The Genetic Code

[SelfSim]

We know that intelligence is the only known cause capable of producing the genetic code.

Intelligence is required to understand what 'code' means also. So what? You haven't discounted human intelligence's role in seeing it as a 'code' and making use of that concept.

You have to make inferences and come to the most reasonable conclusion. Design is the best inference.

At least you're recognising there that its a human doing inferencing and reaching 'reasoned' conclusions!
Now the design bit .. oh yeah .. there's still that pesky human drawing that particular inference too ...

If you wish to place your faith in maybes and one days, that's fine. Just call it what it is...faith.

Yep .. and its pretty easy to demonstrate that human 'faith' is behind those who conclude with a 'design' inference too.

How do you plan on eliminating that?

 

[SkyWriting]

We know that intelligence is the only known cause capable of producing the genetic code.

There are some geneticist's that hold to that conclusion, yes. But the rest hold to other ideas on the formation. They conclude that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a natural result of chemical interactions.

 

[sfs]

The genetic code is a literal digital and arbitrary code.

No, the genetic code is a metaphorical and probably not arbitrary code, and it's only loosely digital. Literal codes convey meaning via abstraction. The genetic code isn't like that: it's just chemistry. One could just as well say that the rocks in a stream are a literal and arbitrary code that carry the information about where water will go.

The only observed cause capable of producing this is intelligence.

I'm not even sure this rises to the level of a bad argument.

Anyone arguing against design being the best conclusion and reasonable inference is doing it merely for philosophical reasons.

This is merely false, given the many people who argue against this design argument even though their philosophy is quite compatible with a creator who intelligently designed life. If your arguments lead you to make patently false statements, you should reconsider their validity.

 

[Chesterton]

This is merely false, given the many people who argue against this design argument even though their philosophy is quite compatible with a creator who intelligently designed life. If your arguments lead you to make patently false statements, you should reconsider their validity.

He mentioned "arguing against design" and you mentioned "arguing against this design argument". Is there another, better one?

 

[SelfSim]

He mentioned "arguing against design" and you mentioned "arguing against this design argument". Is there another, better one?

Sure .. I would think its (some of) our more objectively thinking minds seeing what we might loosely interpret as being apparent 'design', which we realise as being feasibly accomplished by way of our objectively distilled, physical interacting laws, acting over eons of time, in a natural environment(?)

 

[sfs]

He mentioned "arguing against design" and you mentioned "arguing against this design argument".

I was trying to reply within this particular context.

Is there another, better one?

I'd say the argument from fine-tuning is better, even if I don't find it persuasive.

 

[ottawak]

I was trying to reply within this particular context.

I'd say the argument from fine-tuning is better, even if I don't find it persuasive.

The difference is that the fine tuning argument is unfalsifiable, as befits any good theological proposition. So is the only cogent form of the Design argument, but attempts to make it a falsifiable--i.e., scientific--proposition (as above) weaken it irreparibly.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Genetics, DNA and the 'genetic code' have no connection with atheism or atheists. Genes and DNA are the product of scientific investigation and discovery. Francis Collins, a practising Christian was heavily involved in the identification of individual genes.

You have a lot to learn.
OB

Genes and DNA are not the product of scientific investigaton and discovery. They were made by an intelligent creator and scientists came along millenia later, using intelligence which was given to them, and worked out what was already there.

 

[Yttrium]

The only observed cause capable of producing this is intelligence. We only know of intelligence producing what our very bodies contain.

I'm not going to argue to the contrary. But I feel the need to point out that your argument here suffers from a logical fallacy. It's an argument from incredulity.
Argument from incredulity - Wikipedia

In other words, you can't figure out how it could have happened naturally, so you conclude that it couldn't have happened naturally. But just because you can't figure it out doesn't mean that somebody else couldn't figure it out sooner or later. Being able or unable to observe something is hardly an indication of what might or might not be possible. We couldn't observe the genetic code or even cells until relatively recently, but there they exist.

Personally, I leave open the possibility that the genetic code could have been due to an intelligent design, and I also leave open the possibility that it could have happened naturally. I need more evidence to draw a conclusion.

 

[SelfSim]

The only observed cause capable of producing this is intelligence. We only know of intelligence producing what our very bodies contain.

.. and its demonstrably, those very bodies defining what 'intelligence' is, (ie: what that word actually means to those very bodies).

 

[Occams Barber]

Genes and DNA are not the product of scientific investigaton and discovery. They were made by an intelligent creator and scientists came along millenia later, using intelligence which was given to them, and worked out what was already there.

I'm not suggesting that scientists invented DNA and genes. I accept that they were a scientific discovery and not an invention.

In a sense we agree. There's little to differentiate between a facility created by natural forces and one created by God apart from the need for a little more evidence to back up the second option.

OB

 

[Astrid]

The genetic code is a literal digital and arbitrary code.

The only observed cause capable of producing this is intelligence. We only know of intelligence producing what our very bodies contain.

Anyone arguing against design being the best conclusion and reasonable inference is doing it merely for philosophical reasons.

Atheist place faith in maybes and one days, we don't.

Who when where was the intelligence producing DNA
observed?

Talking about " faith" for atheism amounts to calling
it a religion.

You sure you want to do that?

 

[ottawak]

Who when where was the intelligence producing DNA
observed?

Talking about " faith" for atheism amounts to calling
it a religion.

You sure you want to do that?

Of course. Atheism is the religion of knowing in your heart that God exists but denying it because you fear God's judgement for your wicked lifestyle. The God being denied is, of course, the only true God, the God of right-wing Protestnt Fundamentalism.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

The only observed cause capable of producing this is intelligence. We only know of intelligence producing what our very bodies contain.

Um, did nobody ever have the birds and bees conversation with you?

 

[Kylie]

The genetic code is a literal digital and arbitrary code.

The only observed cause capable of producing this is intelligence. We only know of intelligence producing what our very bodies contain.

Anyone arguing against design being the best conclusion and reasonable inference is doing it merely for philosophical reasons.

Atheist place faith in maybes and one days, we don't.

I take a large wooden box and fill it with dirt and rocks from my back yard. The rocks range in size from large to small. So, there are objects of all sizes in this box, from small particles of dirt ranging up to rocks the size of basketballs, and everything in between.

The box is shaken in a completely random way for 30 minutes.

Then I open the box.

I find that the contents of the box are now sorted by size. The largest objects are at the top, and the smallest objects are at the bottom, with the rest arranged in order in between.

Since the process I used was random, I must conclude that the contents should have been distributed randomly. Since they were not - since they were very neatly ordered - I must conclude that there is some intelligence that acted on the contents of the box. After all, order can not come from randomness. Such precise sorting can only come from intelligent action.

Thus, I conclude there are box gremlins who exist solely to sort dirt and rocks inside boxes when they are shaken.

And before you dismiss this as the ramblings of a mad woman, the same thing I described here is why you always get crumbs at the bottom of chip packets and cereal boxes, and the little unpopped bits of popcorn at the bottom of the tub when you go to the movies.

Maybe if you give it a bit of thought you'll understand how we can get results that seem like they need intelligence from processes that are completely random.

 

[Astrid]

I take a large wooden box and fill it with dirt and rocks from my back yard. The rocks range in size from large to small. So, there are objects of all sizes in this box, from small particles of dirt ranging up to rocks the size of basketballs, and everything in between.

The box is shaken in a completely random way for 30 minutes.

Then I open the box.

I find that the contents of the box are now sorted by size. The largest objects are at the top, and the smallest objects are at the bottom, with the rest arranged in order in between.

Since the process I used was random, I must conclude that the contents should have been distributed randomly. Since they were not - since they were very neatly ordered - I must conclude that there is some intelligence that acted on the contents of the box. After all, order can not come from randomness. Such precise sorting can only come from intelligent action.

Thus, I conclude there are box gremlins who exist solely to sort dirt and rocks inside boxes when they are shaken.

And before you dismiss this as the ramblings of a mad woman, the same thing I described here is why you always get crumbs at the bottom of chip packets and cereal boxes, and the little unpopped bits of popcorn at the bottom of the tub when you go to the movies.

Maybe if you give it a bit of thought you'll understand how we can get results that seem like they need intelligence from processes that are completely random.

There are those who realizr that if
order ever spontaneously arose from
chaos, it would disprove (their) god.

So they deny ever example you can offer.

 

[ottawak]

There are those who realizr that if
order ever spontaneously arose from
chaos, it would disprove (their) god.

So they deny ever example you can offer.

No, it would just undermine their interpretation of the Bible.

 

[Astrid]

No, it would just undermine their interpretation of the Bible.

Same thing.

 

[Astrid]

Same thing.

Im not being " funny". It is the same thing.

 

[Mountainmike]

Thus, I conclude there are box gremlins who exist solely to sort dirt and rocks inside boxes when they are shaken.

Is that what passes as logic in your world? As bad examples go, it is a very bad example.

How about mine. The simplest cell we know is a self repplicating, self repairing, self evolving programmable chemical factory that produces thousands of proteins under instruction of genetic codes. It is horrendously complex. The function of much of the genetic code is still unknown, how some parts of organsims function is still completely unkonw.

There is no of evidence of the existence of immediate simpler antecedents to that simplest cell, or any structure proposed for them. With all their intelligence chemical plant designers do not expect far simpler chemical plants to work first time. Indeed with all our wit there is no such chemical plant on earth that is similar complexity, if there was it would take decades to build...before being able to refine the next experiment.. In many ways the science of "proto cells" has barely advanced since I first saw it as a schoolkid in new scientist 50 years ago. Same old arguments. Same lack of evidence. Despite a fortune pumped by NASA harvard, and various benefactors all there is is conjecture.

There is also the problem. Irreducible complexity. A hydrogen atom is not self repairing, self evolving or self replication. Because it isnt complex enough. At very least the minimum needs the structures for replcation , it needs a genetic code to evolve, and the processes to interpret the code. Remove parts of that structure and it the irreducible cell is dead in the water. Obviously. Because It neither replicates or evolves. Without which there is no life. How did that happen? With no designer?

As for random chance origin of it all - there is no heap of debris of nearly working (but actually failing) chemical factory cells, or a long line of simpler almost cells for for there to be a random chance that one of them works by pure accident. Since there is no guiding hand in your world there must be a near infinite number of failures for just one to be lucky enough to work. And that process should be continuing. But There is nothing. No designer to build it or turn it on. Just a few plausibility arguments for how some bits of it might possibly happen. ( with a following wind and lots of optimism, and even if those bits are shown that they might have happened, there is still no evidence they actually did happen or happen that way!)

So the reality is you know nothing. All you have is conjecture and the ability to marvel at the hideous complexity of nature, with no idea where any of it came from.

Certainly not by shaking rocks in a box, with or without your magical gremlins (whose existence i am inclined to doubt).

Your guesses on origin of life are just as much a faith, as anyone else. The entire field of abiogenesis is assumptions repeated so often they have gained the status of fact with not a shred of evidence any of it ever happened. It just has to have happened right? Or the atheist thing falls apart without it!