[00:00:00] Speaker A: So these genetic patterns have their informational code format that it can be, if you will, non material. And the epigenome, with its dozens, maybe a hundred or more codes, they also can be expressed in a non material format. But in the symphony of life or in the waltz of life, these physical expressions come together beautifully. And that's what we're able to study and map out in Epigenetics, Idaho, the Future podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Did you know that a second revolution is underway in biology today? It turns out that DNA isn't the whole story for the development of living things. The deeper scientists look into the cell, the more they find layers of coding, regulation, communication and control.
Where did all this additional information come from? Well, that's the topic of our conversation today. Welcome to Idea the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermott. Today I continue my conversation with Dr. Tom Woodward, Co author of a new book called Epigenetics and the Evidence of Design at the frontier of biology. Dr. Woodward is Professor Emeritus at Trinity College of Florida. A Princeton graduate in history and Latin American studies, He completed his PhD in the rhetoric of science at the University of South Florida. His book Doubts about Darwin, A Christianity Today Book of the year in 2004 was followed by Darwin Strikes Back, Defending the Science of Intelligent Design.
He has lectured on intelligent design in 38 countries.
I'm sure that's been quite the adventure. Tom, welcome back to the show.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: It has been an adventure. Thank you for having me back on ID the Future.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: In part one of our discussion, you clued us into a new revolution currently underway in biology. The discovery of the epigenome and how it complements the genome in governing the development and the form of living things.
So let's start with just a little bit of review for those who haven't yet enjoyed the first half of our conversation. What do we mean when we talk about the epigenome? And why is this new revolution in biology so significant?
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Well, thank you for the opportunity to explain how important this is because the genome, the DNA molecule itself, which in all plants and animals, except for bacteria, types of creatures, is wound up inside the nucleus of the cell. Those genetic riches are actually unable to perform any function without the help of the rest of the of the cell. Now, we knew that when in 1953 Watson and Crick discovered the structure. And then the code was elucidated in the late 50s with the help of further work by Francis Crick.
And then at, at the Point when I was in high school in the 60s and college in the 70s these results were bearing fruit, but they didn't realize that the, the waltz of life needed a partner, a dance partner. Partner. And that dance partner has now come to life more and more and more over the last 30 years, especially since, I'd say the mid-90s when, for example, we found out that genes can be switched on and off. They have a tag, and that's part of this rich information code, if you will, that sits on top of, and the, the prefix EPI literally means above or on top of the genetics that are functioning beautifully. And I have with me a model. We actually kind of pioneered this. So about three or four years ago, it became public all over the world.
And the DNA model that we put together, it can be twisted into a double helix. But you can see here, it has a pair of methyl tags. You have a carbon head with three hydrogens. That's a CH3.
And that methyl tag is attached, as you can see right here, we have a methyl tag attached. And when these methyl tags are brought to bear and link up with the DNA, it tells the gene to take a rest, to take a nap, to switch off. But then when you want to wake the gene up for functionality, then you have a protein robot, I'll call them a robot, for lack of better description. And this little miniature robot or spaceship comes down, snatches the methyl tags, and then the gene wakes up and it's ready for work.
And at that point you have a layer of information because all the 20,000 genes in our genome have to be told whether they're active or passive, whether they're awake or asleep.
And that map of, of different tagging patterns, the methylated DNA is different for each cell type.
So instead of having just one genome, you have in this case, let's say 230 minimum epigenomes of just the methyl map. And that's just part of this bigger picture of the entire epigenome. So we're excited to see what is coming to light, you know, year by year. It's just phenomenal. It's, it's spectacular.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's a beautiful model too, to kind of get a feel for what's going on and what these things look like. We'll, we'll mention that at the end too, in case, in case we have folks who want to get their hands on one of those. I know I do.
So now, before I move into the rest of my questions, I want to just help our audience, you know, just grasp this. So just like we have the brain and then we have the mind, which is sort of the, you know, the immaterial layer that is applied to the brain during life.
Um, is it fair to look at the epigenome in that way or perhaps in the way of maybe hardware? And then there's software. You don't really see the software, but you can, you can see where the hardware is. What. Have you come across any useful analogies to help people understand the, you know, the difference between the genome and the epigenome?
