Document Type

Summer Grant: Campus-only access

Publication Date

2010

Abstract

Life is fundamentally about information. The information required to define the structure and function of every living organism is encoded in DNA. Without the faithful transmission of information as cells divide and from generation to generation, life as we know it cannot exist. This fact has led a number of scientists to postulate the existence of error coding within the information processing of living cells similar to the coding techniques that are used in modern telecommunication systems. There is currently increasing collaboration between molecular biologists and information theorists in an effort to discover if there are such codes and if so to determine how they work. This should be exciting news for creationists and proponents of intelligent design. Engineers since Claude Shannon introduced the field of information theory have been attempting to develop codes capable of protecting data against the inevitable effects of channel noise. Now it appears likely that they Creator may have used error coding in the design of intercellular communication. In this paper an introduction to error coding is given for those who may be unfamiliar with it. This is followed by an overview of the current work being done to determine what role error coding plays in molecular biology as well as thoughts about how this provides evidence for an intelligent, purposeful design as opposed to simply being the result of billions of years of natural selection.

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