Page 44 - The Miracle in the Cell

THE MIRACLE IN THE CELL
information stored in a 920-volume Encyclopedia Britannica.
In each person's DNA, the order of the letters is different. This
is why all the people who have ever lived have been different from
each other. Each human being's basic anatomical structure and
processes are the same. But despite the fact that each person arises
from the division of just one cell and possesses the same basic struc-
ture, each individual is uniquely created, with such fine differences
and with such detail that there have been billions of distinctly differ-
ent people.
All the organs in your body are built according to a planning
scheme outlined in your genes. To give a few examples from a gene
map constructed by scientists, the skin is regulated by 2,559 genes;
the brain by 29,930; the eyes by 1,794; salivary glands by 186; the
heart by 6,216; the breast by 4,001; the lungs by 11,581; the liver by
2,309; the intestines by 3,838; the skeletal muscles by 1,911 and the
blood cells by 22,092 genes.
The order of the letters in the DNA determines the structure of
any human being, down to the smallest detail. In the DNA of just one

cell are found characteristics like height, eye, hair and skin color, the
plans of 206 bones, 600 muscles, 10,000 auditory and 2 million optical
nerve networks, 100 billion nerve cells, and blood vessels 100,000
kilometers (60,000 miles) long and 100 trillion cells.
If even one single letter cannot come about without a scribe to
write it, then how can billions of meaningful "letters" arise inside a
human cell? How did these letters come together, one after the other,
in meaningful patterns to comprise the plan of a unique and complex
human body? Were there even the slightest flaw in the order of these
letters, you could find your ear where your stomach is supposed to
be, or your eyes on your heels, and have to live as a freak. The secret
of your being a regular person is the faultless order in which the bil-
lions of letters are arranged in your DNA's 46-volume encyclopedia.
Obviously, these letters can't possibly realize such an arrangement of

42