DNA Information Evolution and ID

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SailingCyclops
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DNA Information Evolution and ID

Post #1

Post by SailingCyclops »

In a Random Ramblings discussion dadman asserted:
dadman wrote: .. since all code derives from an intelligent source . . .
[...]
I do believe the subject is not so much evolution . . . but intelligence . . .
do you know anything about this "evolution coder/de-coder" ??
ref:This post

The assertion is made that since DNA is a code, there must be a coder. Presumably, some intelligent entity.

Questions for debate:

Is the coding, and information transfer we observe in DNA a product of evolution by natural selection? Or does DNA information and it's transfer demand an intelligence?

Does all code derive from an intelligent source?

Bob

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Re: DNA Information Evolution and ID

Post #2

Post by Question Everything »

SailingCyclops wrote: Is the coding, and information transfer we observe in DNA a product of evolution by natural selection? Or does DNA information and it's transfer demand an intelligence?
We can tell from looking at it that it is the product of evolution by natural selection.
SailingCyclops wrote: Does all code derive from an intelligent source?
There is no way that this can be true, because then the "intelligent source" would have a code of some kind (or else it would not be intelligent), which would require another "intelligent source" to do the coding, and then this "intelligent source" would have a code of some kind, which would require another "intelligent source" to do the coding, and on and on it would go without end.
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Post #3

Post by Furrowed Brow »

I think we need to get clear about the what the code is for.
John Maynard Smith 1966What is transmitted from one generation to another is not the form and substance of a pterodactyl or a mammoth , but primarily the capacity to synthesize particular proteins. The development of specific form is a consequence of this capacity and the capacity itself depends on the self-replicating properties of DNA.

...it is thought that primary function of genes is to specify proteins.
dadman wrote:do you know anything about this "evolution coder/de-coder" ??
The cell is its own decoder. This is what I gleaned from JMS. The mechanism for decoding consists of three elements. There is a messenger RNA molecule is introduced to an amino acid in two stages. A transfer RNA molecule attaches to the amino acid and then attaches to the messenger RNA molecule. However there is also a need for an activating enzyme which ensures only one kind of amino acid attaches to the transfer molecule
dadman wrote:since all code derives from an intelligent source
How intelligent is intelligent? Do you mean an intelligences that selects one possibility in favour of another? Natural selection explains selection without intelligence.

Bees manage to perform a dance that is an instruction to other bees that informs them where to go find the nectar. Who worked out that code? The bees or some other intelligent source or something else again?

Poison dart frogs are brightly coloured signalling potential predators that the frog is poisonous to eat. Who worked that code out? The frog? Try explaining this code without recourse to natural selection.

Bacteria display rudimentary intelligence. Myxococcus Xanthus passing signals between themselves can club together as single predatory colony moving as one and operating collectively. From which intelligent source is the meaning of their signals derived?

In the last case which is the simplest organism it is possible to deduce that the signals the bacteria pass between themselves is not derived from bacteria intelligence. That would be a category mistake. Their behaviour and the signals that allow them to operate as one is their intelligence. Put simply there is no intelligent mind operating quietly in the background marshalling bacteria behaviour. The grouping behaviour and the method of singalling that behaviour emerges between bacteria with no help from outside intelligence. It is all down to the bacteria and their biology. Clever little critters.

What preserves the Myxococcus Xanthuscolonies or the bright yellow pigment of the dart frog or the bee dance is molecular biology and environment and natural selection. The repeatability of certain behaviours or skin colourings etc comes down to non intelligent physical conditions that allows some complex behaviours and interrupts others. The point is we do not have to look outside the molecular biology of the bees, frog and bacteria and their environments to explain the coder/decoder mechanisms. Similarly we do not have to look beyond molecular biology and environment to explain the code inherent in DNA molecular biology.

So no it is false to say all code derives from an intelligence source.

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Re: DNA Information Evolution and ID

Post #4

Post by mich »

SailingCyclops wrote:In a Random Ramblings discussion dadman asserted:
dadman wrote: .. since all code derives from an intelligent source . . .
[...]
I do believe the subject is not so much evolution . . . but intelligence . . .
do you know anything about this "evolution coder/de-coder" ??
ref:This post

The assertion is made that since DNA is a code, there must be a coder. Presumably, some intelligent entity.

Questions for debate:

Is the coding, and information transfer we observe in DNA a product of evolution by natural selection? Or does DNA information and it's transfer demand an intelligence?

Does all code derive from an intelligent source?

