution

In this video, he defines a half dozen major mechanisms of biological evolution. He also discusses hot new questions raised by 21st century research:

James A. Shapiro – Revisiting evolution in the 21st Century

Here are the slides for this lecture:
shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/​2010.WorksOfTheMind.pdf

Dr. Shapiro was mentored by the eminent scientist Barbara McClintock. She won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Mobile Genetic Elements. He discovered Mobile Genetic Elements in bacteria at UChicago and has carried on McClintock’s work. He backs his research with rigorous experimental data.

James A. Shapiro is a professor at Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago, Gordon Center for Integrative Science

Richard had a radical conversion experience 3 years ago. Not only did it rock his world, it incited a riot on the Dawkins Internet discussion board. Despite his mannerly approach, he was soon banished from the forum.

In this video, Richard tells you his strange yet wonderful story. (It’s featured in the book “The Dawkins Letters” by David Robertson, 2nd edition.)

Richard Morgan: From Atheist & Card-Carrying Richard Dawkins Fan to Born-Again Christian from Cosmic Fingerprints.

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Evolution 3.0: Why Didn’t the Darwinists Tell You How Evolution Really Works?

Here, I take a very unusual approach to the creation/evolution question. It’s not either/or, it’s both-and. In this video, I integrate the whole picture for you in a way that I’ve never done before:

• Evolution is demonstrably true despite the protests of many religious people. But… it’s much, much different than the Darwinists ever told you.
• Why hasn’t anybody been telling you how evolution *really* works?
• Evolution is not always slow or gradual: It’s capable of leaping forward at breathtaking speed. You’ll discover 5 utterly remarkable ways that species evolve.

I gave a similar talk 3 weeks prior to this to 65 engineers at Lucent Technologies. Got rave reviews. You’re going to like it too:

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Perry Marshall: Evolution 3.0 & the Darwin-Design Synthesis from Cosmic Fingerprints.

Recorded live at Lucent’s Corporate Engineering Center

Naperville Illinois, April 14 2011

This is my 3rd biology talk at Lucent (Parts 1&2 here). This time I focus on the systems evolution uses, from a communications and software engineering point of view. Since Lucent owns AT&T Bell Labs, the material is especially relevant to this audience:

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• Evolution is demonstrably true despite the protests of many religious people. But… it’s much, much different than the Darwinists told you.
• Evolution is not always slow or gradual: It’s capable of leaping forward at breathtaking speed.
• A completely NEW framework for understanding the entire evolution question (This model won the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1983 but the findings have been largely kept secret).
• 5 proven evolutionary mechanisms that the atheists never bothered to share with you. Why?
• DNA as a communications protocol and software language – discover how eerily similar it is to TCP/IP.

I got a warm reception from this mixed audience; disagreement from a few.

After presenting the 5 major systematic systems of evolutionary change – strikingly similar to methods used in computer software – I asked how many were seeing all of these things for the very first time. Most raised their hands. It was all new to them.

I believe you too will find this thought provoking.

Perry Marshall

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts…

Notice the progression:

• The power of God in the world is so obvious that no one has any excuse for not believing in it
• People wish to do evil so they deny this
• They give credit for the origin of the universe to some sort of idol – they “make up stuff” and label fanciful, speculative, untested ideas as wisdom
• So God abandons them to their passions and desires – especially degrading sexual addictions

Today I want to focus on the bolded portion – where Paul says the power of God as creator of the world is obvious to all.

For a long time I wasn’t at all sure you could take that literally. Rather, I took it to mean God had perhaps inscribed some sort of knowledge on our hearts or in our conscience. But upon closer examination I had to admit that wasn’t what Paul was saying.

He was saying that people really do know.

I thought, if this is true, you ought to be able to quantify it. You should be able to demonstrate that the universe objectively has elements of design.

And I thought, if you can some how disprove design or order in the universe, then you’ve disproved Romans 1.

For atheist Richard Dawkins, Darwin’s theory of evolution was the ultimate vindication of non-belief. It made it possible for him to be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Regarding the “obviousness” of a creator, he said “Evolution produces such a strong illusion of design it has fooled almost every human who ever lived.”

He countered that random mutation filtered by natural selection was all it took for the earth to be filled with millions of species of life. His colleague Daniel Dennett insisted all you need is replication, variation and selection and evolution is automatic.

Were they right?

Upon close examination, no. Neither is right.

Proof of this came from Genetic Algorithms and Dawkins’ own examples of computer generated evolution. Like his famous “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL” software program.

Every single genetic algorithm that exists requires pre-programmed goals in order to work. None operate from pure randomness and undirected selection. They ALWAYS sneak in some form of design. Always.

Have you ever noticed that the software on your computer never gets better by itself?

Have you ever noticed that no software in history has ever gotten better by itself?

Nothing evolves before being programmed to do so.

Thus evolution itself makes the strongest case yet of a Grand Design.

