Archaeologists believe they found the oldest Hebrew text in Israel – including the name of God

ET (attn FH): In addition, there is the pretence of getting functionally complex specific organisation and associated information, algorithms, code, language and associated execution machinery for free at just the right time and in just the right combination and organisation. We are seeing more and more that the naturalistic origin of cell based life story is little more than a just so story dressed up in a lab coat. KF kairosfocus

Fred Hickson:

I repeat that RNA World drives a coach and horses through your idea that aaRSs could not have evolved.

I repeat that you are deluded or on drugs. First, there isn't any evidence for any RNA world. Next, the claim pertains to evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. So, you are still equivocating like a clueless infant. Alan Fox does that same childish nonsense. And finally, you have yet to show any link between any RNA world and DNA-based life. All Fred/ Alan has is denial and fantasy. ET

Fred Hickson:

What symbolism is there in the process of DNA to protein transcription/translation?

That mRNA codons REPRESENT amino acids, just like dots and dashes represent letters in Morse, means that the mRNA codons are the symbols, Fred. And there isn't any chemical reactions that determined which mRNA codons represent which amino acids. It is arbitrary in that regard. ET

Fred Hickson:

But the fact is using the words “code, coding, encoding, translating” etc when talking about DNA and the iconic process from DNA template to messenger RNA to protein is not a code in any analogous sense to language.

The genetic code is a code in the same sense as Morse. So, it is a language of the genes. The communication is from one part of the cell to another. ET

Q: "nor do they involve any symbols or actual intelligence as he has repeatedly and convincingly demonstrated here to everyone’s complete satisfaction." Indeed, no experiment has ever met such a convincing threshold of proof as he has done in his demonstration of no 'actual intelligence' behind his use of symbols. :) Certainly he qualifies for Perry Marshall's 10 million dollar OOL prize. :) bornagain77

Fred Hickson is on to something in his assertion that “language” doesn’t actually exist. As he boldly asserts, what we're dealing with are physical compression waves, which have a completely natural origin with absolute zero significance! The fundamentally erroneous term, “language,” started in a world of RNA sound: Random Natural Alterations within a chaotic gaseous environment. These noises had zero intrinsic symbology. Later, the RNA musta evolved into Directed Natural Alterations (DNA) after natural selection worked its magic on RNA that locally standardized some of these natural vibrations through evolution. That’s how scientists determined that the original expression of pain in some parts of the world musta converged on R-AWK as a cry concomitant (but not symbolic of) with damaging encounters involving geomorphic entities. Over billions of years this DNA evolved into accretions of strings of natural compression waves. But as Fred Hickson asserts, these natural compression waves, while they might have an appearance of intelligent design, are most certainly not “language” nor do they involve any symbols or actual intelligence as he has repeatedly and convincingly demonstrated here to everyone’s complete satisfaction. -Q Querius

AS, that's the site of Joshua's Altar. KF kairosfocus

KF No no I know you did “It speaks to YHWH, it uses a plausible pre standardised Hebrew text, so it is ever more plausible that the modernist, skeptical narrative on the OT [esp the Hexateuch] is discredited“ Which is one of the main reasons why I was fascinated with this coupled with the fact that it speaks of God as early as it did This is surprising for me because, at least from what I understand, they were using word of mouth too pass down biblical traditions and not writing them down, showing another level of sophistication they we were not aware of It would be absolutely splendid if they found more tablets and maybe something providing a smoking gun for exodus putting to bed the accusations that it didn’t happen AaronS1978

AS78, actually I have tried to comment on the OP several times, but with little uptake. While we await professional publication (and the press conference was due to a leaking problem), it is reasonable that we see here a c 1400 BC text, one that broadly fits in with Job 19:24 talking of making a text with an iron point and lead. (Translations vary as to exact sense.) It is on the OT mount of Covenantal Cursing, next to an evidently Israelite major ceremonial altar already identified with the text on Joshua. It speaks to YHWH, it uses a plausible pre standardised Hebrew text, so it is ever more plausible that the modernist, skeptical narrative on the OT [esp the Hexateuch] is discredited. The text also fits with the earlier text seen in Sinai and associated with Egyptian script one way and Hebraic the other. The elements of course are those of a string data structure with alphanumeric elements, conveying functional intelligible information and are readily identifiable as archaeology not natural. That example reasonably does point to the text in living cells and to the point that we need to now regard the D/RNA text as historical record leading to a comprehensive rewrite of Chapter Zero of world history. Of course, those locked into the evolutionary materialistic scientism agenda will be alarmed or even angered and will predictably resort to selective and inconsistent hyperskepticism. But the balance on merits is increasingly plain. KF kairosfocus

Well JVL I’m not being weird and I have no problem with the two of you having friendly relationship but when it looks like the two of you are sticking to a Dawkins playbook style of arguing and then congratulating each other it gets a little annoying And speaking of sticking to topic I don’t think anybody on this thread stuck to topic because the original thread was about a very amazing archaeological discovery So if you wanna stick the topic let’s stick to the topic of the threat instead of arguing aimlessly about whether dna can be considered a language And also my emotional baggage? your behavior set my mood, it has nothing to do with any emotional baggage. Do you understand what emotional baggage is? Your description seems overly melodramatic for me being annoyed with the two of you AaronS1978

.

Could you give some examples so that I know what you’re thinking.

A dog peeing on a tree.

If you can’t honestly and accurately reflect what has been said then should we take your own statements seriously?

Your position is that the undemonstrated beliefs of the proponents of unguided OoL invalidates the history of experimental results that support a guided OoL. Should we take you seriouly? Upright BiPed

AaronS1978: JVL think I was pretty honest about it and what was the whole commentary about “I like your style” and “compliments will get you everywhere” Nothing to do with you or the topic under consideration. Was it? That's just you being weird. That certainly look liked the two of you were patting each other on the back Which kind of set my mood for reflecting on you and FH’s commentary Oh, sorry. Fred and I can't have some kind of friendly exchange without you thinking we had some great conspiracy against you. So I’m sorry you don’t appreciate my criticisms of the both of you, maybe I misinterpreted your position. Just stick with the actual topics. Leave your emotional baggage behind. JVL

JVL I think I was pretty honest about it and what was the whole commentary about “I like your style” and “compliments will get you everywhere” That certainly look liked the two of you were patting each other on the back Which kind of set my mood for reflecting on you and FH’s commentary So I’m sorry you don’t appreciate my criticisms of the both of you, maybe I misinterpreted your position if so I apologize AaronS1978

AaronS1978: I just wasted my time reading all of this, FH and JVL are simply dismissing everyone’s examples straight out of hand, saying no. its not, and patting each other on the back for a job well done I don't think that is a fair consideration of my position at all. I was primarily responding to the statement by Bornagain77 that there was an overlap between human language(s) and DNA. I never said that DNA was not a language (but I would really want to dive into that question) nor did I dismiss anyone's example out of hand. If you can't honestly and accurately reflect what has been said then should we take your own statements seriously? JVL

