Present a BETTER explanation for our existence than God

[DepricatedZero]

our uniform experience is that it takes an intelligent agent to generate information, codes, messages. As a result, it is reasonable to infer there was an intelligent cause of the original DNA code. DNA and written language both exhibit the property of specified complexity. Since we know an intelligent cause produces written language, it is legitimate to posit an intelligent cause as the source of DNA.

Perhaps your experience, however there are plenty of examples of peopleseeing code where there is none. It is well documented, known as patternicity. It's the same phenomenon that causes people to see Jesus in smoke or dogs assholes. DNA is not code, nor does it contain code, as you mean it. The word code is given to the components of DNA because it is a solid comparison - however DNA itself is not code. Genes are closer to the point, as they hold the pattern of the entity, but DNA is simply what that pattern spreads outward from, in short. There are no if...then or do...while loops, no variables, not even statements. DNA is compared to code for the way it stores information, not for the way it functions, nor for the state that it stores information in.

Yes, DNA is complex, life is complex, and even if the odds of that happening randomly are astronomically low, there are billions of galaxies and even more stars and planets for the conditions to culminate in that require that perfect storm. Beyond that, we can see a vast diversity of life in all the extreme environments of Earth, so clearly the comfort zone of humans is irrelevant to the sustainability of life.

It is nothing short of pride, in the vainglorious sense that Christianity damns as one of the seven deadly sins, to assume that Earth is the only planet supporting life in the whole of existence.

As for the comment coming up about the universe coming from nothing. The energy of our universe is zero, which allows for it to have come from nothing - because nature abhors a void, and fills it. Actually a very very good lecture on that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

That seems secondary to the discussion though.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

DNA is not a code, by the way. That's called a metaphor. I can also call it a recipe and it would be just as valid.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dnanotcode.htm

Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

And I'm going to have to take this from this silly website pushing an anti-scientific creationist agenda, eh? No dice, buddy. The site even defines code as "a system of symbols used by an encoding and decoding mechanism, which transmits a message that is independent of the communication medium", which isn't only a very broad and quite poor definition this guy totally pulled out of his ass, it still doesn't apply to DNA by the simple virue that there are no symbols.

its funny that even Dawkins disagrees with you :
Richard Dawkins at his book The Blind Watchmaker:
"Every single one of more than a trillion cells in the body contains about a thousand times as much precisely-coded digital information as my entire computer.

And what would a good creationist post be without misrepresentation?
Later in the same book, Dawkins writes about "DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions". Of course it doesn't literally spell out instructions. It's figurative. We phrase it that way to make it easy to understand.
Again he says "the code symbols of DNA". DNA of course does not contain symbols. We just call them that so it's easy for us to understand.

You're pulling a classic equivocation fallacy and you run away with it.

" just after it formed " indicates what to you ?

"Just after the universe as we know it formed" indicates to me that your sources are lying douchebags, which is proven through clarification straight from the horse's mouth. But whatever would you do if you couldn't throw us a red herring, eh? Heavens forbid you might actually admit you were wrong!

So tell me, do you want to be part of the club of lying douchebags? Because you sure seem to be copypasting a lot from them.

So what do we know about you?
- You can't argue for yourself, you have to copypaste.
- You can't admit you're wrong, even when shown directly.
- You don't know basic logic.
- You don't know basic biology.

Have I missed something towards the conclusion that you are are utterly inept and unaware and are thus unfit to enter a discussion on things that go above the level of Transformers?

Did I also mention you still have a rebuttal to give on the infinity of time? Remember what I said?

You start counting at now, back into infinity.

Are you going to answer this, or are you going to admit you are wrong? I will keep repeating it until you either answer it or never show your mug here again, you know.

As for the comment coming up about the universe coming from nothing.

Oh you don't even need to argue that. He hasn't even proven the universe had a beginning at all. Plus he believes that something came from nothing.

 

[borrofburi]

Nevertheless, whether you would like to believe that DNA is a code or not, there is a known mechanism of which it could have come about by natural laws, this contradicts information theory.

Errr... it contradicts information theory in the same way that a duck giving birth to an elephant "confirms" "evolution". That is, it contradicts his bullshit bastardization of information theory, not the actual science of information theory.

 

[borrofburi]

(2) is what you believe falsifiable ("the confirmed body of jesus christ" is NOT falsifiable, there is NO possible way for this to happen (the body will have decayed by now) especially not to your satisfaction (it's not like the actual hair of jesus was preserved so we could do a DNA check))?

if something can be falsified, no belief is needed anymore. it substitutes empirical knowledge.