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Well, it's very interesting to, it's a very important and basic question to ask and it's a bit tricky to answer. I'll do my best that I can to bring to light the fact that there is in genetics itself a concept of having the, the informational pattern, the specified complexity of the genes being able to be recorded in different formats. I can write it on a sheet of paper, I can type it in my computer and it's on the hard drive or it's on the cloud, or I can even produce it with crayons. I can write it in the sand of the, at the beach.
So it can have a thousand or million, whatever physical representations, but the information content is the same and it really resides in the, in the level of information, non material information.
So that's true about the genome. The genome can be conceived and has been in even scientific research been conceived as a non physical entity. It's, it's hovers above. It's like Plato who had these forms hovering up in their mental heaven. So these genetic patterns have their informational code format that it can be, if you will, non material. And the epigenome, with its dozens, maybe a hundred or more codes, they also can be expressed in a non material format. But in the symphony of life or in the waltz of life, these physical expressions come together beautifully. And that's what we're able to study and map out in epigenetics.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, that helps us kind of wrap our heads around the immaterial and the material parts and how they, they conduct this waltz.
Now, you weren't always an advocate of intelligent design. In fact, you were once a committed Darwinist, even to the point of trying to persuade others actively out of their theistic belief. Then you went through a complete U turn during your studies at Princeton. And I just want to spend a few minutes talking about that.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yes, I was, how should I put it? A little bit obnoxious.
I tried to be nice and gentle, but I was like maybe a forerunner of the new atheists, you know, Dawkins and, and their group I was trying to update the Christians. When I arrived on the campus, I was actually admitted to the membership of a local Protestant church in Ohio where I was living at the time. And for me it was just a matter of educational help. It's just assisting other students and even alumni who were involved in this Christian movement which is now called the Princeton Christian Fellowship. That's, that's the name that they took on just a couple years back and back in my day it was a group of maybe 20, 30 students and a couple alumni that were teaching and, and I just thought when I, when I was aware that they were not evolutionists, I thought this is a scandal at a place like Princeton. Everybody knows their science. Science has, has settled it, it's a fact.
But as I began to voice and actually went to some of their meetings and I didn't interrupt them but I just talked afterwards, they came back with evidence for Christianity, you know, for the existence of the Judeo Christian God, which I had never heard. I can't go into the, all the details because of time here, but let me just say that as I began to investigate and I actually began an investigative study with one of the alumni, fairly young, mid-20s Princeton alumni, alumnus who had come back to help with the group, he introduced me to a whole realm of evidence I'd never heard of. The humor is that As I like C.S. lewis describe himself, kind of eyes darting right and left, kicking and screaming as he was dragged into the kingdom of belief in God.
For me, after I came to that I was convinced, like Blaise Pascal, I had my own, you know, kind of like encounter with reality of the Creator, the architect coming into my life. At that point I told the people that I was with, I really don't want to really be involved in this group because I'm a Darwinist.
And it was when I discovered evidence in the fossil record of a lack of transitional forms just two months later at a, at a location there in the town of Princeton. That's when I progressed. I completed my, my, let's say or I, I came to doubts about Darwin at that point and, and I never saw any evidence that led me back to Darwin ever since then.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Do you share some of that in your book Doubts about Darwin?
[00:11:20] Speaker A: In Doubts about Darwin, the, the book that I wrote, there's a history of intelligent design. My story doesn't come come in. Although I do present a little bit of a tidbit of Philip Johnson's story. So.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, and sort of related to your story. What, what drew you into Darwinism? What, what made you convinced that that was responsible for the history and development of life on Earth?
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Well, there was nothing else taught in our high school near Columbus, Ohio. I was attending it, fairly small high school, Canal Winchester.
And in our studies, our local veterinarian, Dr. Weingoop, he went through the evidence and my dad even shared from his Princeton. He had gone there in the late 20s and he was sharing evidence from his books. And so I even helped Dr. Weincoop to convince the class that Darwin got it right. And ironically, it was the recapitulation evidence that I was bringing in, which I didn't know was scandalously and ludicrously almost weak and somewhat problematic. I'll just say.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, well, it's been, it's been interesting. You know, I've done lots of interviews with folks and you know, the, the books that have been written on Darwin's fragile idea and all the other forces that actually propelled, you know, Darwinism to the superstar theory that it grew to become. It wasn't the scientific evidence, you know, that was pretty hard to come by. You know, after all, Darwin's book was very short and he always promised a second volume full of the evidence that would support it. That never came. It over came because once it was out, you know, the scientific materialism of the day sort of carried it and, you know, sort of propelled it into superstardom, you know, not on the strength of the evidence, but for other reasons. And so which kind of leads us into what I'm going to talk about next. One chapter in your book is titled what Darwin Didn't Know about the Cell. How has our picture of the cell changed since his death?
