Evolution Professor: DNA Code Indicates Common Descent Because … Why?

_{Cornelius Hunter

September 30, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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

In my previous post we saw that evolutionist Jerry Coyne claimed that “Darwin showed that ‘design-like’ features could arise from a purely naturalistic process.” That whopper was not even thinly disguised. What is particularly striking about Coyne’s lie is that the science ever since Darwin has not demonstrated this either. It is not as though Coyne was merely confusing something Darwin showed with something that was discovered after Darwin. We are nowhere remotely close to showing that “design-like” features can arise from a purely naturalistic process. Is it possible? Sure, anything is possible. But Coyne wasn’t referring to theoretical possibilities. Unfortunately it turns out this was not simply a rare fib from the University of Chicago evolutionist. In another post from the same day Coyneinformed his readers that the universal genetic code indicates common descent from a single ancestor: Read more

Comments

Common descent or common design, there is something unquestionably common about all DNA. All life use the same translation logic to convert from DNA to protein. Some of the most complex genes are universal to all life, and very usually ultra-conserved. There is unquestionably a unity in the DNA. All DNA based data comes from the same, one, root. This is the best case we have to prove that the designer is singular, not plural. (Or as I always note, it could be a group acting together as a single unit.)Moose Dr_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
11:04 PM
11
11
04
PM
PDT}

Eric, Yeh first Spanish evolves into French, then French into Russian and then "Late in the last decade of the 19th century there SUDDENDLY emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, " Man does Berlinski nail it in away that demonstrtatrs the absurdity of it all. So funny Vividvividbleau_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
10:44 PM
10
10
44
PM
PDT}

Eric Anderson, Love it! :-) -QQuerius_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
10:29 PM
10
10
29
PM
PDT}

vividbleau: Thanks for the reminder. Everyone who has any interest at all in the evolution debate owes it to himself to read, and occasionally re-read, The Deniable Darwin. Regarding the section you cited, my favorite part is: ". . . and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina." That is right down the lines of what we are being asked to believe happened with DNA over the aeons by our materialistic friends. It is so preposterous that I am often left without words to describe the pure, unadulterated, bald-faced outrageousness of the materialist creation myth.Eric Anderson_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
10:05 PM
10
10
05
PM
PDT}

Let me put it this way: Skeptic: How do you know that all life is related? Coyne: Well, all life shares a similar genetic code. Skeptic: Couldn't such a code have arisen more than once by chance? Coyne: Preposterous! Just look at what we're dealing with -- the physical structure of DNA, the semiotic system that translates one piece of information into another, and on and on. It is obvious that such a system would never arise more than once by chance. Skeptic: But if it is so unlikely to have arisen twice by chance, how can we be so sure that it ever arose even once by chance? Coyne: Well, we know it arose once by chance because life exists. So obviously it happened at least once, thank goodness, or we wouldn't be here to talk about it. Skeptic: My understanding is that there are other options than just pure chance. For instance, isn't it possible that the genetic code could have been purposely designed? Wouldn't that be more consistent than saying that the code couldn't possibly have arisen twice, but that it could arise once? Coyne: What are you a creationist!? If you want to believe in Bible stories, that's your business. I'm dealing with real science. Skeptic: I didn't say anything about the Bible or creationism. I'm just asking whether design might be a possibility and whether it makes sense to say that chance can't create life twice, but it could create it once. What is the basis for the distinction? Coyne: Well, we're here aren't we? Obviously chance was able to create life once. Skeptic: No, it isn't obvious. You're just assuming it. The same probabilities that you applied to determine whether it could happen twice should also be applied to whether it could happen once. Coyne: I'm not debating this anymore. You obviously have a religious agenda. Science only deals with natural causes. You should just accept that life came about by purely natural causes, and if you can't deal with that because you aren't as Bright as I am, that is your problem. I'm not going to waste my time debating the issue with creationists. . . . Objective Outside Observer: What is with that Coyne guy? He is allowing his metaphysics to override his physics.Eric Anderson_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
09:59 PM
9
09
59
PM
PDT}