Upright BiPed: That is not the claim (there are plenty of symbol systems that do not function like the gene system, but only the gene system and written language/mathematics function as they do). Could you give some examples so that I know what you're thinking. And, by the way, while you and I have clearly chosen to focus on written human languages I don't think Bornagain77 made that distinction. Would you feel different if the issue was with spoken human languages and DNA? JVL

I not seeing how describing protein synthesis refutes the claim that it is a language of some sort that the cell is using Again why is it not a programming language that biology uses to instruct cells to carry out specific functions and processes throughout the life cycle? Neurons have been found to break and form dna to code memory https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026845-000-memories-may-be-stored-on-your-dna/ http://sciencebeta.com/neuron-dna-memory-formation/ https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-04-neurons-constantly-rewrite-dna.html So your description of the biological process although good does nothing for your argument So why is it not a coding which evolved that life uses to instruct itself on multiple processes AaronS1978

AS78, stronger than analogy, instantiation. The selectively hyperskeptical denialism we see is a mark of desperation not to acknowledge the point. There is no reason why we should allow such a conclusion to be held hostage to denialism; here, by someone who confused Fortran [a high level language] for 1 and 0 machine language and plainly does not know whereof he speaks with such confidence. We should note that this marks a decisive vulnerability of Darwinism. KF PS, in doing development on the 6809, I used a two port memory and a SBC with cassette tape backing store; Manchester code IIRC. That was one step up from punched cards or paper tape. PPS, from Paley in Ch 2 on, it was recognised that a copy of a body of information is not the origin of said information, yet another hyperskeptical obfuscation. As for proteins and mRNA as template, first a template is a usually analogue information storage device, used with prong height it becomes digital, similar to prongs on a yale type lock's key. Second, the encoding -- as has been highlighted repeatedly and studiously ignored -- is on tRNA and how it is loaded on its CCA tip with the correct AA. kairosfocus

Language is used for communication and transmitting messages between one organism to the next as well as many other purposes DNA and RNA are used for communication within the cell and processing information...

Isn't there some dispute whether another copy of the same information is new or not? Messenger RNA is a complementary copy of part of the information held by the DNA in the genome produced by direct physical contact. Proteins are synthesized by ribosomes using that information in steps involving direct physical contact. There is no communication, no feedback, only templating. Fred Hickson

“Putting it to a vote was black humor. But the fact is using the words “code, coding, encoding, translating” etc when talking about DNA and the iconic process from DNA template to messenger RNA to protein is not a code in any analogous sense to language.” I read this I don’t see any reason why it’s not other then it’s not Language is used for communication and transmitting messages between one organism to the next as well as many other purposes DNA and RNA are used for communication within the cell and processing information It’s very analogous to programming language AaronS1978

:) Who decides what letter is next(in DNA: A,G,T or C) if the chemical bonds don't favor one letter over another and the result of these letters is translated into an obvious function? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvEZSKl8EM&t=300s Lieutenant Commander Data

FH tries to excuse his trollish behavior by calling it 'black humor", and then he reiterates his false claim, "the fact is using the words “code, coding, encoding, translating” etc when talking about DNA and the iconic process from DNA template to messenger RNA to protein is not a code in any analogous sense to (human) language." But alas, all human languages, and especially programming languages created by humans, are based on intelligently deigned codes and, especially in the computer age, all human languages are subject to intelligently designed "coding, encoding, translating", and in the case of CAD cam "We have something (programming language) very analogous" to what is going on in the cell.

Stephen Meyer: it’s not the physical or chemical properties of those four digital characters, those four chemicals they’re called basis in the DNA molecule. It’s their specific arrangement in accord with a convention that directs the cell to build all the proteins and protein machines. We have something very analogous here in the Seattle area over at the Boeing plant. It is called CAD cam computer assisted design and manufacturer. We’ve got code in a machine that is sent to a translation device that converts that to a machine code, which in turn, then directs the construction of machinery to,, put the rivets,, the wing of a plane in just the right place. So we, in our own high tech world use information to manufacture things that’s what’s going on inside the cell.,,, https://stephencmeyer.org/t/douglas-axe/

In short, FH's repeated denial that the genetic code has no overlap whatsoever with human language is found to be a grossly false claim. I am shocked that anyone would even try to defend such a patently false claim. And indeed, in my experience, only Darwinian atheists would ever try to defend such obvious falsehoods that constantly, and repeatedly, pop up in their atheistic worldview.. To reiterate,

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,,

It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

bornagain77

So what has led Fred Hickson to irrationally deny the plain scientific fact that the genetic code is a literal code, and to insanely want to put that scientific fact up for a vote?

Putting it to a vote was black humor. But the fact is using the words "code, coding, encoding, translating" etc when talking about DNA and the iconic process from DNA template to messenger RNA to protein is not a code in any analogous sense to language. Fred Hickson

I responded https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-gunter-bechly-repudiates-professor-daves-attacks-against-id/#comment-759576 Fred Hickson

.

UB: If you feel your suggestion that an aaRS need only be made of one single type of amino acid is somehow problematic … you are certainly welcome to vacate that suggestion. Fred: Thanks and my apologies for misreading. 1 No I don’t suggest any biochemically active suite of proteins can be constructed from polymers consisting of a single aminoacid. 2 I do suggest that twenty aaRSs did not need to exist prior to proteins being incorporated into RNA World organisms. 3 I concede that wasn’t your question.

Okay, so I asked the original question on June 11th, now 18 days ago. Since that time, we have likely exchanged a couple thousand words as the question is kicked around. Now that all of that is out of the way, what is your answer to the question? *** you are welcome to answer that question on the original thread of you like, HERE Upright BiPed

BA77 at 83, No one wrote any sentences. They just pop into existence due to physics. No one is responsible for creating them. No one is responsible for creating life. relatd

F/N: On the OP, I found this from Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2022-03-24/ty-article/.premium/early-israelite-curse-inscription-found-on-mt-ebal/00000180-5b9b-dc66-a392-7fdbc7790000

Now an official curse has been found, engraved on a lead tablet that dates to the biblical age and had sat in the detritus of an excavation of Mt. Ebal for decades, the Associates for Biblical Research of Houston, Texas announced on Thursday . . . . Inscribed in proto-alphabetic writing also known as Sinaitic script or proto-Canaanite script, which dates to the Late Bronze Age, the hex text is early Israelite, the team claims. Consisting of 40 ancient proto-Sinaitic letters on a lead sheet that was subsequently folded, and could only to be read by tomographic scanning, the inscription reads: “Cursed, cursed, cursed - cursed by the God YHW. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by YHW – cursed, cursed, cursed.” The inscription does not leave much room for doubt that it was a curse. What it might mean for the interpretation of the finds at Mt. Ebal is another matter.

Mt Ebal, of course is the Mt of Cursing. What is interesting, is of course that we are seeing here, alphabetic script in the process of emerging from Egyptian Hieroglyphics, similar to inscriptions noted some years ago at mines in Sinai. Alphabetic writing and later alphanumeric script, uses string data structures, to store information in glyph sequences. These readily translate to binary codings and could translate to four state elements quite readily too. There will be a debate over dating, as Haaretz remarks on, but late Bronze age seems reasonable supportive of c 1400 BC. Of course, the old hypotheses that Moses could not have written as writing was not existing in his day is long since dead. The onward discussion is whether Hebrew text as emerging was in effect the root of the alphabetic script. KF kairosfocus

At 60 Martin_r references Perry Marshall's website, where Marshall summarizes the fact that the genetic code is a literal code.

