quote:
Originally posted by Fred Williams:
To believe that a code can arise in a naturalistic medium is certainly a religious belief that requires far greater faith than believing in a code coming from an Intelligent Sender.
Perhaps you can identify one example of a code arising naturalistically in the history of man? The fact that there are no counter observations means that it is a valid law of nature that information cannot arise without a sender, or in a materialistic medium, as Dr Werner Gitt (an information scientist and Director at the German Institute of Technology) has proposed.
Information science is the nail in the coffin for Neo-Darwinism.
[This message has been edited by Fred Williams, 02-26-2002]
Sorry to point this out, but the basic problem with this reasoning,
and I have come across it before, is the belief that DNA
sequences are analagous to a 'code' (lay use of genetic code
aside).
We perceive it as a code, because our brains function in a kind
of pattern recognition mode. We even see patterns in things (clouds,
flames, wood-chip wallpaper etc.) where no pattern genuinely
exists. It's in our nature to super-impose patterns over the
things which we observe. It's then up to our reasoning ability
to decide whether the pattern is genuine or an artefact of our
preceptions.
So far as DNA goes::
Only DNA sequences that favour life will cause life.
Once the first of those got going (however that was) they replicated.
Once replicating, they dominated the world.
Once having dominion, they caused this debate
There is nothing far fetched about that. There is mounting
evidence that the first life 'could' (and I stress could) have
arisen through natural processes on the young(ish) earth.
Some are even suggesting that the components of life originally
formed in deep space (which would go some way to explaining why
we get all those left-handed amino-acids) and came to earth
in comet-like blocks of ice during the formation of the solar
system.
Saying that 'No codes arise without a sender' is the same as
saying 'Nothing complex was NOT designed.' It pre-supposes that
life WAS designed, otherwise life is the example of code/complexity
without a sender/designer.