Eric Metaxas Babbles About Bicycle Locks

This was found at the website Christian Post, which describes itself as “the nation’s most comprehensive Christian news website”: Unlocking the Darwin Debate. It was written by Discovery Institute fellow traveler Eric Metaxas. You remember his column that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, about which we wrote More Creationism in the Wall Street Journal.

Metaxas is at it again. Here are some excerpts from his latest, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

You know Darwinism has problems [Aaaargh!!], but how do you explain them to your friends and family? Well, look no further than a bicycle lock.

He doesn’t explain that “bicycle lock” reference until later on, so we’ll jump ahead and give you that now. Referring to the “digital code” in our DNA, he says:

Using an analogy from Dr. Meyers’ book, “Darwin’s Doubt,” … “The reason a bike lock works,” explains Meyer, “is that there are vastly more ways of arranging those numeric characters that will keep the lock closed than there are that will open the lock.” Most bicycle locks have four dials with ten digits. So for a thief to steal the bike, he would have to guess correctly from among 10,000 possible combinations. No easy task.

Then he cites Discoveroid Douglas Axe for the proposition that:

for a DNA sequence generating a short protein just 150 amino acids in length, for every 1 workable arrangement of amino acids, there are 10 to the 77th possible unworkable amino acid arrangements. Using the bicycle lock analogy, that’s a lock with 77 dials containing 10 digits. Thus … it is overwhelmingly unlikely that a random mutational search would produce even one new functional protein in the entire history of life on earth.

This is the old “The odds are against evolution,” argument, which we discuss in Common Creationist Claims Confuted. Let’s read on, this time going back to the article’s beginning:

It’s hard to imagine in this age of genetic engineering, but scientists in Darwin’s time saw life as quite simple. Cells were thought to be blobs of primitive chemicals called “protoplasm.” But as technology advanced and scientists were able to peer inside the cell, they discovered something amazing: Every living thing actually contains intricate, microscopic machines, performing functions without which life would not be possible.

[*Begin Drool Mode*] Ooooooooooooh — machines! [*End Drool Mode*] Metaxas continues:

The real breakthrough, came in 1953 when Watson and Crick uncovered the structure and function of DNA — the molecule that programs and regulates cells. It revolutionized our understanding of life. And it stretched Darwin’s theory to the breaking point.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Quite the opposite. Although DNA could have demonstrated that various species were utterly unrelated, and thus uniquely designed, instead it confirms common descent. Here’s more:

DNA is essentially a form of incredibly efficient digital code, uniquely suited for storing the blueprints of living things.

[*Begin Drool Mode*] Ooooooooooooh — digital code! [*End Drool Mode*] Moving along:

Of course, like digital code on a hard drive, DNA can be corrupted. The most recent iteration of Darwin’s theory claims that these corruptions — called mutations — are the engines of evolution.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s not a “recent iteration” of Darwin’s theory. Although he didn’t know about genetics, in Origin of Species, Chapter 2, Darwin wrote:

Again, we have many slight differences which may be called individual differences, such as are known frequently to appear in the offspring from the same parents, or which may be presumed to have thus arisen, from being frequently observed in the individuals of the same species inhabiting the same confined locality. No one supposes that all the individuals of the same species are cast in the very same mould. These individual differences are highly important for us, as they afford materials for natural selection to accumulate, in the same manner as man can accumulate in any given direction individual differences in his domesticated productions.

Okay, back to Metaxas:

But here’s the problem: We don’t have a single example of a mutation resulting in a net gain of information. Not one. [Aaaargh!!] As intelligent design theorists have pointed out, unguided, natural processes always degrade information — they never increase it. If life at its most fundamental level is a digital code, then mutations are glitches that, if they accumulate, will eventually kill the organism.

That’s so bad it’s not worth rebutting. Oh, all right — check out the TaklOrigins Index to Creationist Claims: Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information. On with the Metaxas article:

Information is at the heart of life, and our uniform and repeated experience tells us that matter, by itself, never produces information. The only known source capable of producing information is a mind.

They’re still babbling about the miraculous origin of “information” — whatever that is. See Phlogiston, Vitalism, and Information.

Then Metaxas talks about bicycle locks, after which he promotes Discoveroid videos and his own website. That’s the whole thing. All in all, a typical creationist performance.

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