Is DNA a Code? Summary: *Code is defined as the rules of communication between an encoder (a “writer” or “speaker”) and a decoder (a “reader” or “listener”) using agreed upon symbols. *DNA’s definition as a literal code (and not a figurative one) is nearly universal in the entire body of biological literature since the 1960’s. *DNA code has much in common with human language and computer languages *DNA transcription is an encoding / decoding mechanism isomorphic with Claude Shannon’s 1948 model: The sequence of base pairs is encoded into messenger RNA which is decoded into proteins. *Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code. https://evo2.org/dna-atheists/dna-code/

And then directly after his summary, Marshall then further clarifies exactly what he means by code, i.e. "I define “Coded information” as a system of symbols used by an encoding and decoding mechanism, which transmits a message that is independent of the communication medium."

Please Define What You Mean By “Code.” This question hinges on the definition of “code” and whether it is metaphorical when applied to DNA or whether it is technically identical to its use in human language. Until this question is addressed, this is nothing more than an empty assertion. Mr. Marshall is begging the question until he provides a definition of “code” that circumscribes his examples but rules out stuff like the other examples [bee waggle dances, bird songs, whale songs, ant communication by pheromone]. I define “Coded information” as a system of symbols used by an encoding and decoding mechanism, which transmits a message that is independent of the communication medium. Examples of code include English, Chinese, computer languages, music, mating calls and radio signals. Codes always involve a system of symbols that represent ideas or plans. Other examples include, yes, Bee waggle dances. Bird songs. Whale songs. And ant communication by pheromone. Since all the above are derivatives of DNA, my challenge to naturalists is to cite a single example of coded information that occurs naturally – outside the realm of life, outside the realm of DNA. All you need is one example. DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.”: FALSE: – DNA is only analogous to code. The book Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life is written by Hubert Yockey, the foremost living specialist in bioinformatics. The publisher is Cambridge University press. Yockey rigorously demonstrates that the coding process in DNA is identical to the coding process and mathematical definitions used in Electrical Engineering. This is not subjective, it is not debatable or even controversial. It is a brute fact:

And despite the fact that the genetic code is a literal code and this fact is "not subjective, it is not debatable or even controversial. It is a brute fact", at 61, (directly after Martin referenced Marshall's website at 60), Fred Hickson, against all reason, then claims,

FH: "DNA is not a code, neither literally nor figuratively. Shall we have a vote?"

Does Fred really want to put a brute scientific fact up for a vote? Perhaps Fred now also wants to put the speed of light up for a vote? In short, FH's response to Martin is simply insane! As Paxx observed at 80, this completely disingenuous tactic by Fred of denying the scientific fact that the genetic code is a literal code, is trolling purely for trolling's sake,

Paxx: "It’s adorable when someone denies that a code is a code. Troll. No reason to feed the trolls."

Moreover, (to reiterate what has been mentioned previously in this thread), Marshall's challenge to atheistic naturalists to, "cite a single example of coded information that occurs naturally – outside the realm of life, outside the realm of DNA. All you need is one example", is not an empty challenge but Marshall has put money where his mouth is. Specifically, Marshall has, fairly recently, set up a 10 million dollar OOL prize for the first person who can demonstrate a single example of coded information that occurs naturally, by unguided material processes, and which was not created by an intelligent mind.

Artificial Intelligence + Origin of Life Prize, $10 Million USD Where did life and the genetic code come from? Can the answer build superior AI? The #1 mystery in science now has a $10 million prize. Excerpt: The Evolution 2.0 Prize focuses these issues down to one central question: How do you get from chemicals to code? How do you get a code without designing one? Perry Marshall and private equity investment group Natural Code LLC have issued a technology prize to find a person who can solve this. https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0

I might add that no less than George Church, Denis Noble, and Michael Ruse are the judges for the 10 million dollar prize. So what has led Fred Hickson to irrationally deny the plain scientific fact that the genetic code is a literal code, and to insanely want to put that scientific fact up for a vote? Well the answer to that question is that Fred is an atheist, and as an atheist he is committed to the naturalistic/materialistic worldview in which everything must be reduced to purely materialistic/naturalistic explanations. Intelligent agents with immaterial minds and free will, (who are able to intelligently design codes from scratch whenever they so desire to do so), are simply a fiction in Fred's atheistic worldview. In fact, Fred's atheistic worldview, via its denial of the reality of free will, forces him into the insane position of denying that he has ever personally written a single sentence in his life, (much less that anyone has ever intelligently created a code) As Paul Nelson notes, if atheistic naturalism were actually true, then "You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact.",,

Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Assessing the Damage MN (Methodological Naturalism) Does to Freedom of Inquiry Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then — to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set/

And as George Ellis explains, without free will, Einstein "could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options."

Physicist George Ellis on the importance of philosophy and free will - July 27, 2014 Excerpt: And free will?: Horgan: Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: “If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.” Do you believe in free will? Ellis: Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up. This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options. I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation – if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/physicist-george-ellis-on-the-importance-of-philosophy-and-free-will/

Needless to say, denying that you are responsible for what you write, and denying that Einstein was responsible for the theory of relativity, but instead holding that the laws of physics wrote your sentences for you, and that the laws of physics discovered themselves, is an insane position for anyone to hold. But alas, that insane position is exactly what atheistic naturalism forces atheists like Fred into claiming. Much more could be said about the overall topic of 'information', (and specifically about how advances in science have now established the physical reality of 'immaterial' information), but suffice it for now to simply note that the atheist's naturalistic worldview is completely insane in that it denies, (like the denial that the genetic code is a literal code), the reality of many things that everyone, including atheists themselves, assume to be undeniably real. To repeat what I stated earlier in this thread,

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,,

It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

bornagain77

Folks, the genetic code for protein synthesis is a four state per base digital code, and three bases give sixty four states giving room for stop elements and some redundancy. The scheme has been used to store general digital information, there is no doubt as to its digital character. Also, some normal stop codons have been reprogrammed to add further AAs not in the usual run of 20. Lastly there are 20+ dialects, further implying high contingency. It is well known and readily accessible that once things are aligned in a ribosome start is load methionine, then there are further steps, then halt on one of three stop codons. Those who try to twist this into pretzels simply show their want of basic reasonableness. KF PS, Just to show, here is Wiki's opening, as accessed just now, I don't know if they will try to get rid of the telling words I am about to highlight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_biosynthesis

Protein biosynthesis (or protein synthesis) is a core biological process, occurring inside cells, balancing the loss of cellular proteins (via degradation or export) through the production of new proteins. Proteins perform a number of critical functions as enzymes, structural proteins or hormones. Protein synthesis is a very similar process for both prokaryotes and eukaryotes but there are some distinct differences.[1] Protein synthesis can be divided broadly into two phases - transcription and translation. During transcription, a section of DNA encoding a protein, known as a gene, is converted into a template molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA). This conversion is carried out by enzymes, known as RNA polymerases, in the nucleus of the cell.[2] In eukaryotes, this mRNA is initially produced in a premature form (pre-mRNA) which undergoes post-transcriptional modifications to produce mature mRNA. The mature mRNA is exported from the cell nucleus via nuclear pores to the cytoplasm of the cell for translation to occur. During translation, the mRNA is read by ribosomes which use the nucleotide sequence of the mRNA to determine the sequence of amino acids. The ribosomes catalyze the formation of covalent peptide bonds between the encoded amino acids to form a polypeptide chain. Following translation the polypeptide chain must fold to form a functional protein; for example, to function as an enzyme the polypeptide chain must fold correctly to produce a functional active site. In order to adopt a functional three-dimensional (3D) shape, the polypeptide chain must first form a series of smaller underlying structures called secondary structures. The polypeptide chain in these secondary structures then folds to produce the overall 3D tertiary structure. Once correctly folded, the protein can undergo further maturation through different post-translational modifications. Post-translational modifications can alter the protein's ability to function, where it is located within the cell (e.g. cytoplasm or nucleus) and the protein's ability to interact with other proteins.[3] Protein biosynthesis has a key role in disease as changes and errors in this process, through underlying DNA mutations or protein misfolding, are often the underlying causes of a disease. DNA mutations change the subsequent mRNA sequence, which then alters the mRNA encoded amino acid sequence. Mutations can cause the polypeptide chain to be shorter by generating a stop sequence [--> halting] which causes early termination of translation. Alternatively, a mutation in the mRNA sequence changes the specific amino acid encoded at that position in the polypeptide chain. This amino acid change can impact the protein's ability to function or to fold correctly.[4] Misfolded proteins are often implicated in disease as improperly folded proteins have a tendency to stick together to form dense protein clumps. These clumps are linked to a range of diseases, often neurological, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.[5]

PPS, Oh it's analogies all the way down. Nope, we are plainly dealing with instantiation. PPPS, Oh human languages. Nope, the proper distinction is natural vs artificial languages, and the latter not only include 6809 machine code or IBM 370 machine code or protein code, but also Esperanto and Volapuk, or even basic English. ART-ificial, as in specifically designed for a process through intelligently directed configuration. kairosfocus

We await the paper. It seems that something leaked and the discoverers were forced to do some sort of presser to get ahead of the buzz. That speaks to where we have gone, even in academia. kairosfocus

It's adorable when someone denies that a code is a code. Troll. No reason to feed the trolls. But, yeah, you guys keep pounding your head against the troll, as if. A little amusing, but yeah, a little pathetic. Paxx P.S. this website is SLOW. Is there something I can do to help? Paxx

That there are two complementary strands of DNA is irrelevant to the fact that the sequence in one strand encodes an algorithm for constructing an AA chain towards a protein. In the related information system the code is expressed through loading tRNAs with the AA that corresponds to the relevant anticodon at the other end of the L.

That the inherent properties of base pairing in DNA produce a stable double helix that forms complementary copies when helices are separated (heat can do this) is fundamental to living organisms (excluding RNA viruses). This is direct templating, no symbols needed or involved. Fred Hickson

If you feel your suggestion that an aaRS need only be made of one single type of amino acid is somehow problematic … you are certainly welcome to vacate that suggestion.

Thanks and my apologies for misreading. No I don't suggest any biochemically active suite of proteins can be constructed from polymers consisting of a single aminoacid. I do suggest that twenty aaRSs did not need to exist prior to proteins being incorporated into RNA World organisms. I concede that wasn't your question. Fred Hickson

Correction on 75 I didn’t see, it is not IP I meant OS AaronS1978

Ps on the topic of the thread the discovery was actually pretty cool AaronS1978

I just wasted my time reading all of this, FH and JVL are simply dismissing everyone’s examples straight out of hand, saying no. its not, and patting each other on the back for a job well done If they wanna deny the genetic coding language, they can it’s very similar to binary and guess what binary is used universally across every single IP system in the world much like DNA and RNA is used in all of life, there is a striking similarities there But if they want to deny it let them honestly I wish I didn’t read through all of this it was a waste of time and they are wasting your time making you write these long examples and telling you to prove yourself to them This is literally the standard run-of-the-mill atheist tactic of “prove it to me” Like how they are behaving is straight out of almost every Richard Dawkins play book Just start questioning their belief throw it back in their face ask them why it’s not language and then refute it by simply saying that’s not good enough BA 77 was right you’re going to just sit here and run around in circles not getting anywhere because they aren’t going to except anything that you say or do If God himself came down and said I created this program to run life they would still deny it and say something dumb like “well if your god/creator existed I would argue with it because it’s not language or code” add “Christians are bad” to the end if it was said by Sev :P AaronS1978

FH, strawman, and you know it. That there are two complementary strands of DNA is irrelevant to the fact that the sequence in one strand encodes an algorithm for constructing an AA chain towards a protein. In the related information system the code is expressed through loading tRNAs with the AA that corresponds to the relevant anticodon at the other end of the L. KF kairosfocus

. Fred, If you feel your suggestion that an aaRS need only be made of one single type of amino acid is somehow problematic ... you are certainly welcome to vacate that suggestion. Upright BiPed

For background if anyone is interested. Fred Hickson

Ah, "one type of". I missed the gotcha. Away you go. Fred Hickson

Yes, UB, that's what they do. In general terms aaRSs hook up aminoacids to specific tRNAs. Fred Hickson

. Fred, Can an aaRS made up of one type of amino acid perform a double-recognition of a particular tRNA and a particular amino acid, then bind them together? Upright BiPed

Come on UB! Man up and tell us clearly what it is you claim. Fred Hickson

. JVL,

If a claim is made that there is something special or significant about the similarity between two forms of symbolic representation but it turns out that all such systems have the same aspects then it is absolutely relevant to the claim.

That is not the claim (there are plenty of symbol systems that do not function like the gene system, but only the gene system and written language/mathematics function as they do). Upright BiPed

I can't believe how KF can type the phrase "DNA is not a template". How does be think the double helix works stereochemically ? Fred Hickson

. JVL, The claim was made by Fred that there were no similarities between the gene system and language. BA responded that his claim was not true. You then asked for the evidence.

BA: FH made a grand and sweeping claim about “no overlap” whatsoever between human and DNA language which is now shown empirically to simply not be true. JVL: Okay, spell out the overlap then.

You now have your answer. Upright BiPed

. Fred, The challenge you yourself set up was to propose the steps that could lead an assumed RNA world to the extant DNA/Protein world. You proposed no steps. Upright BiPed

FH, DNA is not a template. There is no particular layout or chemical match of necessity between a given codon and a given AA. For illustration, there are about two dozen variants of the code. KF

No, it's arbitrary, exactly how JVL set it out so clearly upthread. There's one point of contention regarding aminoacyl tRNA synthetases and how they could have evolved. I suggest there is a conceivable evolutionary pathway via RNA World. I'm genuinely interested in pursuing that idea. Fred Hickson

So _r, DNA is not a code, neither literally nor figuratively. Shall we have a vote? Fred Hickson

@ _r I worked with a Jehovah's witness for a while. I asked why his religion demanded they knock on doors and try to convince folks to join. He explained there was no score card in obtaining recruits, you didn't have to succeed in getting converts, you only needed to have made an effort to pass on the news, something about passing on the blood guilt. He added there were only limited spaces (144,000?) so that's why he was happy to give up on me, a hopeless case. I did hear later he'd been convicted and incarcerated for sexual offenses against a minor but that may have been coincidental. Fred Hickson

Hickson,

No symbolism in DNA templates.