Found it. From Deniable Darwin. On the Derivation of Ulysses from Don Quixote I imagine this story being told to me by Jorge Luis Borges one evening in a Buenos Aires cafe. His voice dry and infinitely ironic, the aging, nearly blind literary master observes that "the Ulysses," mistakenly attributed to the Irishman James Joyce, is in fact derived from "the Quixote." I raise my eyebrows. Borges pauses to sip discreetly at the bitter coffee our waiter has placed in front of him, guiding his hands to the saucer. "The details of the remarkable series of events in question may be found at the University of Leiden," he says. "They were conveyed to me by the Freemason Alejandro Ferri in Montevideo." Borges wipes his thin lips with a linen handkerchief that he has withdrawn from his breast pocket. "As you know," he continues, "the original handwritten text of the Quixote was given to an order of French Cistercians in the autumn of 1576." I hold up my hand to signify to our waiter that no further service is needed. "Curiously enough, for none of the brothers could read Spanish, the Order was charged by the Papal Nuncio, Hoyo dos Monterrey (a man of great refinement and implacable will), with the responsibility for copying the Quixote, the printing press having then gained no currency in the wilderness of what is now known as the department of Auvergne. Unable to speak or read Spanish, a language they not unreasonably detested, the brothers copied the Quixote over and over again, re-creating the text but, of course, compromising it as well, and so inadvertently discovering the true nature of authorship. Thus they created Fernando Lor's Los Hombres d'Estado in 1585 by means of a singular series of copying errors, and then in 1654 Juan Luis Samorza's remarkable epistolary novel Por Favor by the same means, and then in 1685, the errors having accumulated sufficiently to change Spanish into French, Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, their copying continuous and indefatigable, the work handed down from generation to generation as a sacred but secret trust, so that in time the brothers of the monastery, known only to members of the Bourbon house and, rumor has it, the Englishman and psychic Conan Doyle, copied into creation Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina. Late in the last decade of the 19th century there suddenly emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and then the brothers, their numbers reduced by an infectious disease of mysterious origin, finally copied the Ulysses into creation in 1902, the manuscript lying neglected for almost thirteen years and then mysteriously making its way to Paris in 1915, just months before the British attack on the Somme, a circumstance whose significance remains to be determined." I sit there, amazed at what Borges has recounted. "Is it your understanding, then," I ask, "that every novel in the West was created in this way?" "Of course," replies Borges imperturbably. Then he adds: "Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote."vividbleau_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
09:38 PM
9
09
38
PM
PDT}

Eric:
The real key here — as hinted at by a couple of other posters — is that evolutionists are essentially running a probability analysis when they proclaim that all life is related.
BINGO! But then they fail to share that analysis. So it cannot be tested. And it is not scientific.Mung_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
09:32 PM
9
09
32
PM
PDT}

Using this logic one must conclude that all of English literature has one common author after all they all contain the same letters found in the English alphabet what more proof do you need???? Berlinski wrote something a few years back that was so funny I was in tears. Something to do with how the author of Don Quixote is responsible for all of English literature. I hope someone knows what piece I am referring to and post it here. Absolutely hilarious. Vividvividbleau_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
09:27 PM
9
09
27
PM
PDT}

The real key here -- as hinted at by a couple of other posters -- is that evolutionists are essentially running a probability analysis when they proclaim that all life is related. The thought process is that it is just too improbable for the genetic code to have arisen more than once by chance. Indeed, you would have to be a gullible fool to believe so. As a result, evolutionist are essentially engaging in an explanatory-filter-based preliminary design analysis, but instead of admitting that chance is also unable to produce such a system, they are forced -- beyond all rationality -- to rely on chance. At least once. Unfortunately, they are unwilling to apply the same strict and careful thinking to the question of whether the code arose even once by chance. The possibility that it didn't is ruled out of bounds from the outset by a priori philosophical assumptions that the code must have arisen by chance at least once -- because the alternative is unthinkable. Furthermore, the evolutionist's careful analysis about the probabilities is regularly jettisoned when they consider all of the examples of alleged convergent evolution and when they consider the fact that the genetic code is not the only code operating in living systems. The whole evolutionary mythology is a crapshoot: whatever we see in the living world must have been able to arise by purely natural mechanisms; what we don't see either couldn't or just by happenstance didn't. This is Grand Evolutionary Explanation for all things: Stuff Happens.Eric Anderson_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
09:06 PM
9
09
06
PM
PDT}

"But does Jerry say One Pond in One Place at One Time? That would seem awfully silly." Of course not. That would be to conflate the evolution of life with the origin of life!Mung_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
07:28 PM
7
07
28
PM
PDT}

Evolutionist (aka Pedant):
Nobody is claiming that life could not have evolved more than once.
Great! Then why does Coyne (amongst others) claim that the genetic code is evidence for universal common ancestry? Perhaps different self-replicating but non-living molecules were present in Darwin's warm little pond but they all for some reason shared the same code and extant life all came from this pond but did not all share the same common ancestor. Perhaps there is reason to believe that the code is a matter of natural law and not just a historical accident (aka miracle). If pressed, I bet even an evolutionist could think of one. But evolutionists don't know. And Darwin forbid that they actually produce some probability calculations according to which their claims appear not just plausible but likely.Mung_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
07:27 PM
7
07
27
PM
PDT}

I have a tough time with Coyne's writing style. Don't think I have ever made it more than a quarter of the way through any of his blog posts. I stopped trying, But does Jerry say One Pond in One Place at One Time? That would seem awfully silly.ppolish_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
07:21 PM
7
07
21
PM
PDT}

How is it that educated evolutionists can believe in a "warm little pond" from which life emerged but then can also hold that only one living entity emerged from that pond and everything else descended from that one?Mung_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
06:52 PM
6
06
52
PM
PDT}

It is the near-universality of this code … that gives us confidence that modern life traces back to a single ancestor. If there was more than one origin of life, and its descendants independently developed the DNA—>protein system, it would be very unlikely that all modern species would have the same code.
Coyne forgot to use the obligatory scare quotes around "code." Sheesh. It's not like it's really a code.Mung_{September 30, 2014
September
09
Sep
30
30
2014
04:47 PM
4
04
47
PM
PDT}

Prev 1 2

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply