A simple start?

_{Mark

October 20, 2009

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

In case we did not know, New Scientist confirms that at the base of the (postulated) tree of life is an extremely complex life form, much like a modern cell.

“There is no doubt that the progenitor of all life on Earth, the common ancestor, possessed DNA, RNA and proteins, a universal genetic code, ribosomes (the protein-building factories), ATP and a proton-powered enzyme for making ATP. The detailed mechanisms for reading off DNA and converting genes into proteins were also in place. In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.”

It is easy (or not) to imagine something as simple as that arising by natural processes.

here

Comments

The Title says it all: Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock? LOL, now that title is funny I don't care who you are,,, They should have just went ahead and named the article,,,"Does anybody want to here a really really good fairy-tale?" Excerpt from article: In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.,,,Yet the differences are startling. In particular, the detailed mechanics of DNA replication would have been quite different. It looks as if DNA replication evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,...Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common (between the bacteria which have no nucleus and the archea which have a nucleus). They cited this paper in theie article: Did DNA replication evolve twice independently? - Koonin Excerpt: However, several core components of the bacterial replication machinery are unrelated or only distantly related to the functionally equivalent components of the archaeal/eukaryotic replication apparatus. Yet we don't even know how it is possible that the "optimal DNA replication" occurred one time much less twice independently. God's Creation - The Coded Language of DNA - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIF_dJVfutE i.e. DNA functions exactly as a "devised code": Biophysicist Hubert Yockey determined that natural selection would have to explore 1.40 x 10^70 different genetic codes to discover the optimal universal genetic code that is found in nature. The maximum amount of time available for it to originate is 6.3 x 10^15 seconds. Natural selection would have to evaluate roughly 10^55 codes per second to find the one that is optimal. Put simply, natural selection lacks the time necessary to find the optimal universal genetic code we find in nature. (Fazale Rana, -The Cell's Design - 2008 - page 177) Ode to the Code - Brian Hayes The few variant codes known in protozoa and organelles are thought to be offshoots of the standard code, but there is no evidence that the changes to the codon table offer any adaptive advantage. In fact, Freeland, Knight, Landweber and Hurst found that the variants are inferior or at best equal to the standard code. It seems hard to account for these facts without retreating at least part of the way back to the frozen-accident theory, conceding that the code was subject to change only in a former age of miracles, which we'll never see again in the modern world. https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/ode-to-the-code/4 Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code Excerpt: When researchers calculated the error-minimization capacity of one million randomly generated genetic codes, they discovered that the error-minimization values formed a distribution where the naturally occurring genetic code's capacity occurred outside the distribution. Researchers estimate the existence of 10 possible genetic codes possessing the same type and degree of redundancy as the universal genetic code. All of these codes fall within the error-minimization distribution. This finding means that of the 10 possible genetic codes, few, if any, have an error-minimization capacity that approaches the code found universally in nature. http://www.reasons.org/biology/biochemical-design/fyi-id-dna-deciphering-design-genetic-code The coding system used for living beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint. Werner Gitt, - In The Beginning Was Information - p. 95 Collective evolution and the genetic code - 2006: Excerpt: The genetic code could well be optimized to a greater extent than anything else in biology and yet is generally regarded as the biological element least capable of evolving. Here, we show that the universal genetic code can efficiently carry arbitrary parallel codes much better than the vast majority of other possible genetic codes.... the present findings support the view that protein-coding regions can carry abundant parallel codes. The data compression of some stretches of human DNA is estimated to be up to 12 codes thick (Trifonov, 1989). (This is well beyond the complexity of any computer code ever written by man). John Sanford - Genetic Entropy Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created. Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 1996, p. 188 To make matters much worse for the materialist the DNA code is not even reducible to the laws of physics or chemistry: Life’s Irreducible Structure Excerpt: “Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of inanimate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry." Michael Polanyi - Hungarian polymath - 1968 - Science (Vol. 160. no. 3834, pp. 1308 – 1312) “an attempt to explain the formation of the genetic code from the chemical components of DNA… is comparable to the assumption that the text of a book originates from the paper molecules on which the sentences appear, and not from any external source of information.” Dr. Wilder-Smith i.e. There are no physical or chemical forces between the nucleotides along the linear axis of DNA (where the information is) that causes the sequence of nucleotides to exist as they do. In fact as far as the laws of the universe are concerned DNA doesn’t even have to exist at all. Stephen Meyer is interviewed about the "information problem" in DNA, Signature in the Cell - video http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=8497 Stephen C. Meyer - Signature In The Cell: "DNA functions like a software program," "We know from experience that software comes from programmers. Information--whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book or encoded in a radio signal--always arises from an intelligent source. So the discovery of digital code in DNA provides evidence that the information in DNA also had an intelligent source." As well as coding optimization, DNA is also optimized to prevent damage from light: DNA Optimized for Photostability Excerpt: These nucleobases maximally absorb UV-radiation at the same wavelengths that are most effectively shielded by ozone. Moreover, the chemical structures of the nucleobases of DNA allow the UV-radiation to be efficiently radiated away after it has been absorbed, restricting the opportunity for damage. http://www.reasons.org/dna-soaks-suns-rays The materialist must also account for the overriding complex architectural organization of DNA: DNA Wrapping - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF2wwMReTf8 Dr. Jerry Bergman, "Divine Engineering: Unraveling DNA's Design": The DNA packing process is both complex and elegant and is so efficient that it achieves a reduction in length of DNA by a factor of 1 million. DNA Packaging: Nucleosomes and Chromatin,,'each of us has enough DNA to go from here to the Sun and back more than 300 times, or around Earth's equator 2.5 million times! How is this possible? Well, It turns out that DNA is also optimized for "maximally dense packing" as well: Comprehensive Mapping of Long-Range Interactions Reveals Folding Principles of the Human Genome - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: At the megabase scale, the chromatin conformation is consistent with a fractal globule, a knot-free, polymer conformation that enables maximally dense packing while preserving the ability to easily fold and unfold any genomic locus. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/326/5950/289 3-D Structure Of Human Genome: Fractal Globule Architecture Packs Two Meters Of DNA Into Each Cell - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: the information density in the nucleus is trillions of times higher than on a computer chip -- while avoiding the knots and tangles that might interfere with the cell's ability to read its own genome. Moreover, the DNA can easily unfold and refold during gene activation, gene repression, and cell replication.bornagain77_{October 20, 2009
October
10
Oct
20
20
2009
04:27 AM
4
04
27
AM
PDT}