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Oh, I would say it's overwhelming what Darwin, in other words, fail to grasp the quantity.
And let me just go ahead and say the quality also down to the granular microcosmic scales of these molecules that are doing tremendous, important work for the cell to carry on its most basic functions.
And as Michael Behe has brought out in his various books, basically explaining in a nutshell how different protein parts work together to perform such functions as blood clotting. I mean, our bloodstream requires not one, not two, but 20 different proteins to trigger one another in a cascade.
And Darwin had no notion of the complexity of not only just blood clotting or the amazing motor we call the flagellum. And we talk about other really remarkable busy, busy robot workers in the cell that are involved in epigenetics.
And Darwin had no conception of any of this. He thought of the cell as just an interesting Part with an unknown object called the nucleus. And he had the protoplasm surrounding it like a blob of jello. And that was it.
We know from some articles that actually have been written about and one of them by Darwin, we know that his knowledge at that was pre kindergarten, if I can use that phrase, if, if that.
And so to try to explain using a blind material process, the kind of complexity both hardware and software. I'll go ahead and use both of those terms, is astounding that we, we see Darwinian theory still touted even though at the, at the edges it's fraying everywhere, but it's still touted as the be all end all answer to origins in biology.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: How surprised do you think Darwin would be at what we're learning about the epigenome today?
[00:15:49] Speaker A: I think that he would have severe grave doubts as to the plausibility of this theory. In light of the integrated complexity of dozens and maybe even over a hundred systems all working together, many of them having their own code structure that has to be in conversation with other codes. I think he'd be flabbergasted.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Yep. Well, in your chapter Scrabbling for an Adequate Cause, you dive into the actual design argument. One thing you do in this section of the book is look at the numbers of interacting information systems layered on top of DNA. Now one study puts it at 237 different biological codes. Let me linger there for a second. Some people may not be even aware that there are other codes in biology beyond the genetic code. First tell us about some of these other codes and what they regulate and manage. Even a list will help us understand it.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Well that is one of the most important and I would say exciting developments in biology that we've been able to talk about. And in that particular chapter Scrabbling for an Adequate Cause, what we're trying to show is that there may be as many as 160, although we lowered it to 80 and then again we were very conservative and lowered it to 40 codes. But the actual figure that is listed in this research work, the very important document released just this last year, says that there are in biology at least 237 different codes that are been identified by scientific researchers.
And you may say, well what kind of code? And I think I can just remind us of this methyl tagging system, which is quite amazing. I'll just pull up a particular part of a gene and you'll see the cytosine letter Right there is the spot where a methyl tag is attached. So you can see it doing its function of letting that gene rest.
And there are, as I had mentioned, There are over 20,000 genes in a particular human genome.
And these location of the methyl tags have to be cataloged and as it were, you know, described. If you're going to have a complete methyl map of any particular kind of cell, but that's just one of the 237 codes, or we brought it down to 160 and then we're conservative beyond that. You have the codes that are attached to the tails where the DNA is wound up. And those histone code tails are very important for, for the turning on and off and the regulation of genes. But you also have structures throughout the cell, including the location of microtubules. You have the glycan code, the sugar code on the exterior of the cell. And you even have in the original fertilized egg, the zygote. You have a pattern three dimensional array of every biomolecule which would be trillions upon trillions of molecules in that zygote. And the location, the patterning of the zygote array of molecules is perhaps the most amazing code of all. The crowning code you could call it. And so because of the importance of identifying what are these codes and how do they interact, we see a world of high technology that one scientist has called a supercomputer.
And supercomputers do not evolve by blind forces of nature. They have a super inventor for that supercomputer.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Right.
Wow. It's interesting to learn about all the different codes and there's hundreds potentially, but you were really conservative in the number that you landed on in the book. And did you just do that as an exercise in being conservative and trying to go beyond the shadow of a doubt sort of thing?