You are dead wrong. Perry Marshall (the $10,000,000 OOL-price) debated this topic years ago, and made a very nice and informative page about this, explaining/proving that: DNA is a literal code, a language. Here you go: https://evo2.org/dna-atheists/dna-code/ So Hickson, DNA is a literal code. It is a fact. Get over it. martin_r

JVL, it is the real issue and it is decisive. KF kairosfocus

FH, DNA is not a template. There is no particular layout or chemical match of necessity between a given codon and a given AA. For illustration, there are about two dozen variants of the code. KF kairosfocus

@ _r Relax, enjoy your life. Your not being convinced by evolutionary theory is not an issue. Fred Hickson

Fred Hickson: did I say, I like your style, JVL. Flattery will get you everywhere. JVL

Hickson, as to RNA world ... with you people (Darwinists) it is always the same ... you perfectly know how it was, what to do, how it could be, lots of bold claims, lots of self-confidence, lots of "creationists are stupid", so why don't you guys go to your fancy labs and MAKE THAT RNA WORLD OR WHATEVER IS NEEDED WORKING ... FINALLY .... PLEASE SHOW US SOMETHING ... SHOW US ANYTHING ... After 150 years of Darwinism, WHAT DO YOU GOT TO SHOW US to support your bold claims on the origin of life ??? It is a grotesque ... martin_r

Kairosfocus: the issue is, could blind chance and mechanical necessity create a complex digital, symbolic communication system. That was not the issue or claim being discussed. JVL

Upright BiPed: You asked a question and were given the answer. You can either refute it or not. A claim was made by Bornagain77 that was not upheld. Let's start with that. Irrelevant to the fact. If a claim is made that there is something special or significant about the similarity between two forms of symbolic representation but it turns out that all such systems have the same aspects then it is absolutely relevant to the claim. JVL

I repeat that RNA World drives a coach and horses through your idea that aaRSs could not have evolved. Maybe I misunderstand your claim. Maybe you want to clarify. Fred Hickson

. Fred, as before, if you have something to say,then say it. Upright BiPed

No symbolism in DNA templates. None. Again, may I suggest someone starts a designated thread on UB's definitive version of his hypothesis. PS, did I say, I like your style, JVL. Fred Hickson

JVL, the issue is, could blind chance and mechanical necessity create a complex digital, symbolic communication system. The answer is, maximally implausible. KF kairosfocus

. JVL, You may have lost your place in the conversation. You had stepped into an exchange between Fred and BA, and were attempting to offer support to Fred’s claim. You asked a question and were given the answer. You can either refute it or not.

Is there any other way of setting up a communication system?

Irrelevant to the fact.

In other words: are the similarities between human languages and DNA down to that any representational system has to match those basic criteria?

Irrelevant to the fact. Upright BiPed

Upright BiPed: Both written language/mathematics and the gene system use a finite set of physical symbol tokens to communicate open-ended meaning. These tokens are established by a set of interpretive constraints that establish the rate-independent relationships between the tokens and their referents, using a spatial orientation of objects within each token to differentiate one referent from another. These are the only two systems like this known to the physical sciences. Is there any other way of setting up a communication system? In other words: are the similarities between human languages and DNA down to that any representational system has to match those basic criteria? By the way: is there a reason that you are parachuting into a conversation I was having with Bornagain77? Is there a reason that Bornagain77 can't continue the argument himself? JVL

.

Okay, spell out the overlap then

Okay. Both written language/mathematics and the gene system use a finite set of physical symbol tokens to communicate open-ended meaning. These tokens are established by a set of interpretive constraints that establish the rate-independent relationships between the tokens and their referents, using a spatial orientation of objects within each token to differentiate one referent from another. These are the only two systems like this known to the physical sciences. You already know all this; it is well-documented in the physics literature. While I have you on the phone, can you explain why you rely on an ad hoc double-standard to deny the design inference:

JVL: I would not be surprised at all if we find electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings in other solar systems UB: How would we know if we found “electromagnetic evidence of intelligent beings”? What would that be? JVL: Something like in the movie Contact. A signal that’s very clearly NOT produced by unguided processes. A signal which, after inspection, was shown to have compressed data. UB: So you accept encoded symbolic content as a universal inference to the presence of an unknown intelligence in one domain, while immediately denying that same physical evidence in another domain. Why the double standard? JVL: Because there is no plausible designer available. (…) And after you are asked “Then who is the designer in your signal from space”, suddenly realizing that you cannot answer that question without clearly demonstrating the double-standard in your reasoning, you reply: JVL: There isn’t one. (thud)

Upright BiPed

Fred: In fact, show me where symbolism is involved in machine code. The concept is in your head, not in the workings of the computer. The computer code was invented by a human and has a predictable result in the computer, and it's the predictable result in the computer that makes the code/symbol useful to the human. It seems that you are confused about the code/symbol and the second level label that humans might give the predictable result beyond the code/symbol itself. The ATP synthase protein doesn't know anything about the term "ATP synthase." But the codes in the DNA that end up producing ATP synthase are predictible codes for the constructions of what we label "ATP synthase." (Humans are capable of altering existing symbols/codes in the DNA, and in principle, will be capable of programming brand new ones.) "Code" is a correct term to use for the codons in DNA because they are symbolic in the sense that their physical arrangement and properties are mere information to the ribosomes that actually build the resulting proteins, and the resulting shape/function of the protein. You're confusing symbols/codes with labels that humans may give them. Code: Definition 2b: A system of symbols and rules that serve as instructions for a computer. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/code Paxx

ronvanwegen, The actual news is about an archeological find about one certain historical god among many in history, the god of Israel. Who the "real god" is, if there is any, is beyond the scope of the archeological find. Paxx

The Human Genome Sequence is now complete. https://www.genome.gov/about-nhgri/Director/genomics-landscape/april-7-2022-the-human-genome-sequence-is-now-complete relatd

Scientists' knowledge about genetic language is next to none. DNA is The Instruction Manual of life but scientists need The Dictionary of life in order to decode The Instruction Manual. Sandy

Bornagain77: I have much better things to do than play ring around the posies with an irrational troll. I'll choose to interpret that as: you can't actually demonstrate the overlap you claim exists between DNA and human languages. In fact I know that to be the case because you always have plenty of time to post link after link after link of things you think support your view so walking away means you haven't got anything. You really should learn that not everyone on this site is just going to swallow all the copy-and-paste logic you use. Sometimes you actually have to show a real understanding of the material you link to. If you don't then you just look foolish. Anyway, you made a claim and, as ET would put it, you choked on it. JVL

JVL, I have much better things to do than play ring around the posies with an irrational troll. bornagain77

Quantum computers and quantum chips exist right now. https://www.ibm.com/quantum relatd

Bornagain77: Yes, I missed the elementary Venn diagram which shows nothing beyond the statement that classical information is a subset of quantum information. It presents nothing beyond that. Look, can you explain the overlap between human languages and DNA using the encodings you linked to or not? That's the issue, not your interpretation of quantum entanglement. You made a claim now please back it up by explaining your reasoning. JVL

JVL, "The Venn diagram of classical/digital information? A subset within the Venn diagram of quantum information? Really? Why don’t you show us these Venn diagrams so we can get a better idea of what you’re talking about." And this shows just how irrational JVL is, I provided the Venn diagram of classical information being a subset of quantum information.

