Why describing DNA as “software” doesn’t really work

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 18, 2019

Genetics, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life}

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Check out Science Uprising 3. In contemporary culture, we are asked to believe – in an impressive break with observed reality – that the code of life wrote itself:

… mainstream studies are funded, some perhaps with tax money, on why so many people don’t “believe in” evolution (as the creation story of materialism). The fact that their doubt is treated as a puzzling public problem should apprise any thoughtful person as to the level of credulity contemporary culture demands in this matter.
So we are left with a dilemma: The film argues that there is a mind underlying the universe. If there is no such mind, there must at least be something that can do everything that a cosmic mind could do to bring the universe and life into existence. And that entity cannot, logically, simply be one of the many features of the universe.
Yet, surprisingly, one doesn’t hear much about mainstream studies that investigate why anyone would believe an account of the history of life that is so obviously untrue to reason and evidence.Denyse O’Leary, “There is a glitch in the description of DNA as software” at Mind Matters News

Maybe a little uprising wouldn’t hurt.

Here at UD News, we didn’t realize that anyone else had a sense of the ridiculous. Maybe the kids do?

See also: Episode One: Reality: Real vs. material

and

Episode Two: No, You’re Not Robot made of Meat

Notes on previous episodes

Seven minutes to goosebumps (Robert J. Marks) A new short film series takes on materialism in science, including that of AI’s pop prophets

Science Uprising: Stop ignoring evidence for the existence of the human mind Materialism enables irrational ideas about ourselves to compete with rational ones on an equal basis. It won’t work (Denyse O’Leary)

and

Does vivid imagination help “explain” consciousness? A popular science magazine struggles to make the case. (Denyse O’Leary)

Further reading on DNA as a code: Could DNA be hacked, like software? It’s already been done. As a language, DNA can carry malicious messages

and

How a computer programmer looks at DNA And finds it to be “amazing” code

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Comments

Pee tests. Is pee a code? Trained medical staff can get information from pee. And what about ColoGuard?ET_{June 19, 2019
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SA, Not that I know. I'm suggesting a hypothetical, where we discover a sequence of tree rings which turns out to form a recognizable message in Morse Code (for example, perhaps the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address). If such a tree trunk was found, clearly we would identify it as a coded message, even in the absence of this other machinery you refer to, correct?daveS_{June 19, 2019
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Dave
If we apply our ID techniques, clearly we would conclude that’s a coded message, correct?
We apply ID techniques to determine if there is an information (messaging) circuit. Sender. Transmission. Receiver. Translation. Response. That's an information circuit. Do we see it in tree rings?Silver Asiatic_{June 19, 2019
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There is a school of thought that says that DNA is no more a code than tree rings are a code.
Tree rings do not provide instructions for variable operations and functions to follow. They are just the record of past events. If there is actually a "school of thought" that proposes that kind of analogy, it's not much of a school.Silver Asiatic_{June 19, 2019
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ET, Isn't that also true of, say, a message expressed in Morse Code? I could compose a message and transmit it with a shortwave radio. Unless someone was monitoring that frequency at the moment, it would simply vanish into the aether. It's still an encoded message. Suppose I'm hiking in the woods and come upon the stump of a tree that someone has recently cut down. I notice a curious sequence of rings, where "-" means a light ring and "." means a dark ring. If we apply our ID techniques, clearly we may be able to conclude that's a coded message, correct?daveS_{June 19, 2019
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daves- Tree rings don't represent anything unless you have studied them. And only then can you get any information. With the genetic code we only discovered the existing code. It keeps chugging along regardless of what we know.ET_{June 19, 2019
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ET, Couldn't one argue that in a cross-section of a tree, the rings "represent" seasons (e.g., light rings representing the growing season and the dark rings representing the dormant season)?daveS_{June 19, 2019
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Belfast:
There is a school of thought that says that DNA is no more a code than tree rings are a code.
Tree rings are data recorders. There isn't any code. DNA encodes for amino acids in the grand scheme of the genetic code. One codon represents an amino acid or STOP.ET_{June 19, 2019
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Sequential information on DNA is one thing, the quantum 'positional information' of an entire organism takes the argument against Darwinian materialism to entirely new level.
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
bornagain77_{June 19, 2019
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The day human engineers and scientists come up with anything at least remotely close to the complex functionality and the functional complexity of the biological systems, we deserve to uncork all the champagne bottles in the world and brag about how smart we are. Until then, let’s be humble. Deal ? :)OLV_{June 19, 2019
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There is a school of thought that says that DNA is no more a code than tree rings are a code. I think it looks more like a formatted database if you want to use computer comparisons, but even that has shortcomings.Belfast_{June 19, 2019
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The IP metaphor is sticky and easy to use. Computers and software have only been around just about one life time. Yet it is the only way we describe our own physiology. It’s similar to comparing your hands to a hammer, both can be used to pound sharp objects into walls but one does a lot better and is a lot less painful . Yet we don’t make these parallels between our hand to the hammer. Computers and software that they use are tools. They are not the same as our brain and our DNA They are even fundamentally different on a molecular level. There are many things in this world that are capable of performing similar or the same job as other things in this world but that most certainly does not make them the same.AaronS1978_{June 18, 2019
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Making what Bill Gates said about DNA such a big deal is misleading at best. Mr Gates May know quite a bit about software but has no clue about DNA. When Professor Denis Noble, who may know a little more about cellular biology than Mr Gates, was asked at a physiology meeting to explain what a gene is he simply said that nobody knows. DNA without the rest of the sophisticated cellular machinery is as valuable as a zero written on the left side of an integer number (eg. $099=$99). DNA seems like a very complex repository of information that the cellular machinery can access and process. Some folks lack the humility to admit that out of our deep ignorance they simply explain what they don’t understand using reductionistic poetry and if things get tough then oversimplified illustrations along with some elegant handwaving may help to persuade the gullible crowd to belief they know something that we don’t. It’s time to stop playing superfluous games and to start calling things by their names.OLV_{June 18, 2019
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DNA isn't the software. The immaterial information that runs the genetic code, is.ET_{June 18, 2019
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