Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

I agree with your points, lfen. Nor do I. The way DNA => protein transcription works is more akin to an algorithm than a "code". Substrate doesn't matter (bacteria or human, the system operates exactly the same), it's a one-way process whose subsystems are set in stone (i.e., the process doesn't require any tinkering or intervention), and the exact same input ALWAYS produces the exact same result. Only when a mistake occurs in the process (akin to transposing two numbers on a spreadsheet or making an error in long division) does something change. I keep hoping we can get away from the misleading "communication" concept (i.e., code) and start actually understanding the system itself.

heh. That would be an algorithm, doncha know. See msg 105.

Not necessarily. Codes, especially when you're talking communications theory, represent information transmission between sender and receiver.Algorithms, on the other hand, are basically processes. It has a beginning and an end, with some kind of operation in the middle. That's all DNA transcription is. It kicks off when chemical stimuli in or outside the cell jump start it, runs through an operation (input X yields output A every time it's run), and ends when the final product is produced. DNA itself isn't a code or anything - at most (stretching an analogy a bit) it's input data that is fed into the operation by cell chemistry to obtain a single output. That's it. All this crap about sender/receiver and DNA "coding" is just that.In my opinion, anyway.

Obviously, I disagree. Let me hasten to add that I don't disagree with the idea that DNA has some "similarities" to "codes" designed by people for communications. However, DNA has NOTHING to do with communication. Communication requires both a sender and receiver. DNA does/is neither. Whereas I will completely agree that extremely useful analogies can be drawn from Shannon communication theory through Schneider's molecular information theory that help describe and understand DNA and its function in human terms, they are all no more than analogies. They serve useful functions, but don't represent the reality of DNA to protein mechanisms. Only euphemistically can we say that DNA provides a "blueprint" for anything. A much better analogy, IMO, is that nucleotide triplets represent data (a single nucleotide would thus be a datum). DNA does absolutely nothing on its own. It requires the myriad transcription and other factors present in the cell to do anything at all. DNA transcription is a process - an algorithm - fundamentally no different than the algorithm that allows us to perform long division. Don't get too wrapped up in the idea that DNA transcription factors (for instance) are produced by DNA. If you remember that the "data" was generated over a period of 3.5-4 gy through evolutionary trial and error from much simpler precursors that DIDN'T require all those factors, then it's much easier to believe. The point is, just like any other algorithm, the substrate doesn't matter (it works the same in every organism that contains it - like long division works whether you use paper and pencil or skywriting - and the process would work whether we're talking nucleotides or some other kind of substance), the process ALWAYS delivers the exact same result from the exact same input, and it has both a beginning and an end. Now you're really stretching the analogy. Since DNA doesn't "transmit" anything, there is simply no legitimate way you can say that it conveys anything - especially down the generations. DNA IS the mechanism of inheritance, but what is actually being inherited is the data and the algorithms to manipulate that data. It's not a radio that talks to the future. Now you're just being insulting. I'm surprised at you, Percy. My argument isn't remotely a reductio argument as you are attempting to portray it. Chemistry is the process that forms the data, provides the framework for the algorithm (process), and represents the output. My argument is a description of reality, not a reductio ad absurdum. It IS an analogy, just like the communications theory analogy you use. I just think it better represents the actual way things function at the cellular level.Another reason for going with the DNA-transcription-as-algorithm analogy is that creationists like your buddy here, or Dembski et al, have taken the communications theory analogy and utterly twisted, distorted, and mutilated it to fit their argument. You can do that with analogies - especially ones that requre some background to understand. OTOH, most people understand long division - an algorithm - and it may be possible to more clearly express what DNA is and does using that approach, rather than getting wrapped around the code-and-communication axle. In the end, it comes down to what analogy works best for what you're trying to do. I think mine is better.

Hehe. Cool! That makes us a minority of two. Welcome to the outer limits of accepted evo behavior.

Not really. "At heart", it comes down to which theoretical framework you're using to understand what's going on in the cell. In other words, which analogy you think is a closer approximation of reality. Under the communications/information theory framework, of COURSE DNA contains "information" - almost by definition. It has to, otherwise the framework makes no sense whatsoever. I have stated that the framework is quite useful in context. I have also indicated that as an approximation of reality it falls short - cells aren't computers or radios or any other form of communications device - natural or artificial. IOW, communications/information theory is a highly abstract way of looking at what happens. Looking at it in light of an algorithm is also an abstraction, but is more closely related to reality than is information theory. Shannon, Schneider, et al's conceptual framework bears the same resemblance to what actually occurs inside a cell as chess does to midieval warfare - highly stylized and highly abstract - even though that's precisely what chess is based on. I'm still a bit surprised that a computer wiz like you can't see the similarities between DNA operation and an algorithm you program into a computer. Admittedly DNA is quarternary vice binary, but the concept of software "do loops" (do they still have those?) is very similar to what happens with DNA transcription.OTOH, your "deconstructing music" analogy falls flat in relation to what I am advocating here. If I were to proclaim that atomic phyisics is all that happens in the cell, then I think you'd have a case. However, unless you're prepared to deny that cellular chemistry is, well, chemistry (which I'm sure you aren't), then describing chemistry in chemical terms would seem to me anyway to be not "deconstructionist". It's simply a different framework for describing what happens. No, I don't think that's the case - at least not entirely. Yes, I would like to provide a different framework than the one they've mangled beyond recognition. However, I truly believe the algorithm framework is a less abstract representation of what is actually occurring than the communication/information framework. Again, I want to stress that communications theory provides a neat, abstract theoretical framework that allows us to easily manipulate and "mathematicize" (I just made that word up - all future users must pay royalties) DNA mechanics (see, for instance, Schneider's Sequence Logos, Machine/Channel Capacity, Maxwell's Demon, and Molecular Machines). It doesn't mean that it is a good representation of reality.In some respects you're right - I want to short stop Dembski and company. However, I think that providing a different framework that is less abstract and closer to reality that many people may be able to grasp more easily - although it'd still require work - is a better way to go than spending endless hours arguing over the definition of "information". Especially if the "new" framework is actually a better description of what is happening in the first place.

Of course there are multiple levels of abstraction - all useful in context. That was the point I've been defending. I just think MY abstraction is better than YOUR abstraction. Nyah, nyah.

That particular sequence is just a really neat place to start because of the way the nucleotides fit together. Or is that too simple?