Please explain.

DNA is not a code, by the way. That's called a metaphor. I can also call it a recipe and it would be just as valid.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dnanotcode.htm

Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

its funny that even Dawkins disagrees with you :

Richard Dawkins at his book The Blind Watchmaker:

"Every single one of more than a trillion cells in the body contains about a thousand times as much precisely-coded digital information as my entire computer.

This only shows that dawkins uses the metaphor of "code" for DNA... Do you know what a metaphor is?

 

[Japhia888]

DNA is not code, nor does it contain code, as you mean it. The word code is given to the components of DNA because it is a solid comparison - however DNA itself is not code.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dnanotcode.htm

Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/origin-of-life-how-did-life-arise-on-earth-f2/the-genetic-code-t288.htm

DNA contains a genetic language

Let's first consider some of the characteristics of this genetic 'language.' For it to be rightly called a language, it must contain the following elements: an alphabet or coding system, correct spelling, grammar (a proper arrangement of the words), meaning (semantics) and an intended purpose.

Scientists have found the genetic code has all of these key elements. "The coding regions of DNA," explains Dr. Stephen Meyer, "have exactly the same relevant properties as a computer code or language" (quoted by Strobel, p. 237, emphasis in original).

The only other codes found to be true languages are all of human origin. Although we do find that dogs bark when they perceive danger, bees dance to point other bees to a source and whales emit sounds, to name a few examples of other species" communication, none of these have the composition of a language. They are only considered low-level communication signals.

The only types of communication considered high-level are human languages, artificial languages such as computer and Morse codes and the genetic code. No other communication system has been found to contain the basic characteristics of a language.

As for the comment coming up about the universe coming from nothing. The energy of our universe is zero, which allows for it to have come from nothing - because nature abhors a void, and fills it. Actually a very very good lecture on that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

That seems secondary to the discussion though.

[/quote]

this is the utmost bollock from a renown scientist. from absolutely nothing, nothing derives, since absolutely nothing is the absence of any thing.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astronomy-cosmology-and-god-f15/quantum-fluctuations-t65.htm

"As Barrow and Tipler comment, "It is, of course, somewhat inappropriate to call the origin of a bubble Universe in a fluctuation of the vacuum 'creation ex nihilo,' for the quantum mechanical vacuum state has a rich structure which resides in a previously existing substratum of space-time, either Minkowski or de Sitter space-time. Clearly, a true 'creation ex nihilo' would be the spontaneous generation of everything--space-time, the quantum mechanical vacuum, matter--at some time in the past."([1986], p. 441)."

 

[Japhia888]

This only shows that dawkins uses the metaphor of "code" for DNA... Do you know what a metaphor is?

i don't read anything of a metaphor in the phrase.....

 

[Anachronous Rex]

DNA contains a genetic language

Let's first consider some of the characteristics of this genetic 'language.' For it to be rightly called a language, it must contain the following elements: an alphabet or coding system, correct spelling, grammar (a proper arrangement of the words), meaning (semantics) and an intended purpose.

Scientists have found the genetic code has all of these key elements. "The coding regions of DNA," explains Dr. Stephen Meyer, "have exactly the same relevant properties as a computer code or language" (quoted by Strobel, p. 237, emphasis in original).

The only other codes found to be true languages are all of human origin. Although we do find that dogs bark when they perceive danger, bees dance to point other bees to a source and whales emit sounds, to name a few examples of other species" communication, none of these have the composition of a language. They are only considered low-level communication signals.

The only types of communication considered high-level are human languages, artificial languages such as computer and Morse codes and the genetic code. No other communication system has been found to contain the basic characteristics of a language.

If it is a language, then it is a language in which most of the words mean nothing, confer no meaning, have lost all meaning, or are misspelled and mispunctuated. You look at a dictionary filled with this nonsense and you say, "yes, clearly, that was intelligently designed. And not just that, but by the greatest intelligence conceivable or otherwise."

I'd ask for what you are smoking, but I have a feeling it's paint chips.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

If it is a language, then it is a language in which most of the words mean nothing, confer no meaning, have lost all meaning, or are misspelled and mispunctuated. You look at a dictionary filled with this nonsense and you say, "yes, clearly, that was intelligently designed. And not just that, but by the greatest intelligence conceivable or otherwise."
I'd ask for what you are smoking, but I have a feeling it's paint chips.

