Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

DNA isn't really a code though, it is just convenient to speak of it as one for preliminary study.From the proper orbital distance, the earth looks just like a big contoured map. If you were teaching people who were already familiar with maps about stuff on the earth as seen through a telescope, it would be very convenient to speak of it as if it were a map, and talk about the equator and latititude and longitude and the poles and so on as if they were really there.You can land on the earth though, it's not a map at all, it's a real thing. DNA is the same way, it isn't really a message that has to be decoded by someone with a codebook, it is real chemicals that cause real changes in real proteins whether anyone is looking or not.

Thanks, I hope you will forgive me for not bothering to go around quote-mining all the characteristics of a self-updating hemispherical contour map just to prove the earth definitely qualifies.Yes, DNA is a code, it has all the characteristics of one. But it is not MERELY a code, anymore than the earth is MERELY a map. It has all the key advantages of a code, in that information is transmitted for example. In the same way the actual earth has all the key advantages of a map, in that it is a remarkably good representation of, itself.But the earth does NOT have the disadvantages of a map, its not out of scale, it doesn't have distortion at the edges, it doesn't require someone to cut pieces of paper in curves and paste them together flat and so on. Most importantly, you can live on the earth, and not in a map.Your assertion is that because DNA has the advantages of a code it must have the disadvantages as well. This is categorically untrue. The message involved in mere coding must come from someone, it must be intended for someone. DNA encodes and decodes itself without any assistance from hypothetical entities at all.

DNA is an arrangement of complex chemical structures, there is nothing symbolic about it. There are no "agreed upon meanings" involved in DNA transcription or protein catalysis, merely chemical reactions. There is no mind involved in these processes to agree or disagree with them. DNA is not intentionally transmitted in Nature. Instinct is not intent. Chemical reactions are not intent. Natural selection is not intent. There is no sender/encoder or receiver/decoder involved in DNA transmission in the ordinary sense of these words. Ribosomes are not people, they do not make decisions, they do not have a codebook, they cannot be instructed to move on to the next code now that the enemy has compromised this one. DNA does not "express specific instructions" it enables particular chemical reactions under very specific circumstances. Again, there is no "intent" anywhere in the process. All possible combinations exist, those that replicate themselves win out over those which do not.

Ribosomes are the receiver in your model. They have no intelligence of their own. What possible grounds are there to believe that the sender in such a model would have some innate intelligence?If you weren't totally dismissive of the very clear explanations being made to you over and over again about other complex natural information like tree rings and spectro-analysis, you would at least be able to point at existing asymmetric codes where the sender doesn't seem to have intelligence but the receiver does. The existence of such asymmetric relationships one way could be used to imply that it isn't totally unreasonable to suggest at least one could work the other way.But these arguments are lost on you because they represent good science, whereas you seem to be primarily interested in rhetoric. The scientist forms his theory and immediately begins examining all the information which might be used to disprove it, modifying the theory to match the facts. You have a "conclusion" that you are determined to stick with regardless, and continue to organize and reorganize your "facts" in an attempt to "prove" it.

Wow, I feel popular today.Anyway codes (by which I mean codes made by us, the base premise seems to be that all the codes that we have made were made by us, what a shocking coincidence) codes made by us have some attributes that DNA just doesn't have. For one thing, they are abitrary, the correspondences are a convention of usage rather than a fact of chemistry.For another, they are detail-critical, one character wrong in a short message could derail the whole thing. Note that languages are softer here, yuo gyus cna rdea tsih btu teh mcaihnse cnat. Whereas the whole value of DNA in evolution is its constant mostly-nonlethal error margin. Errors are REQUIRED to make the thing work, it is based on the assumption that whatever can go wrong will. Nobody bothers to MAKE such things, they spring up on their own and turn the inside of the refrigerator brown due to LACK of intelligence anywhere nearby.