Classical Information is a subset of Quantum information – illustration https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/images/figure1.gif below that illustration they have this caption, “Figure 1: The well-established theory of classical information and computation is actually a subset of a much larger topic, the emerging theory of quantum information and computation.”

And again, If you want to argue with Charles Bennett, have at it. Seeing that you are an atheistic troll on a blog and that he is an accomplished scientist with several notable breakthroughs under his belt, my money is certainly on him.

Information is Quantum – Charles Bennett – video 39:30 minute mark: “Entanglement is ubiquitous: Almost every interaction between two systems creates entanglement between them… Most systems in nature… interact so strongly with the environment as to become entangled with it almost immediately.”… 44:00 minute mark: “A classical communications channel is a quantum communication channel with an eavesdropper (maybe only the environment)… A classical computer is a quantum computer handicapped by having eavesdroppers on all its wires.” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/philip-cunningham-offers-information-is-quantum/

Moreover, besides storing human language on DNA, genetic information has been transferred to computers, manipulated, and then reinserted back into an organism. See Venter's work. bornagain77

Bornagain77: your irrational denial to the contrary does not refute the fact that human language clearly has an overlap with the language in DNA in that it was possible to store a, jaw-dropping, massive amount of human language where DNA language normally resides. Well, spell out the overlap for us please. You might want to cite the encoding system used to store all that data. And show how the encoding capitalises on this overlap. That, in of itself, clearly refutes FH’s grand and sweeping claim that there is no overlap whatsoever. Not if your vague interpretation is incorrect. So you'd best spell out exactly what is the overlap you claim exists. And if you really want to get technical, both human language and the sequential information in DNA are both to be considered subsets within the Venn diagram of classical/digital information. And classical/digital information is to be considered a subset within the Venn diagram of quantum information. The Venn diagram of classical/digital information? A subset within the Venn diagram of quantum information? Really? Why don't you show us these Venn diagrams so we can get a better idea of what you're talking about. Oh, this is one of the Venn diagrams you are referring to? https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/images/figure1.gif Too funny. Why did they even bother with the diagram? JVL

Bornagain77 at 34, Well said. Well presented. At the molecular level, reactions are sub-atomic, meaning they operate at the quantum level. Starting at the quantum level, they must bridge to the macro level and that involves 'classical information.' Somehow, I'm thinking this system did not appear by accident. relatd

Whatever JVL, your irrational denial to the contrary does not refute the fact that human language clearly has an overlap with the language in DNA in that it was possible to store a, jaw-dropping, massive amount of human language where DNA language normally resides. That, in of itself, clearly refutes FH's grand and sweeping claim that there is no overlap whatsoever. And if you really want to get technical, both human language and the sequential information in DNA are both to be considered subsets within the Venn diagram of classical/digital information. And classical/digital information is to be considered a subset within the Venn diagram of quantum information. In the following site entitled “Quantum Information Science”, a site where Charles Bennett, (of quantum teleportation and reversible computation fame), himself is on the steering committee,

Quantum Information Science Steering Committee C. H. Bennett IBM D. P. DiVincenzo IBM N. Gershenfeld MIT H. M. Gibbs University of Arizona H. J. Kimble Caltech J. Preskill Caltech U. V. Vazirani UC/Berkeley D. J. Wineland NIST C. Yao Princeton University https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/nsf00101.htm

On that site, they have this illustration showing classical information to be a subset of quantum information

Classical Information is a subset of Quantum information – illustration https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/images/figure1.gif below that illustration they have this caption, “Figure 1: The well-established theory of classical information and computation is actually a subset of a much larger topic, the emerging theory of quantum information and computation.”

If you want to argue with Charles Bennett, have at it. Seeing that you are an atheistic troll on a blog and that he is an accomplished scientist with several notable breakthroughs under his belt, my money is certainly on him.

Information is Quantum – Charles Bennett – video 39:30 minute mark: “Entanglement is ubiquitous: Almost every interaction between two systems creates entanglement between them… Most systems in nature… interact so strongly with the environment as to become entangled with it almost immediately.”… 44:00 minute mark: “A classical communications channel is a quantum communication channel with an eavesdropper (maybe only the environment)… A classical computer is a quantum computer handicapped by having eavesdroppers on all its wires.” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/philip-cunningham-offers-information-is-quantum/

Of related note: In the following video, at the 22:20 minute mark, Dr Rieper shows why the high temperatures of biological systems do not prevent DNA from having quantum entanglement and then at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper goes on to remark that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.

“What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state.” Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176

bornagain77

SA at 29, Look at it this way. Your computer was designed and built by accident, by nobody. relatd

FH at 21, When you write that book, send it to some Biologists. relatd

FH at 19, That's fiction. Computers are designed to accept symbols created/designed by humans. relatd

Bornagain77: then encoding human language where DNA language normally resides would simply have been completely impossible. Not at all. As I've already explained you can do it with sequences of any objects or symbols. How about a pebble, a blade of grass, a rose petal and a twig. How many ways can you come up with sequences of three of those allowing repeats? Sixty-four. Then make up a code: twig, twig, twig make that 'a'; twig, twig, pebble make that 'b', etc. Just make it up. Take a Shakespeare play, for each letter lay out a sequence of pebbles and grass and petals and twigs according to the arbitrary code you picked. Not very efficient and a bugger to store but it's the same basic principle. The objects you picked have nothing to do with English. Or any other language. They're just things you can arrange into sequences with repeats. But alas, there definitely is an overlap between human language and DNA language, hence it was possible to encode a jaw-dropingly massive amount of human language onto DNA. DNA is made up of molecules, the molecules have nothing to do with any human language. Biologically certain sequences of those molecules are mapped to certain other molecules but, again, nothing to do with human languages. It ain’t rocket science Einstein! I agree but apparently you didn't understand my examples. Let me ask you: did you bother to find out how the encoding was done? FH made a grand and sweeping claim about “no overlap” whatsoever between human and DNA language which is now shown empirically to simply not be true. Okay, spell out the overlap then. JVL

FH

Given RNA World as precursor, starting with one amino acid and a promiscuous system, sequential evolution of adding additional aminoacids and tRNA synthetases becomes conceivable.

