In the Beginning was Information

2. Origin: Just as each and every machine, from a simple corkscrew to acomputer, cannot be explained in terms of natural laws and environmentalconditions only, so also does every biological system require an Inventor,a Constructor, a Source of ideas. Every creator of a technological inventionmust know the laws of physics; he employs these laws to construct asuitable mechanism. Although the laws impose constraints, they also provideconditions which can be utilised. He displays his ingenuity when, byusing constructional and architectural ideas, he constructs a machinewhich employs the natural laws in such a way that it is obviously an optimalsolution. The same holds for the Creator of biological systems. Howmuch more is His wealth of ideas and His unfathomable wisdom reflectedin living systems!Physical laws can describe and delineate the progress of biologicalprocesses, but they fail to explain their complexity and the wealth of theirstructures and functions. Anybody who discusses questions of origin andof spirituality on a purely material plane removes himself completelyfrom the realities of life by such a mechanistic reduction.The following examples of energy conservation illustrate the immeasurableinventiveness of the Creator. In many cases the laws of nature areemployed right up to the limits of what is physically possible.A3.4.1 Animal “Chlorophyll”Photosynthesis has now been recognised as a brilliant invention for theconversion of the energy of the sun to produce energy donors. There arethree kinds of animal [D4] which have a similar “built-in” capacity, namelythe snail Tridachia crispata, the three millimetre spiral worm Convolutaroscoffensis which lives on the coast of Normandy and Bretagne, andthe microscopic green Paramecium bursaria.The tridachia snails are found in the waters around Jamaica and they normallysubsist on seaweed. But when seaweed is not available, they canstill survive. Chlorophyll eaten previously is not fully digested, but someof it is stored in the form of undamaged chloroplasts in leaf-shaped tuftson its back. These floral organelles are still functionally active and producesugar when exposed to sunlight. This sugar is then distributedthrough its body to provide energy. It can now be stated that:– The animal borrows the chemical factory of the plant, including itscontrol information, and thus virtually changes itself into a plant.– This snail ingests seaweed which then ensures sufficient nutrition for upto six weeks when exposed to sunlight. This is an amazing principle.237