At the beginning of my journey I was extremely skeptical that evolution itself was even valid. I distrusted the secular establishment and I thought a lot of the Intelligent Design arguments were pretty persuasive. But as I carefully investigated, I became persuaded: Evolution is for real. And it operates through six major mechanisms:

1. Horizontal Gene Transfer – cells exchange DNA with each other to get new code they need so they can adapt to their environment.
2. Transposition – cells re-arrange their own DNA, sometimes dramatically, to respond and adjust.
3. Symbiogenesis – separate organisms merge together and reproduce in lockstep, often becoming one organism.
4. Epigenetics – organisms switch genes on and off as necessary, passing learned traits to their offspring.
5. Genome Multiplication – DNA can “double its hard drive space” by doubling itself, paving the way for huge evolutionary changes in the future
6. DNA obeys a strict mathematical matrix similar to “checksums” in computer networks and programs. (Only much more elegant and sophisticated.) This reduces errors and creates a set of rails for evolution to run on.

All of these mechanisms have been reported in scientific books and journals for 10 to 100 years. Most of them have been extensively researched. None is random or accidental.

And for that matter, the genetic code itself powerfully implies design. There’s no such thing known to science as a naturally occurring code.

All available scientific evidence indicates that all codes are designed. DNA by inference is designed.

And all available scientific evidence also indicates that evolution is an engineered process. In engineering and computer science, evolution never happens by accident. It’s always the result of a deliberate act. A program that can self-evolve is always considered an engineering marvel.

Evolution itself and the genetic code are unambiguous evidence of a profoundly orderly, pre-programmed universe.

I have been debating this topic with atheists now for 7 years and nobody is able to punch a hole in these arguments. (Believe me, they’ve tried.)

Here is what I have observed about atheists and atheism:

Atheism has become a refuge of psychological denial for those who, for the most part, are disappointed that planet earth is a painful, screwed up place. The only God they might be willing to believe in would be one that made the world the way THEY wanted it to be. Not the way it is.

I believe that the atheist’s eyes are pre-programmed to see chaos and disorder everywhere he looks. And he will defend it whenever you try to tell him otherwise.

But when an atheist tells you that biology is random and purposeless, he’s not giving you a scientific fact. In science, everything is orderly. Everything obeys laws. (Except for human beings, that is.)

In science, it’s doubtful that true randomness even exists in the first place. In science, everything happens for a reason. Randomness only describes our inability to measure and predict things.

The atheist is not making a scientific statement at all, he’s emoting. He’s telling you how the whole world seems to him. “Look dude, shit happens. End of story. Stop your silly god-talk and just accept the naked facts.”

Hard core atheists – the really angry ones – often are those who at one time desperately wanted to believe that God was real. In concluding that God was not real, they made the ultimate sacrifice: They abandoned the notion that there is any sort of supreme source of love or comfort, that there is any kind of Grand Plan in the universe.

They hate people who believe that because they themselves wanted to believe that but they also decided that such a thing is impossible. That’s why they fight so hard. That’s why the venom and vitriol.

I also suspect that many embrace lifestyles that are not compatible with belief in God – as Paul said – and are loath to give certain things up. Let’s return to Romans 1:

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Harsh words, eh?

Sure. But is Paul right?

Nobody hurls more accusations than atheists. The standard atheist jingoism is: “More people have been killed in the name of religion than anything else. Most of the wars and prejudice in history have been started by religion….” blah blah blah. You know the drill.

Is this really true?

No. Most wars are about money and power. And politics and grudges. Religion is just the catalyst.

The truth is, nobody has murdered more people than atheists. In the 20th century, atheist governments butchered more than 120 million people.

All the religious wars in all of history have killed maybe 30 million people. Atheism has four times more blood on its hands than all religions combined.

“But atheism had nothing to do Lenin, Stalin, and Mao’s agenda,” the atheist retorts.

Oh really? That’s not what Lenin thought. Lenin said, “Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.“

Can you name even one major atheist website, blog or discussion forum that isn’t thick with insults, epithets, bigotry, prejudice, hatred and gratuitous name-calling by mostly anonymous people hiding behind screen names?

I can’t. Even the “friendly” website FriendlyAtheist.com has the word “idiot” on 732 different pages. Imagine, more than 10% of the pages on this website refer to someone as an idiot. I don’t think they’re referring to themselves. Do you?

Is it just a coincidence that the three cruelest tyrants in history – Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung – were all flaming atheists?

You decide.

21st century atheism simmers with contempt for people of faith and if it continues unimpeded it will destroy everything around it.

St. Paul makes it very clear that God gives people the freedom to pursue what they desire. If you want to live a life of debauchery, He will not stop you. If you want to murder 40 million people… He sure didn’t stop Chairman Mao. If you want a life without God, He will hide from you and you will never find Him.

Nor will God stop you from noticing that atheist countries have the worst human rights records of all.

Paul hit the nine inch nail squarely on the head. Everybody knows the score. I have given you the facts, just as they are.

The facts are plain. Only you can decide whether to accept or reject them.

Perry Marshall