[00:20:03] Speaker A: I think that's what we were trying to do because I think even if there were, even if there were 20, 15 or 20 codes, you know, which is going beyond our conservatism, we, we lowered it from 237 to 160, then we cut it to 80, then we cut it from 80 down to 40.
And we said working with 40 codes, that's crazy enough, that's a spectacular enough.
But then you have the importance of adding or subtracting, that is writing or erasing each of those marks on the histone system or directly on the gene itself.
And the robot proteins that, the teams of robotic type proteins that can take and attach one of those tags or remove it. You don't get a, a functioning system unless you have the specialized robot to Attach and then another specialized robot to remove. You can't start with one and say, oh, we got a system. You need all these arrays, these teams of robots, to be whizzing around the nucleus section where the DNA needs to be changed or read or duplicated. And it's just remarkable.
We were, again, I hate to use the word too much, but we were constantly flabbergasted by the technology that we're privileged to see unfolding inside the epigenome.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: And you mentioned Michael Behe's argument for irreducible complexity both in this interview and in your book. It's the idea that certain biological systems, like the bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting cascade, require multiple coordinated parts, such that the removal of one of those critical components causes the whole system to fail. So does what we're learning about the epigenome magnify the argument for irreducible complexity?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: I would say irreducible complexity is an absolutely astounding breakthrough discovery that we.
We cannot thank Dr. Behe enough for elucidating and defending it because it's been heavily attacked. And I think he has absolutely annihilated. I think he's obliterated every putative, every proposed attack on his theory of multiple coordinated parts, all of which are necessary for function and for writing and erasing the code marks in the epigenome.
You can't just have a writer without an eraser because the functions change from cell to cell.
And you can ask, how does a cell know even where to go to, as it were, to place these tags? There's not like a GPS system. If I get in my car and I want to go to Atlanta, I can just punch in the address. And the brain system of that gps, I think it's run by Google, does its work. So it's very high tech. The cell has the same thing. It has these little robotic protein workers, for lack of better description, who are going to the exact precise spot, adding their epigenetic mark, and then, when necessary, removing it and taking it away.
How do they all know where to go?
It's an amazing frontier of scientific discovery, and it's just blasting out this new evidence for design.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Well, throughout this conversation, we've talked about layers of information, layers of coding, and layers of control beyond DNA. At the end of the day, what do you see as the central challenge in finding an adequate cause for the origin of all that information?
[00:23:55] Speaker A: I would say that the epigenome, and epigenetics in general, adds a halo. It adds another huge layer on top of the foundation that DNA has already laid for us.
So if the old phrase, if you're impressed by the design features of DNA, you ain't seen nothing.
I had to use that, you know, I just love that phrase, you ain't seen nothing yet.
And so when you leap to the epigenetic complexity and layer upon layer, it's like being told, okay, your genes are inscribed on a hard drive.
And that's wonderful. Okay, so the, the nucleus like the hard drive.
But what if you, someone said, you know, your laptop, Andrew, you know, you have your genes that are written there, but did you know that even on the transistors and the other micro, you know, parts of your internal system of your computer, they have genetic, their own kind of genetic code written on them.
Oh, and by the way, your screen that you're looking through, there's a code written into it. The exterior container, you know, that that cool metal outside part of your laptop, it has a code written into it. Even the keys have a code written into it. And as I'm telling you this, you're of course waving your head in disbelief. If you're like me or if you dare to believe it, you say, how could that be? Well, the cell is like that. It's like code is written everywhere. And that has a message of a super intellect, super architect.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: And I wouldn't doubt for a minute that this MacBook Pro that I use didn't come from Apple and a suite of inventors and technicians, you know, behind it. And yet when we turn to nature, we're supposed to adopt the view that it all happened randomly over time. Well, your book is helping to challenge that idea, especially when it comes to the epigenome. Now, one of the most powerful conclusions you make in the book is this. We now know that much of the information employed to build biological form is situated in epigenetic architecture beyond the reach of random genetic mutations and natural selection.
So that clearly represents a difficulty for an evolutionary mutation selection explanation to account for the epigenome. Is that difficulty insurmountable in your estimation?