This has been your thesis but you're giving too much power to trial-and-error as a mechanism for building a code sequence. Silver Asiatic

JVL, in spite of your attempt to hand-wave it off as no consequence, if, as FH holds, “There is no overlap between human language and DNA language. None.”, then encoding human language where DNA language normally resides would simply have been completely impossible. But alas, there definitely is an overlap between human language and DNA language, hence it was possible to encode a jaw-dropping massive amount of human language onto DNA. FH made a grand and sweeping claim about "no overlap" whatsoever between human and DNA language which is now shown empirically to simply not be true. It ain't rocket science Einstein! bornagain77

Bornagain77: So please do tell us FH, if there truly is “no overlap between human language and DNA language. None”, then how in blue blazes were the following, (jaw-dropping), experiments even remotely possible? Someone picked different sequences of DNA bases to represent different letters and symbols of a language. You could do it with any four element system. You could use numbers or fruits or types of trees. For example: Take the digits 1, 2, 3, and 4. How many different three digit sequences can you make if you allow repeats? You have four choices for the first digit, four choices for the second digit, and four choices for the third digit. Four times four times four equals sixty-four different three digit sequences. Sixty-four different sequences is plenty to use to represent all the letters and many of the symbols used in English. Take a novel, convert all the letters and symbols in the novel into their corresponding three digit sequences and store the result. The digits and the digit sequences have nothing to do with the English language. Someone just arbitrary picked a correspondence. Someone else could have picked a different correspondence. Same with DNA base pairs. Four bases, grouped in sequences of three, you've got sixty-four different sequences possible. Pick one sequence to stand for 'a', another sequence to stand for 'b' and so on. The sequences have nothing to do with the English language, they're just sequences of molecules. That kind of encoding isn't the most efficient method. Consider something like Morse code, another encoding of the letters of English this time as combinations of dots and dashes. Common letters are represented by fewer dots and dashes which means less overall storage. You could pick different sequences to stand for whole words or even common phrases. If you increased the sequence length to four you'd have two hundred and fifty-six different sequences. Allowing for variable length sequences adds to the available representations. Regardless, picking arbitrary combinations of some things as representations of letters or words or even phrases in a language like English doesn't mean the things have anything to do with English or any language. You're not using the things for their human given names or representations; you're arbitrarily picking combinations to represent parts of a language. The genetic 'code' is a different encoding system of three-long sequences of DNA bases. Arbitrary or not it has nothing to do with English either. JVL

As someone who is currently studying archaeology, I can assure you, this find has enormous implications, not only in terms of our understandings of Israelite beliefs (e.g., reaffirming long held biblical traditions), but that the idea of the curse tablet, as a means of revenge, is far older than previously recognized. In fact, one could now argue that the curse tablet has its origins in ancient Israeli, not Ancient Greece. A truly extraordinary find. KRock

PS, the assembled AAs with further processing form the proteins that are cellular workhorses, including in the metabolic network. Again, an objection of needless hyperskepticism on matters that are generally uncontroversial. kairosfocus

FH, that universal tool tip is an aspect of the drexler assembler. Absent the full set of 20 or so tRNAs no one tRNA is useful, we need an alphabet to compose messages and contingency is pivotal to an alphabet. Your attempted gotcha fails. KF kairosfocus

FH, the glyphs are artifacts that represent the coded information, thus there is an embedding in the machine code and at lower layer in the actual hardware; obviously, the same can be put in ink on a page, though I would not trust an OCR system to read text and then give assembly code. Back in the day, some of the Apollo code was hand compiled as machine compilers were not then sufficiently trustworthy. To give an idea, at the next level up from machine code, assembly language represents machine code in a mnemonic, somewhat human readable form, ADD A, B, Add contents of accumulator registers A and B using the implied arithmetic and logic unit, storing the result in an implied register and tripping implied flags in a flag bit register etc. Does anyone here remember HINZVC? Then, we see that a very good definition of a computer's design, its architecture [and that is the term], is the assembly language view of the computer. None of this is controversial, but you are acting as though it is dubious as it manifestly leads where you do not wish to go. KF kairosfocus

Fred Hickson at 13 makes the bold, and utterly fallacious, claim, "There is no overlap between human language and DNA language. None." So please do tell us FH, if there truly is "no overlap between human language and DNA language. None", then how in blue blazes were the following, (jaw-dropping), experiments even remotely possible?

Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram - Sebastian Anthony - August 17, 2012 Excerpt: A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times.,,, Just think about it for a moment: One gram of DNA can store 700 terabytes of data. That’s 14,000 50-gigabyte Blu-ray discs… in a droplet of DNA that would fit on the tip of your pinky. To store the same kind of data on hard drives — the densest storage medium in use today — you’d need 233 3TB drives, weighing a total of 151 kilos. In Church and Kosuri’s case, they have successfully stored around 700 kilobytes of data in DNA — Church’s latest book, in fact — and proceeded to make 70 billion copies (which they claim, jokingly, makes it the best-selling book of all time!) totaling 44 petabytes of data stored. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134672-harvard-cracks-dna-storage-crams-700-terabytes-of-data-into-a-single-gram? Researchers storing information securely in DNA - July 11, 2016 Excerpt: Bachand was inspired by the recording of all of Shakespeare's sonnets into 2.5 million base pairs of DNA—about half the genome of the tiny E. coli bacterium. Using this method, the group at the European Bioinformatics Institute could theoretically store 2.2 petabytes of information—200 times the printed material in the Library of Congress—in one gram of DNA. http://phys.org/news/2016-07-dna.html Scientists Have Stored a Movie, a Computer OS, and an Amazon Gift Card in a Single Speck of DNA "The highest-density data-storage device ever created." - Peter Dockrill - 7 Mar 2017 Excerpt: In turn, Erlich and fellow researcher Dina Zielinski from the New York Genome Centre now say their own coding strategy is 100 times more efficient than the 2012 standard, and capable of recording 215 petabytes of data on a single gram of DNA. For context, just 1 petabyte is equivalent to 13.3 years' worth of high-definition video, so if you feel like glancing disdainfully at the external hard drive on your computer desk right now, we won't judge. http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-stored-a-movie-a-computer-os-and-an-amazon-gift-card-in-a-single-speck-of-dna

And again, "no serious biologist post-Watson and Crick has denied that DNA and RNA contain functional information expressed in a digital form — information that directs the construction of functional proteins (and editing of RNA molecules).

Denying the Signature: Functional Information Is the Fact to Be Explained Stephen C. Meyer - November 19, 2015 Excerpt: As my colleague Casey Luskin has established, no serious biologist post-Watson and Crick has denied that DNA and RNA contain functional information expressed in a digital form — information that directs the construction of functional proteins (and editing of RNA molecules). Thus, contra Bishop and O’Connor, my characterization of DNA and RNA as molecules that store functional or specified information is not even remotely controversial within mainstream biology. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/denying_the_sig_2/

In short, FH is denying reality, which is par for the course for Darwinists. To wit:

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,,

It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

bornagain77

...chemically any AA is compatible with any tRNA...