The Title says it all: Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock? LOL, now that title is funny I don't care who you are,,, They should have just went ahead and named the article,,,"Does anybody want to here a really really good fairy-tale?" Excerpt from article: In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.,,,Yet the differences are startling. In particular, the detailed mechanics of DNA replication would have been quite different. It looks as if DNA replication evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,...Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common (between the bacteria which have no nucleus and the archea which have a nucleus). They cited this paper in theie article: Did DNA replication evolve twice independently? - Koonin Excerpt: However, several core components of the bacterial replication machinery are unrelated or only distantly related to the functionally equivalent components of the archaeal/eukaryotic replication apparatus. Yet we don't even know how it is possible that the "optimal DNA replication" occurred one time much less twice independently. God's Creation - The Coded Language of DNA - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIF_dJVfutE i.e. DNA functions exactly as a "devised code": Biophysicist Hubert Yockey determined that natural selection would have to explore 1.40 x 10^70 different genetic codes to discover the optimal universal genetic code that is found in nature. The maximum amount of time available for it to originate is 6.3 x 10^15 seconds. Natural selection would have to evaluate roughly 10^55 codes per second to find the one that is optimal. Put simply, natural selection lacks the time necessary to find the optimal universal genetic code we find in nature. (Fazale Rana, -The Cell's Design - 2008 - page 177) Ode to the Code - Brian Hayes The few variant codes known in protozoa and organelles are thought to be offshoots of the standard code, but there is no evidence that the changes to the codon table offer any adaptive advantage. In fact, Freeland, Knight, Landweber and Hurst found that the variants are inferior or at best equal to the standard code. It seems hard to account for these facts without retreating at least part of the way back to the frozen-accident theory, conceding that the code was subject to change only in a former age of miracles, which we'll never see again in the modern world. https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/ode-to-the-code/4 Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code Excerpt: When researchers calculated the error-minimization capacity of one million randomly generated genetic codes, they discovered that the error-minimization values formed a distribution where the naturally occurring genetic code's capacity occurred outside the distribution. Researchers estimate the existence of 10 possible genetic codes possessing the same type and degree of redundancy as the universal genetic code. All of these codes fall within the error-minimization distribution. This finding means that of the 10 possible genetic codes, few, if any, have an error-minimization capacity that approaches the code found universally in nature. http://www.reasons.org/biology/biochemical-design/fyi-id-dna-deciphering-design-genetic-code The coding system used for living beings is optimal from an engineering standpoint. Werner Gitt, - In The Beginning Was Information - p. 95 Collective evolution and the genetic code - 2006: Excerpt: The genetic code could well be optimized to a greater extent than anything else in biology and yet is generally regarded as the biological element least capable of evolving. Here, we show that the universal genetic code can efficiently carry arbitrary parallel codes much better than the vast majority of other possible genetic codes.... the present findings support the view that protein-coding regions can carry abundant parallel codes. http://genome.cshlp.org/content/17/4/405.full The data compression of some stretches of human DNA is estimated to be up to 12 codes thick (Trifonov, 1989). (This is well beyond the complexity of any computer code ever written by man). John Sanford - Genetic Entropy Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created. Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 1996, p. 188 To make matters much worse for the materialist the DNA code is not even reducible to the laws of physics or chemistry: Life’s Irreducible Structure Excerpt: “Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of inanimate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry." Michael Polanyi - Hungarian polymath - 1968 - Science (Vol. 160. no. 3834, pp. 1308 – 1312) “an attempt to explain the formation of the genetic code from the chemical components of DNA… is comparable to the assumption that the text of a book originates from the paper molecules on which the sentences appear, and not from any external source of information.” Dr. Wilder-Smith i.e. There are no physical or chemical forces between the nucleotides along the linear axis of DNA (where the information is) that causes the sequence of nucleotides to exist as they do. In fact as far as the laws of the universe are concerned DNA doesn’t even have to exist at all. Stephen Meyer is interviewed about the "information problem" in DNA, Signature in the Cell - video http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=8497 Stephen C. Meyer - Signature In The Cell: "DNA functions like a software program," "We know from experience that software comes from programmers. Information--whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book or encoded in a radio signal--always arises from an intelligent source. So the discovery of digital code in DNA provides evidence that the information in DNA also had an intelligent source." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/leading_advocate_of_intelligen.html As well as coding optimization, DNA is also optimized to prevent damage from light: DNA Optimized for Photostability Excerpt: These nucleobases maximally absorb UV-radiation at the same wavelengths that are most effectively shielded by ozone. Moreover, the chemical structures of the nucleobases of DNA allow the UV-radiation to be efficiently radiated away after it has been absorbed, restricting the opportunity for damage. http://www.reasons.org/dna-soaks-suns-rays The materialist must also account for the overriding complex architectural organization of DNA: DNA Wrapping - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF2wwMReTf8 Dr. Jerry Bergman, "Divine Engineering: Unraveling DNA's Design": The DNA packing process is both complex and elegant and is so efficient that it achieves a reduction in length of DNA by a factor of 1 million. DNA Packaging: Nucleosomes and Chromatin,,'each of us has enough DNA to go from here to the Sun and back more than 300 times, or around Earth's equator 2.5 million times! How is this possible? http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/DNA-Packaging-Nucleosomes-and-Chromatin-310 Well, It turns out that DNA is also optimized for "maximally dense packing" as well: Comprehensive Mapping of Long-Range Interactions Reveals Folding Principles of the Human Genome - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: At the megabase scale, the chromatin conformation is consistent with a fractal globule, a knot-free, polymer conformation that enables maximally dense packing while preserving the ability to easily fold and unfold any genomic locus. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/326/5950/289 3-D Structure Of Human Genome: Fractal Globule Architecture Packs Two Meters Of DNA Into Each Cell - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: the information density in the nucleus is trillions of times higher than on a computer chip -- while avoiding the knots and tangles that might interfere with the cell's ability to read its own genome. Moreover, the DNA can easily unfold and refold during gene activation, gene repression, and cell replication. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008142957.htmbornagain77_{October 20, 2009
October
10
Oct
20
20
2009
04:25 AM
4
04
25
AM
PDT}

a universal genetic code
I wonder if that should have been listed as the optimized universal genetic code. Otherwise, one wouldn't expect to find a universally optimized genetic code. The weight of that problem alone can hardly be underestimated.JGuy_{October 20, 2009
October
10
Oct
20
20
2009
02:44 AM
2
02
44
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 … 10 11 12

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply