Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

There is, actually - it's called "DNA."

I alluded to this before, but maybe I wasn't very clear - I don't see how you can make this assertion without assuming the very thing that you're trying to prove - intelligent design is the origin of DNA.As it stands now, it's incorrect to say that "all information/codes to date come from a conscious mind." The accurate statement is that we have two kinds of codes:1) codes that are known to come from intelligent minds, like ours.
2) codes that are not known to come from intelligent minds. DNA would be one such code, because at best (for your position) we do not know the origin of DNA; at worst (for your position) we can confidently assert that the origin of DNA is entirely natural and unintelligent. Sure. But don't you think it deserved to be questioned honestly?

The nucleotides A, U, and G in that order, at the active site of a ribosome, cause it to be energetically advantageous for methianone-aminoacylated tRNA to hydrogen-bond its anti-codon to the codon of the mRNA. That leaves an open carboxyl terminus on the residue for additional residues to form peptide bonds with.The nucleotides sequences UAA, UGA, and UAG make it advantageous for nothing but release factors to bind to the ribosome's P site, releasing the polypeptide and decoupling the ribosomal subunits.

I don't see how those are parts of a code. They're arrangements of molecules that, through physical interactions, make certain chemical reactions more energetically advantageous. DNA doesn't "incorporate stop and start codons"; it incorporates nucleotide arrangments that we call start and stop.It's like saying that sodium and chlorine is the code for the shape of a cube. You could say that, I guess, but it would be only an analogy; and a dubious analogy at best.

Well, sure. My description was of the physical processes that actually happen. I used technical language to save space, but of course it's opaque to anybody who isn't familiar with biochemistry.But if we wanted to talk about it in a way that was easier to understand and communicate, I could use an analogy to things most of us are familiar with and say that one set of three nucleotides is the "code" that begins a polypeptide, and that another set is the "code" that ends a polypeptide. Because most of us are familiar with the idea of codes that do things.But it doesn't seem to me, at all, that codes are actually being used. What's happening is an extremely complicated set of chemical reactions are forming chains of amino acids.

So, we might say that the tree rings themselves are not a code; the code is actually the transformation: "1 tree ring = 1 year of growth for that tree"?Very interesting discussion, and great contributions from Percy, especially.

So, then, is the code the DNA molecule? Or is the code the rules we use to recognize, for instance, "adenine-guanine-cytosene" results in a serine residue at the appropriate primary position in a protein?Or is that not a meaningful difference?