Let's not forget that a language has words. And sounds. Or at least symbols. Or anything like that.
When genetic information is copied by the ribosomes, they just respond to four different kinds of molecules. There's no language. In any way. It's simple bio-chemistry.

 

[Squawk]

Would I be mistaken in my assumption that you believe macro evolution to be a more "dramatic" form of microevolution, rather than accumulated microevolution over many generations? It would seem, from your answer to my previous question, that you do believe this to be the case.

My reasoning is simple. You accept that diversity can arise through mutation, but you don't accept that speciation can happen.

So let me ask you a question. if two identical populations (all of the same species) are separated and accumulate sufficient genetic variations, over several thousand generations, to be no longer reproductively compatible, would you consider this to be macro evolution, or simply micro?

If this would be macro, then can you please explain to me any barrior that would prevent such genetic variation arising.
If this wouldn't be macro then we know your definition of macro doesn't agree with science and you are fighting a straw man.


Let me then ask you a further question. Given that new species have been observed to arise through hybridisation and subsequent mutation (polyploidy in a plant whose name I forget), could you tell me how you arrive at the notion that speciation cannot occur in a single step? granted it happens rarely and is the exception for speciation rather than the norm, but it seems to be a bit arbitary when it is so clearly wrong.

 

[borrofburi]

This only shows that dawkins uses the metaphor of "code" for DNA... Do you know what a metaphor is?

i don't read anything of a metaphor in the phrase.....

Is English your first language? Do you know the difference between metaphor and simile?

 

[godisabullet]

1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.
2) All codes are created by a conscious mind; there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information.
3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind.

Now, I'm not a scientist and I have a very limited understanding of genetics and microbiology so anyone can feel free to correct me if this comment contains scientific errors. I do understand logic though - or at least to a point that I'm comfortable applying it. But once again, anyone should feel free to pull me up if I make any logical errors.

Also, I don't want confuse the discussion by making errors so please feel free to point out any that I may have made.

The way I look at the above is:

1. As far as nature is concerned (to clarify though, nature has no conscious concerns), yes, DNA IS "merely" a molecule with a pattern. However, humans love patterns. When we see patterns in nature we know that they can be useful in helping us understand the way nature works. For our own convenience and for simplicity we interpret the DNA pattern as a "code". So as far as humans are concerned, DNA as "code" IS a metaphor.

2. "Code" as humans see them in nature, are "created" by many animals to communicate but they don't do it consciously. The ability to use "code" - language - helps the survival of a species. So I guess my question is, do animals possess intelligent or conscious minds?

3. Therefore, "code" occurs in nature without there having to be a designer of the "code".

:|

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

1. As far as nature is concerned (to clarify though, nature has no conscious concerns), yes, DNA IS "merely" a molecule with a pattern. However, humans love patterns. When we see patterns in nature we know that they can be useful in helping us understand the way nature works. For our own convenience and for simplicity we interpret the DNA pattern as a "code". So as far as humans are concerned, DNA as "code" IS a metaphor.

Exactly.
You've got C5H5N5, C5H5N5O and two others which aren't so easy to remember... Anyway, they're adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. What a ribosome responds to is just a set of four of these molecules next to each other... the result of this chemical response is the protein that is needed. No codes whatsoever.

In fact, after a protein leaves the rough endoplasmatic reticulum it goes down to the Golgi apparatus, in which the protein is "finished up" before being sent off. Where did the code go? The answer is quite simple: There never was a code. It's simply a set of four possible molecules which we can call "code" (or we can call it "blueprint" or "recipe") in order to make it easier on ourselves in day-to-day speech.

Isn't it amazing what you can find in chapter 1 biological textbooks?

 

[Story]

The logic is somewhat circular too, because if we define a code as something designed and insist that DNA is designed because we insist it is a code, which we insist are designed, we have gone round in a circle.

Consider this:

Is language a code? If so, was it designed? Did each culture sit down and construct their languages.

Neanderthal 1: "And in the future they can make words like 'television', 'car' and 'movies'"
Neanderthal 2: *face palms* "You're not supposed to use those words yet!"

Or perhaps it was something that developed overtime without any individual plans to do so.


Secondly, are bee dances a code? was that designed too?

Bee 1: "Do you think we should move about in a figure 8, or just a zero?"
Bee 2: "Hmmm... I like the 8, because it's also a representation of infinity."

