Is The Genetic Code Proof Of Intelligent Design?

So....God is simply "That which Is".

 

I think we all understand the sensitivities of some when discussing their God. Like it or not some take critique of their faith as an attack on themselves, and thus a certain level of care should be taken to avoid hurting their overly sensitive feelings. I have noted a steep decline in useful debate once toes are stepped on, and a dramatic increase in sniffles and Ire.

Seems best to either self edit...or walk away.

 

That makes no sense whatsoever.

First, you keep insisting that everything is non-linear, and then you offer a diagram that is linear. You're not going to impress very many people if you can't remember your own argument.

Second, there is actually no logical way to get from your diagram to the conclusion that anything is "illusory." The claim is bald assertion, and of course directly contradicted by experience.

Well... there's part of your conceptual problem right there. There is actually no "where" in a timeline. There is only a "when." And the answer to that question has always been simple, obvious and profound.

We exist now.

Pause for a moment and consider... it is always now. It is never the past, since the past is already gone and no longer exists. It is never the future, since the future hasn't happened yet and doesn't exist either. We can conceptualize either, but we can only do so now. We can remember the past, but we can only do so now. We can envision the future, even plan for it, even influence it... but we can only do so now.

There is no past, and there is no future. There is only now. And that is when we exist along the timeline between an infinite past and and eternal future.

 

"God" is not part of what I'm discussing.
Whether we define the unknown qualities of the inifinte as "God" or simply "unknown"
it remains beyond the capability of human knowledge and will always remain beyond the capabiltiy
to know "true" source.

All of this can of course be dismissed if Science discovers that indeed "Something" can be derived from "Nothiing." So far, experimental evidence reveals there is never really "nothing." As mentioned quantum fluctuations can cause particles to come into an out of existence, but this process itself is not sourceable. What created the process that can create virtual "'something" to appear and disappear into nothing? A more viable explanation is that there is never...truly..."nothing."

If we accept the inifinite, both with no start and no end...eventually Science will have to live with a permanent "unknown"...that being source and end. Science is usually comfortable with this, there's always been unknown, but given infinite, this is a real unknown, as it's unknowable.

The "true" origin of life, of our Universe...is unknowable.

Unless, it can be proved sufficiently that indeed "something" is finite. So far we don't have much evidence for that, most evidence appears to be an infinite "something." There is never, virtually a state of nothing, from which "something" could be created. Something appears to be created from something else...ad infinitum.

 

And what would lead you to believe that science has ever been anything other than perfectly comfortable accepting that knowledge is incomplete? I can't imagine any scientific even being excited at the prospect of perfect knowledge. It would pretty much put them all out of business.

Nothing in that sentence is obviously true. An infinite chain of causality does not have an "unknown" beginning and an "unknown" end (as represented in your previous diagram). It has no beginning or end at all. That introduces no requirements for any entities other than the sort with which we already have experience.

Second, an infinite universe has no obvious gaps for a "god of the gaps" to fill. It is infinite, and therefore has no beginning or end to account for at all.

Third, asserting that there are "infinite possibilities" is not the same thing as asserting that "anything is possible." As an analogy, I could have an infinite number of cats. But that doesn't mean I ever need to also have a dog. To say that something is impossible does not merely say that something does not exist. It is also saying that the thing can not exist. Note: I am not asserting here that god is impossible. I am simply pointing out that an infinite universe does nothing to enhance the status or scientific acceptability of a "god theory."

 

I can agree with the basic premise....we cannot "KNOW". yet the concept of scientific inquiry is based on the attempt to do so.

In the macro it is true we can never actually claim to know...yet in the micro we obviously do.

I know the moon orbits the Earth....but I can only speculate there is something similar light years away.

I can see the moons of Jupiter to confirm orbital motion...but do not "Know" this exists elsewhere and thus delve into further useless opinion.

Perhaps something is there....maybe not. I simply prefer to imagine possibilities, rather than claim they are truths.

 

This is nothing more than YOU caught in your own muck of mind babble. It has no play in the real world. The concept of "unknown" has always existed BUT....more and more of it is explained and understood every day.

There currently exists no reason, logic or requirement postulate a supernatural being as the cause of anything. Those who do, do so because they need to feel they have an answer (when in fact, they don't).

 

Human beings are naturally curious, we want to "know." Knowledge to some, is like the unclimbed peak. I certainly do not think we should stop seeking knowledge of what's on the other undiscovered side of the hill. Sometimes however I see it more akin to Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill only for the rock to tumble back down again very near the peak of the hill. The more we "know" the more we discover what we don't "know." I personally know of many religious brothers with advanced science degrees, I think it is unfair to judge the religious as "anti" knowledge or afraid new knowledge will somehow disprove a faith.

I believe this existence is surrounded by the infinite, and for me I find that far more exhilarating than a proposed end to it all. .

.

 

So
DNA creating a spruce, moose, goose, or human being from those two gametes is only a very sophisticated and complex chemical reaction, or series of reactions? Is that the point of your reference to the chemical formulas for common compounds?

 

I can't answer for him and I'm sure he'll reply anyway. As I understand it, it's a set of rules and there is a field of study known as computational genomics. It is the study of deciphering biology from genome sequences using computational analysis. There is even DNA computing.