[00:26:36] Speaker A: I think it's totally and completely insurmountable for this simple reason that Darwin's theory was crafted in terms of random variation, unplanned, undirected, mindless, purposeless changes to the hereditary system that, that is seen in traits that are produced through genes. But we're seeing here a whole universe, a micro universe of other aspects of this system of biology, the functionality cell system, that have no relationship, direct relationship, in the recording of those ATS as and Ts and Cs and GS in the pattern of a gene or a genome, the entire genome of 3.1 billion letters. And of course, we have two copies of it in every cell.
So to me, the Darwinian theory, which is crafted to calculate and analyze changes over time and fundamental changes, because the tree of life is supposedly connecting everything.
So if you cannot even explain through genetic changes, these macro developments, how can you add this new complicated universe of other codes when the original theory of Darwin doesn't even touch this other universe?
I think it's a complete disproof, if I can use that word. It is raising the implausibility of the Darwinian explanation to near infinity.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and some of the new atheists that came About a decade, 15 years ago brought the argument that belief in God or a creator is harmful, yet your research has shown just the opposite and indicates that theistic belief is shown to enhance societal health, personal health, and even epigenetic health. Can you touch on why that is?
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's an area we dared to go in a little bit in our last final chapter, the so what chapter? The where do things lead from here chapter. And what we were trying to do there is to see is there scientifically plausible research and published results that demonstrate that a life of theistic faith, that is a life that is grounded on the understanding that there is an architect, does that life actually bode well for health prospects?
And we found through the work of Byron Johnson at Baylor University, through the work of some very important, even atheist writers, there is Jeff Levin and his work also.
We've just seen good, solid evidence that the epigenetic health and the total health, societal health, as well as biological health of individuals, is enhanced by the perspective of having an architect and grounding your life in the communication from that architect. And like I said, we didn't go in to it, but I think we did the little CS Lewis touch in the approach of the plausibility of that perspective.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great that you bring it in. And as I said, I call that value added.
Not only is your book educating us on the latest in the epigenetic revolution, it's also giving us that personal aspect, how it can help our health and indeed the health of society at large. So that's an exciting part of your book and just one more reason to get a copy.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Well, before we go today, I just want to come back to now, you showed us that plastic DNA model you've developed that conveys tangibly and colorfully the basic DNA code and even little things like the methyl code sitting on top of DNA.
How did you come up with that and how can we get a hold of one?
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Well, we were inspired. This is right about the time, shortly after the book came out, it was about five years after the original version of our epigenome book was published that we were inspired and some people helped us to get this off the ground.
And we just cannot say thank you enough to those wonderful individuals because they, they saw the opportunity to put in three dimensional shape the, the wonders of epigenetics and genetics itself.
Our models available at DNA and Beyond.
It's like Bed Bath and Beyond, but just put in DNA and, and okay. At DNA and Beyond.org and if you go there you can see the two minute demonstration.
And also we've developed friends of DNA. We've actually developed the molecule that comes in called the TRNA that helps to bring together the right amino acids. And we actually have just added color code for the 20amino acids and have them as able to be pulled together and linked together.
And we've even color coded all 20 of the amino acids.
So kryptophan, which has the W is its signifying letter, we have make that watermelon color and the A, which is alanine, another amino acid. We call this the amber color.
So it's just been a lot of fun to make tangible aspects of the genetic and epigenetic realm available for people to actually study and even play with and touch as if they were real things in their hands.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. I know my kids would enjoy doing that. My oldest daughter's taking biology, high school biology right now and my younger daughters enjoy watching our animations of molecular machines. So I think, I think that'd be a great tool to introduce them to. So you said that's DNA and beyond.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Yeah, DNA and beyond.org and if people are interested in looking at our public school website because we actually have an electronic five lesson curriculum in both sites and DNA and beyond.org actually has a sixth lesson on the design hypothesis.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: So if you get the model, you get the online curriculum too.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Great.
Now and also let's mention the book here, Epigenetics and the Architect is now available. You can order a copy for yourself or a doubting friend and you'll find that at Discovery Press.
Discovery Press. Tom, thanks so much for your time today.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Andrew. It was a lot of fun.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: Yeah, well it's been fun as well with you to unpack all of this and really get a handle on it and the next thing is just to read the book cover to cover.
So I hope to do that in the near future. Epigenetics and the Architect is now available for ID the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermott. Thanks for joining us.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: Visit
[email protected] and intelligent design.org this program is copyright Discovery Institute and recorded by its center for Science and Culture.
