Chaos and Order. He believed that high degree of order in living systems is an extremely improbable state.
DNA consists of four kinds of nucleotides. Each nucleotide has different base pair. If four letters A, B, C and D are ranked, there are 24 sequences: ABCD, ABDC, ACBD ……. There are large quantity of nucleotides in human DNA, and there are colossal sequences, while only one of them is correct. If it is wrong, man will be ill or die.
Scientists have learned the DNA blueprint, in particular the amount of genetic information and molecular structure of bacterium Escherichia coli (E.coli). It is possible to calculate the number of ways these genetic plans might have been arranged in the blueprint and thus how many different ways the bacterial cell could have been constructed. The real molecule structure of bacterium E.coli is only one of these possibilities. For a E.coli, the probability of correct result by pure chance is one in 102400000. Even an intelligent machine could check these countless results at the rate of one per second, the time it costs would be far more than the universe age (1017sec) since the Big Bang. The universe age is infinitesimal compared with the time needed for the emergence of order by pure chance (F.Cramer, 1993, p.14). So Cramer believes that it is impossible for real molecule structure of bacterium coli to emerge by pure chance. Life could not have arisen by a series of random events.
There is a thought experiment of Monkey and Printer, which is also called as the Theorem of Infinite Monkey.If many monkeys play on many printers, they can finally get the works of Shakespeare. According to someone’s calculation, it may cost 200 billion years. If the order is produced in this way, it is impossible for us to exist.
Ⅴ. Why Creature Has Super Complex Structure
Cramer's conclusion leads to that only an infinite powerful immortal can raise the probability of life origin to realistic level. But this goes against the scientific spirit which began from Renaissance. How to solve this problem? The puzzle of life has always puzzled us in this way.
The faith in science means it is believed that life originated in a series of random events. Science has to explain why random events are able to give rise to life. There are two cases of that life originated in random events. One is extremely improbable, namely very lucky, not inevitable. If it plays again, life may not originate. Another is that life originated inevitably in a series of random events. No matter how many times it plays, life is able to emerge. Understanding life does not only need to explain why random events can make life, but also need to explain the inevitability of the origin of life.
Fortunately, one of the immortals is accepted by science who is called positive feedback. An old legend of India shows its power.
King Shirham wanted to reward his grand Prime Minister Sissa for inventing and presenting to him the game of chess. The desire of the clever minister seemed very modest.