DNA & Design Series by Dr Gasser Hathout

Lecture 2: The structure of the human retina: Paradigm shift.  This lecture starts the series with a macro topic, before delving into DNA.  For decades evolutionary biologists have claimed that the human retina is poorly designed, and used this to rebut the notion of intelligent design in biology in general.   However, advances of the last 20 years have overturned this notion, and displayed a newly exquisite design within the retina.  This example offers the precise paradigm of this lecture series, that as knowledge advances, the stronger the case for design becomes.  This paradigm is applied to DNA in the remaining lectures.

This multi-lecture series takes an in depth look at DNA, the repository of genetic information, and makes the case that DNA speaks strongly for intelligent and deliberate design, and against a random origin of life on earth, which has been the prevalent dogma in the biological sciences.  The series asserts that as we learn more about the structure and function of DNA, incorporating the advances of the last two decades, the stronger this case becomes.  The series begins illustrating this paradigm—that advances in knowledge often overturn previously accepted dogmas – by looking at a macro issue where this has happened: the vertebrate retina.  The series then moves to introduce the viewer to the genetic code and how it works, and tackles such issues as the optimality of the genetic code, the  myth of junk DNA, the information enigma of DNA, and the “chicken-and-egg,” problem of DNA and proteins.  All of this is done using primary scientific source literature, and numerous papers and books are referenced.  If you love science, and are interested in how scientific advances make the case for the handiwork of a Divine Intellect, this series will be of interest to you.