Or perhaps that developed unplanned over time too?

Interiors are designed, caves are interiors, caves are designed.
Columns are designed, stalactites and stalagmites form columns, therefore stalactites and stalagmites are designed.
Also, atoms communicate, communication uses codes, therefore atomic communication is designed.


Lastly, DNA is not a code, it's just a macro-molecule; a pattern of atoms. It occurs in nature without having any purpose at all and neither coding anything. The majority of human DNA is junk, that appears to do nothing at all.

 

[Japhia888]

Is English your first language? Do you know the difference between metaphor and simile?

thanks for asking me after 22 pages, if english is my first language.
My base of the english language is a 3 month holiday course, i made in Rio, in 89........ :lol:

 

[Japhia888]

If it is a language, then it is a language in which most of the words mean nothing, confer no meaning, have lost all meaning, or are misspelled and mispunctuated. You look at a dictionary filled with this nonsense and you say, "yes, clearly, that was intelligently designed. And not just that, but by the greatest intelligence conceivable or otherwise."
I'd ask for what you are smoking, but I have a feeling it's paint chips.

Let's not forget that a language has words. And sounds. Or at least symbols. Or anything like that.
When genetic information is copied by the ribosomes, they just respond to four different kinds of molecules. There's no language. In any way. It's simple bio-chemistry.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/origin-of-life-how-did-life-arise-on-earth-f2/the-genetic-code-t288.htm

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, commented that "DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we've ever devised."

Can you imagine something more intricate than the most complex program running on a supercomputer being devised by accident through evolution,no matter how much time, how many mutations and how much natural selection are taken into account?

 

[DepricatedZero]

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, commented that "DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we've ever devised."

Since when is Bill Gates a biologist? He's just a pirate, not even a good programmer.

 

[borrofburi]

Is English your first language? Do you know the difference between metaphor and simile?

thanks for asking me after 22 pages, if english is my first language.
My base of the english language is a 3 month holiday course, i made in Rio, in 89........ :lol:

I've been wondering for a while, but it seemed rude to ask; but the blatant misunderstanding of various definitions and the failure to understand the fact that words have multiple meanings has added up, and the failure to understand the word metaphor kind of ended it all...

I think that having further conversation with you is not worthwhile (for either of us) because of the communication gap.

 

[Story]

Can you imagine something more intricate than the most complex program running on a supercomputer being devised by accident through evolution,no matter how much time, how many mutations and how much natural selection are taken into account?

Uh...

The NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory image of SNR 0540-69.3 clearly shows an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space at speeds in excess of 5 million mph.

Can you imagine something more powerful that the most powerful bomb ever made being devised by accident by the laws of physics--no matter how much time, how many atoms and how much mass is taken into account?

Why do you think our minds are so much greater than the natural laws that formed us?

 

[Japhia888]

Can you imagine something more intricate than the most complex program running on a supercomputer being devised by accident through evolution,no matter how much time, how many mutations and how much natural selection are taken into account?

Uh...

The NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory image of SNR 0540-69.3 clearly shows an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space at speeds in excess of 5 million mph.

Can you imagine something more powerful that the most powerful bomb ever made being devised by accident by the laws of physics--no matter how much time, how many atoms and how much mass is taken into account?

Why do you think our minds are so much greater than the natural laws that formed us?

how do you know natural laws formed us ???

 

[godisabullet]

Exactly.
You've got C5H5N5, C5H5N5O and two others which aren't so easy to remember... Anyway, they're adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. What a ribosome responds to is just a set of four of these molecules next to each other... the result of this chemical response is the protein that is needed. No codes whatsoever.

In fact, after a protein leaves the rough endoplasmatic reticulum it goes down to the Golgi apparatus, in which the protein is "finished up" before being sent off. Where did the code go? The answer is quite simple: There never was a code. It's simply a set of four possible molecules which we can call "code" (or we can call it "blueprint" or "recipe") in order to make it easier on ourselves in day-to-day speech.

Isn't it amazing what you can find in chapter 1 biological textbooks?

Excellent. I'm glad I'm on the right track. I wish I had time to get into the science of it all properly - I do have a BA so I know how to apply myself to sustained study - but at the moment I'm busy. Browsing this forum and picking up little bits here and there (thanks TheFlyingBastard) will do for the moment. It's fun and interesting to me but at the same time I am fully aware of the gaps in my knowledge.