by Stephen C. Meyer
Discovery Institute
December 12, 2001


A rather interesting exchange has taken place recently at Whitworth College. It
began when students of the Whitworthian, the campus newspaper, asked Discovery
Senior Fellow and Associate Professor of Philosophy Dr. Stephen Meyer for
permission to reprint his op-ed from the WorldnetDaily.com which critiqued PBS’s
Evolution series. Among other errors, this piece criticized the series promotion
of the “universal” genetic code as key evidence in support of Darwinism.
Granting his permission, the article ran and was met in the following edition by
two letters to the editor. One letter, written collectively by the biology
department, declared that the Christian faith and evolution were compatible for
the simple reason that they believed it to be so. The second letter, written
solely by Professor Jean Pond, was targeted at Meyer’s critique of the
“universality” of the genetic code. Pond exclaimed, “That Meyer would imply that
the genetic code is anything other than prime evidence favoring evolution is
astonishing,” and that “the genetic code is nearly universal in all studied
organisms.” She went on to say that “the small changes seen in a few groups fit
perfectly with the predictions of evolutionary theory.” At which point she
closed with the vitriolic statement that she would “do him the kindness of
assuming that he does not know what he talking about.” “The alternative
explanation for his words holds a great deal less charm.” Meyer’s letter of
response was submitted to the Whitworthian, was subsequently published and is
appended below.

Dear Editor,
In her recent response to my editorial about the scientific errors in the recent
PBS series Evolution, Jean Pond suggests that my editorial misrepresented a key
fact. Whitworthian readers may recall that I criticized the PBS Evolution series
for, among other things, claiming that the genetic code is universal and for
claiming that this alleged fact establishes Darwin’s theory of universal common
ancestry.

Dr. Pond expressed astonishment that “Meyer would claim that the genetic code is
anything other than the prime evidence favoring evolution.” She reassured
readers that, “the genetic code is nearly universal in all studied organisms”
and that “the small changes seen in a few groups fit perfectly with the
predictions of evolution theory.”

Yet Pond is wrong on both counts. First, the genetic code is neither universal
(as PBS claimed), nor “nearly universal” (as Pond claims). There are now—count
them—at least 15 known variants from the standard genetic code that determines
amino acid assignments from DNA “codons” during the process of protein synthesis
in different living organisms. Whitworth students who wish to verify this claim
might check the following website maintained by the National Institutes of
Health at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Secondly, and more importantly, the existence of these variant codes is not
consistent with a key prediction derived from Darwin’s theory of universal
common ancestry. To see why, imagine typing on a keyboard in which the
assignment between the keys and the letters that appear on your screen have been
secretly changed. When you hit a specific letter such as an “n,” a different
letter such as “t” appears. Or, imagine that every time you hit, say, an “o,” a
period and a double space appears on your screen. Now envision submitting such a
paper to a professor (without any information about the special new code that
your computer used). Will your paper make sense? Will you get a good grade? I
doubt it.

In a similar way, changes in the genetic code will inevitably result in the
production of some amino acid sequences that will not fold into functional
(i.e., biologically meaningful) proteins--much to the detriment of the organism.
Indeed, many of the variant codes in nature either insert a “stop” (the
equivalent of a period) where, in the standard code, a specific amino acid would
have been, or they continue to produce amino acids where previously a “stop”
would have been. Both these kinds of changes are hardly trivial from a
functional point of view.

Historically, advocates of Darwinian evolution have recognized this extreme
functional sensitivity of organisms to any change in codon-amino acid
assignments. As a result, they took previous evidence for the universality of
the code as prime evidence for Darwin’s theory of universal common descent.
Since organisms can’t change their codon-amino acid assignments without
deleterious consequences (a.k.a. death), Darwinists reasoned that all organisms
must have all evolved from a single organism with a single common code. Thus,
the theory of universal common ancestry, implied (or predicted) the existence of
a universal code. If there was a single common ancestor, there should be a
single common code. And since, until recently, biologists knew of only one code,
evidence of the same seemed to support the hypothesis that all life had evolved
from a single universal common ancestor.

But what if the code is not universal? Well, it isn’t. Many new variant codes
have been discovered. Yet evolutionary biologists have not produced credible new
explanations about how any organism could continue to survive while nature
tinkered with something as fundamental as the code by which its cells (or
organelles) direct protein synthesis.

If a single code implies a single origin of life, do multiple codes imply, by
the same logic, multiple separate origins? Not for Dr. Pond. Instead, she, and
other contemporary Darwinists, assert that the new evidence for the
non-universality of the code (which she minimizes by calling the code “nearly”
universal) is just as consistent with Darwinism as our previous incorrect belief
in a strictly universal code. Heads they win, tails they win.

If such fulfilled “predictions” seem persuasive to modern Darwinists, then I
suppose those of us who do not share their convictions can to do little to
dissuade them from their system of belief. But surely by the same token, we are
under no obligation to take either their inaccurate factual claims, or their
interpretations of these claims, as authoritative statements of the truth.

Stephen C. Meyer
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Director, Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture
Discovery Institute