Source: http://www.howstuffworks.com/dna-computer.htm

I don't know why the gentlemen insists on calling a code...as actually not a code, but an analogy to a code.

 

I'm gonna exit this thread, as i've hogged enough bandwidth with my pseudo-philosophized ramblings..
I will depart with a final thought.


It's a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) code, perhaps a mechanistic process, but it's a code nonetheless.

denying it as such is the equivalent to well I don't know it's equivalent, but it's intellectual dishonesty.

You all may have the final say.

Adieu.

 

Its a shame that your final thought was wrong.

But thanks for playing.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course.

 

Then its a very good thing that nobody in this thread has done so.

Instead, we simply observe that certain religious ideas are untestable, and therefore by definition deserve no consideration as scientific. This includes Creationism in general, and Intelligent Design in particular.

 

I'll add to the chorus here. It's not a code. Calling it a code might be shorthand, but the analogy is extremely loose at best.

Basically, the problem here really isn't how "codish" DNA is, but rather how well the structure and behavior of DNA is understood. My experience is that those who try to hijack the word "code" for religious reasons, have no knowledge whatever of such basics as transcription and replication. Even a single semester of such study, and they'd realize that their misconception wasn't even in the right time zone.

 

Exactly. It's just like the faithful framing bacterial flagellum as a mechanical motor.

 

I have a challenge for you or anyone brave enough: find a single creationist argument that does NOT rest on a false analogy, or on stretching an analogy to cover what it does not.

 

Impossible....that's part of their strategy.

 

Anything but the Biblical God is open for discussion. I can accept that aliens may have put us here, but not the Biblical God. Hilarious!

 

The main problem with this (besides kicking the can down the road) is that there is clear evidence that all life on earth is related, and equally clear evidence that those relationships extend throughout the biosphere back into the distant past. So anything within the last few billion years couldn't have been designed by aliens.

The panspermia hypothesis, that something resembling archaea seeded the earth long ago, doesn't really support a design process, only a transportation process. Occam's razor says that if current mechanisms for biological change could also get biology started in the first place, there's no need for any additional processes, design or otherwise.

 

Which indicates that it has a common source, and so this is entirely consistent with design. Something which is consistent with a theory cannot be the "main problem" with that theory. What you just said was nonsensical.

A transportation of the design. I feel like your abuse of the online thesaurus is interfering with your ability to make a critical point.

 

That is a complete non sequitur. There is nothing in the concept of design that suggest, requires or would be necessarily consistent with a single source or a single designer. The only examples of unquestionably designed "things" with which we have experience (i.e. human artifacts) are designed by multiple designers, demonstrate wildly different technologies and engineering choices, and speak unambiguously of multiple uncommon sources.

In this particular way (others as well) the use of a single "technology" suite for all living things actually is a drastic contrast to the pattern we see in the created artifacts of intelligent design. It makes sense in the context of descent with modification from an original ancestor, but says nothing in favor of a designer.

Even single human designers often create radically different designs for different projects. No competent human engineer (for example) would use the same base blueprint and technology suite to create a submarine and an aircraft.

Yet whales and bats are simply variations on the same base blueprint, and use the exact same technology suite.

As just noted... there is no good reason to understand common origin as consistent with any non-sectarian concept of intelligent design. I believe the shoe of nonsensicality belongs on the other foot.

Again... that is a non sequitur. The transportation of life says nothing about whether the ultimate origin of that life was naturalistic or artificial.

 

OK, let's try again, slowly.

EVERYTHING is consistent with design, since there are absolutely no constraints on the Designer. Consider that an unambiguous fossil rabbit in the preCambrian would absolutely falsify the theory of evolution, but the Designer could have done it easily. There is nothing, however consistent OR inconsistent, that the Designer could not have done. I defy you to name one single thing inconsistent with Design.

Even assuming panspermia is correct, we still have the problem of life arising elsewhere. The Designer could have designed both the life and the transportation method. The Designer could have poofed the life all at once, or whatever It chose to do.

So what evolutionary theorists must do is to take all of the enormous, mind-boggling factual evidence, and find some way to tie it all together. ANY proposed theory MUST do two things: it must explain ALL the facts, and it must survive testing of the predictions it makes. The Design hypothesis only needs to explain all the facts ("goddidit" is a one-size-fits-all universal explanation of everything, so that's good) but it makes NO predictions.

 

The problem with a designer is why would any designer design life that must consume other life in order to survive?

 

Because consumers are an important part of the ecosystem. If all life were producers, it would soon fill up all of the available living space, then die out.

Producers (plants) make food --> consumers (animals) eat the food ---> decomposers (fungi, micro organisms) decompose dead organisms ----> the products of decomposition provide nutrients for producers -----> wash and repeat.

 

I suspect that this reply missed the point. The Designer would design life anyway It damn pleased, because why not? If the Designer felt like doing it differently, It would have done things differently. We have no insights into the Designer's motivations, and no way to gather those insights beyond assuming that whatever we observe is what the Designer intended for unknown reasons - UNLESS the Designer screwed up. And we have no way to know about that either.