Data, Information, and all that....

Hello DNAunion,As someone is fairly up with molecular biology, but not overly versed in the 'information' argument of ID, can I make an observation?You are using the fact that some DNA in cells today holds a template for proteins and that proteins are required for processes of replication, transcription and translation as evidence that somehow some kind of higher intelligence put meaning into the DNA sequence. Is that the case?If so then you are ignoring (or just plain dismissing) the common view that protolife existed without proteins and there was some sort of DNA/RNA (or possibly just RNA) world of happily self-replicating molecules. In this kind of scenario you wouldn't need to have information - the RNA would be as close to random as you can get. Once you got a piece of RNA that did something useful like help replication or bind an amino acid then you would get selection occurring - but a designer would not be absolutely required would he/she/it?It does seem interesting that a lot of the elements of translation (ie the step required before entering the 'protein-world') are RNA based like the ribosome and tRNA, don't you think?

DNAunion,OK, I'm a bit confused. Forgive me if I am being a bit dense here. I may have made a few assumptions on what I thought you were saying because (as I said) I am new to the concept of 'information' as a concept in evolution. So can you explain it to me?I could say:"Genes contain information required to make the proteins in the cell..."My next question would be:"...and your point is?"What is the next step in your argument once this simple statement is accepted? Please take me there in simple steps as I get easily bogged down if mathematics is going to be involved ThanksOoook!

OK, maybe I'm not making myself too clear. I'll try again if that's alright?Once you get the general statement of "DNA contains the information required to produce proteins in cells today" how is this milestone relavent to the discussion of evolution and specifically the area of intelligent design?Why do Peter and Crashfrog want to disagree so strongly with you if you just leave the statement there? Surely such a simple statement that can then be interpreted in quite a few ways has no bearing on the debate (on either side).It has to be then qualified: By saying "...and therefore protein sythesis could not have evolved by chance" for example.

OK,Since you made this statement: Assume then that I have agreed that there is some kind of information contained in the sequence of DNA. Where do you want to take the argument from there? If I could establish why you would want to establish DNA as information then maybe my questions can be a bit less irritatingly repeatative (as I sure they are at the moment) because I can't see the need to accept that fact as essential for the argument at all.

DNAU,Forgive me if you think I am pestering you, I am only trying to establish your point of view. I am not accusing of having some dark ulterior motive, simply saying that "DNA contains information" doesn't seem to have that much meat on it as an argument.If that is the first rung on your argument, the thing that must be accepted before anything else, I wanted to know what the second rung was. If you just want to have the statement accepted and left there, then my next question was: what's the point of that? I just don't see what the point of it is. As I have already said, I am rather ignorant of why 'information' is so important.If you are participating in other threads that are better suited to debating your position on evolution etc then I apologise - can you please point me to them?The reasons I assumed you wanted to discuss things like this on this thread are1) the title of this section - Intelligent Design - naturally made me think that you were discussing things based on the existance (or lack) of an Intelligent Designer.2) You making statements like this:

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Hitting upon a certain core protein once by random incorporation of amino acids might be a fluke. Twice, you might as well rely upon winning the state lottery ten times in a row. 50 trillion times is just blantantly ridiculous - it's simply not going to happen by chance alone. Then, multiply that by another 6 billion successes and we can clearly see that there MUST be some kind of information being fed to ribosomes that is responsible for repeatedly producing a specific protein.

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So that LOGIC is straightforward, and has NOTHING to do with any Creationist type "poofing" into existence of a human or cell, nor any IDist notion of inteligence planting the information. It's stating the simple logical fact that there MUST be information stored in DNA to construct a certain low probability protein billions of trillions of times, consistently and accurately; nothing about supernatural beings or intelligent designers.

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It is things like this that suggest that you do want to discuss what accepting DNA as data means. I honestly wanted to know what your opinion was as it doesn't look like you are coming from a typical creo/evo standpoint, and I'm just interested.If you do want to just leave it at that then that's fine, I'll let this thread die.If that is the case, see you around.

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Remember, my point in these threads was never about HOW the information got into DNA, just that it IS there.

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I think the how question is the one that most people would like to see your position on, and if you could clarify it, maybe it would stop the jumping to conclusions that so riles youPlease realise I'm not trying to badger you into an answer - you can refuse if you like - I'm genuinely interested in what you think and it might provide a fresh perspective on your arguments

Enough of the patronising responses. I've been perfectly civil with you, please try and show me the same consideration.I'll try and make it clearer for you:

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Uhm, dude, I already made a very clear statement about my position on HOW the information that IS in DNA today got there: common descent by undirected evolution. Can you read?

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That it is not what I asked you.I accept that you have made this perfectly clear, and agree that you have stated it a number of times, but you always miss out a bit. What I asked you is where you think the information that was in the common ancestor(s) came from. The random product of a DNA/RNA world? UFO's? What?

You know the question now so why not answer it ? I know I it put it very clearly last time, so quit stalling. I'll ask it again if you wantWhere do you think the information that was in the common ancestor cell(s) came from?That is the question you have not answered - notice the past tense. If you want to answer it this time, then great! If not then get back under your bridge and wait for a bigger billy goat.

Ooooh! - So close, but still not there! I believe we can make it
there with just a little more effort.You said this: And at the big reveal gave me this: I wasn't at all surprised with this response, just disappointed.You keep on urging to use their eyes and read what you say, I
emplore you now to use your brain. Stop the pointless nitpicking
and try and see what everybody is getting at. Use a bit of that
logic that you claim others lack, and your knowledge of molecular
biology to get the gist of my argument.You do have that knowledge don't you? You didn't just sit there
with a pile of biochemistry books and look in the indexes for
'information'?To make it easier for you I'll draw you a little picture. How's
that?DNA/RNA ---------------------------------> DNA/RNA/ProteinSomewhere along the dotted line, your much touted 'information' got into the DNA in order for it to encode for proteins. How do think that happened?