Bob
Again, I would like to stress that I am not a scientist, and so this is mearly a personal opinion.

While natural selection explains why some forms of life exists today and why other lifeforms have become exstinct, it doesn't explain how lifeforms evolve through mutations. I think that this is the core argument; are mutations simply errors of DNA coding or does the lifeform itself stimulates the mutations to occur in trying to adapt to a different environment. If the latter is true, then the evolution process is an intellegent one as mutation now becomes purposeful. If the lifeprocess found within a cell is simply the result of natural chemical processes, then why don't we observe evolution happening in other inanimate systems, such as hurricanes or crystals?

Andre

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Re: DNA Information Evolution and ID

Post #5

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mich wrote: While natural selection explains why some forms of life exists today and why other lifeforms have become exstinct, it doesn't explain how lifeforms evolve through mutations.
Oh but it does. Watch and learn how science has created new life forms, new species. This is being done in the lab, and mirrors what evolution took millions of years to acomplish.

[center][youtube][/youtube][/center]

More Here

Bob
Last edited by SailingCyclops on Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:44 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Post #6

Post by brotherhoodofmen »

What I get from all these intelligent responses to the question is: there is intelligent mind operating in nature or nature itself has mind. Nature does select and the proof that it selects intelligently is that it was able to produce intelligent beings like us.

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Post #7

Post by SailingCyclops »

brotherhoodofmen wrote:What I get from all these intelligent responses to the question is: there is intelligent mind operating in nature or nature itself has mind. Nature does select and the proof that it selects intelligently is that it was able to produce intelligent beings like us.
Intelligence itself is an emergent property of the brain. The brain is a product of evolutionary processes. I neither see the necessity nor the evidence of an intelligence driving it all. If you have some evidence necessitating an intelligence to produce intelligence, please produce it.

Bob

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Post #8

Post by brotherhoodofmen »

Sailing Cyclops wrote:
Intelligence itself is an emergent property of the brain. The brain is a product of evolutionary processes. I neither see the necessity nor the evidence of an intelligence driving it all. If you have some evidence necessitating an intelligence to produce intelligence, please produce it.

Bob
Hi Bob,

I kind of agree with you. I view the brain like a hardware of a computer. The software is the mind. I believe there is mind influences in nature which the evolving brain is more and more able to pick up or received just like a radio signal. I dont have evidence for this belief but to me it explains intelligences better.

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Re: DNA Information Evolution and ID

Post #9

Post by mich »

SailingCyclops wrote:
mich wrote: While natural selection explains why some forms of life exists today and why other lifeforms have become exstinct, it doesn't explain how lifeforms evolve through mutations.
Oh but it does. Watch and learn how science has created new life forms, new species. This is being done in the lab, and mirrors what evolution took millions of years to acomplish.

[center][youtube][/youtube][/center]

More Here

Bob
Very interesting video, Bob. However, it doesn't involve the process of natural selection at all. First,understand that I do indeed believe in evolution;secondly, my understanding of the documentary actually supports the ID hypothesis. Notice how scientists with the use of computers were able to sequence a DNA molecule which induced mutations after being injected in a bacterium. Notice that it took years and 99+% failure rate before the mutated bacterium was produced. Each and every single failed attempt were ID induced (scientifically controlled) processes. This could be compared to the hypermutation rates of failed attempts found in natural mutations. If the scientifically controlled sequenced DNA, which can truly be said to having been intellectually designed, failed to give a proper mutated bacterium 99% of the time, how do we know that the hypermutation rate found within an organism within a stressful environment is not purposely mutating in order to survive?

Andre

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Post #10

Post by SailingCyclops »

brotherhoodofmen wrote: ... I believe there is mind influences in nature which the evolving brain is more and more able to pick up or received just like a radio signal. I dont have evidence for this belief but to me it explains intelligences better.
Well, I like to base my beliefs on evidence. It keeps me in finer touch with reality. I have no problem admitting ignorance for those things I do not yet understand, but I will not take a default position based on ignorance. I will simply admit my ignorance. "I don't know", is a wonderful and exciting place to begin to find truth.

From all the data available to date, human Intelligence is clearly an emergent property of the human brain, which in-turn is the result of evolution by natural selection. There is much evidence to support this hypothesis, so, for now, I will go by it, especially since there is no evidence to the contrary.

My big problem with those who claim an alternate theory, is that they have no empirical evidence to back it up. Sans that evidence, their hypothesis must be considered invalid on it's face.

Bob

Religion flies you into buildings, Science flies you to the moon.
If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities -- Voltaire
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