Scientists Store Massive Amounts of Information on DNA through the Process of Blind Chance

Two scientists have successfully stored 700 terabytes of data on DNA, including a copy of a multimedia book, breaking the previous record by a thousand times. George Church and Sriram Kosuri of the Wyss Institute at the Harvard Medical School stored this massive amount of information on about one gram of DNA (“Harvard cracks DNA storage,” Extreme Tech, Aug. 17, 2012). The stored information is equivalent to 233 3TB hard drives. As a test, the scientists made 70 billion copies of the DNA containing the information. They can foresee the day when “the entirety of human knowledge--every book, uttered word, and funny cat video--can be stored in a few hundred kilos of DNA.” Now, let us address the title of this report: “Scientists Store Massive Amounts of Information on DNA through the Process of Blind Chance.” Of course, that is a joke. Church’s and Kosuri’s wonderful achievement was accomplished via an extremely complicated process through the application of intelligence, and they doubtless pride themselves in the gifting and learning that allowed them to accomplish this. We would like to ask them one question: “Could your achievement, which is far less complex than processes within the self-replicating living cell, have been accomplished by the forces of unintelligent blind chance?” We will be waiting for that answer.

(Friday Church News Notes, December 12, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

---