Bingo. The ancestral situation. Hence my "One!"answer to UB. Given RNA World as precursor, starting with one amino acid and a promiscuous system, sequential evolution of adding additional aminoacids and tRNA synthetases becomes conceivable. Fred Hickson

PPS, there is no physical correlation between certain sounds and particular meanings, or between glyphs on paper or screen etc and meanings, symbolism is an uncontroversial part of natural -- not "human" [computer languages, too are human languages] -- languages. All of this is commonplace, your objections come across as stilted. kairosfocus

In fact, show me where symbolism is involved in machine code. The concept is in your head, not in the workings of the computer. Fred Hickson

KF, fine but nothing to do with DNA and metabolism. Show me where there is symbolism in metabolism. Fred Hickson

FH, your answer tells me no, Fortran is high level language, typical machine code is 1s and 0s or hex codes equivalent to same; the Russians did at least one series of computers using ternary elements. I loved my old 6809E. There is no need for there to be deep understanding accessible to us as to what the particular stringing will do, any more than for the code in autocad to specify the function of the machine being drawn; that is the designer's business. The code says, initiate, add methionine, add next aa, etc, instructing the robosome-tRNA system using mRNA [often edited] to assemble AA chains, and of course there are the stop codons implementing halt. We have here SVO, key elements of sentences. Further, we have algorithms at machine readable level, with start, steps, halting. Your demand for a dictionary on sophisticated polymenr chemistry is a red herring distraction. KF PS, As for symbolism, you full well know the use of three letter codons and how tRNA's are loaded with AA on the CCA end, the AARS specifying which AA for which tRNA [the CCA tip is universal so chemically any AA is compatible with any tRNA] , that is not a serious objection. The code is in the sequence of bases and codons. As has been on the table for 50 - 70 years, and as UB has pointed out also, much less any number of works. kairosfocus

KF, I'll make it easy for you. I'll assume for the moment that human language involves symbols (I'm far from convinced about this but as I see no connection between human language and DNA sequences, let it drop). What symbolism is there in the process of DNA to protein transcription/translation? Fred Hickson

FH, have you ever written a serious piece of machine code?

Yes, I'm old enough to have written Fortran on punched cards for an IBM mainframe. When you have a computer program which can predict protein sequences that will result in protein functions... But from the small sample of what you write here that I read, I get the impression your understanding of molecular biology is slight. This perhaps is why you are drawn to this unhelpful comparison. Fred Hickson

FH, have you ever written a serious piece of machine code? If you have and if you were fair, you would agree that we are looking at machine code here, expressive of algorithms with initialisation, start, stepwise succession and halting. You may find this hard to swallow, but that is language, it is symbolic representation of subjects, objects and actions to be taken, using glyphs. It makes no difference to the code level that the hardware is molecular nanotech by someone expert in polymer chemistry and physics. This should not be in the remotest degree controversial in an information age, but we can take this as the move of hyperskepticism in absence of any reasonable means to assign design to blind chance and mechanical necessity, as in your stunt on oh the environment is the designer. KF PS, Wikipedia concedes:

A language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means of communication of humans, and can be conveyed through speech (spoken language), sign, or writing. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation. Human language is unique among the known systems of animal communication in that it is not dependent on a single mode of transmission (sight, sound, etc.), is highly variable between cultures and across time, and affords a much wider range of expression than other systems.[1]

kairosfocus

Arguing about what a language is is a waste of energy. You can use "DNA language" to refer to DNA sequences if you like. When I use language, I am referring to "human language". There is no overlap between human language and DNA language. None. Fred Hickson

FH, "the genetic code is still not a language." Yet,

As for any other language, the language of DNA is composed of an alphabet and grammar. Four letters (base pairs) make up the genetic alphabet: A, T, G, C; and a gene is nothing more than a word, that is a sequence of those letters like TCGATTAGG… http://www.fetfx.eu/story/do-you-speak-dna/

Moreover, Darwinists are clueless as to how the genetic code, much less the 'language' of the genetic code, came about. In fact, there is a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can prove that unguided material processes can produce a code.

An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at www.evo2.org.,,, "A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days," said Marshall. "One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they'd set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity." https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

bornagain77

BA77 But the genetic code is still not a language. Can you explain, in your own words, what connects the sequences found in the DNA of living organisms and the metabolism of those organisms and how that is analogous to human language? Fred Hickson

FH, "The genetic code,,, is not a langage. This is a misleadingly and distractingly poor analogy." Fred, Denial is NOT a river in Egypt.

Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life - Hubert P. Yockey, 2005 Excerpt: “Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.” http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521802932&ss=exc The Digital Code of DNA - 2003 - Leroy Hood & David Galas Excerpt: The discovery of the structure of DNA transformed biology profoundly, catalysing the sequencing of the human genome and engendering a new view of biology as an information science. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6921/full/nature01410.html Denying the Signature: Functional Information Is the Fact to Be Explained - Stephen C. Meyer - November 19, 2015 Excerpt: As my colleague Casey Luskin has established, no serious biologist post-Watson and Crick has denied that DNA and RNA contain functional information expressed in a digital form -- information that directs the construction of functional proteins (and editing of RNA molecules). Thus, contra Bishop and O'Connor, my characterization of DNA and RNA as molecules that store functional or specified information is not even remotely controversial within mainstream biology. Nor is my judgment controversial that the gene expression system (the system by which proteins are synthesized in accord with the information stored on the DNA molecule) constitutes an information processing system. That is what the network of proteins and RNA molecules involved in the gene-expression system do: They process (that is copy, translate, and express) the information stored within the DNA molecule. The information processing systems present in the cell may well be much more precise than those that human computer engineers have designed, but that does not mean that describing the gene expression system as an information processing system is inaccurate. Describing the gene expression system as an information processing system is not to employ a metaphor. It is to describe what the system does -- again, to process (or express) genetic information. ,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/denying_the_sig_2101021.html Complex grammar of the genomic language – November 9, 2015 Excerpt: The ‘grammar’ of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher,,, ,,, in their recent study in Nature, the Taipale team examines the binding preferences of pairs of transcription factors, and systematically maps the compound DNA words they bind to. Their analysis reveals that the grammar of the genetic code is much more complex than that of even the most complex human languages. Instead of simply joining two words together by deleting a space, the individual words that are joined together in compound DNA words are altered, leading to a large number of completely new words. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109140252.htm

bornagain77

Perhaps that is a challenge for ID proponents; write the ID handbook, the predictor that equates DNA sequences to protein functions, before the fact. Fred Hickson

There is no dictionary to look up DNA sequences that tell us what the properties of the protein synthesized from that template will have. We only know what that is when the protein is synthesized and in an environment where its functions can be assessed, or as with evolution, selected by that environment. Fred Hickson

KF The genetic code, practically universal in organisms that exist today, is not a langage. This is a misleadingly and distractingly poor analogy. Fred Hickson

BA77 [attn FH et al}: The problem is actually much deeper. The first text, we can trace through the cells in our bodies, i.e. the string data structure algorithmic D/RNA code in our cells. This points to Chapter zero of earth history, history being a reasoned, objective account of the past on evidence, primarily textual evidence. Computer code, reflecting language and goal directed stepwise process, further based on deep understanding of polymer chemistry and physics. This, in a cosmos fine tuned for c-chem, aqueous medium, cell based life. That speaks to design of cosmos, of world, of cell based life, of forms of cell based life including our own. Transformative, given the dominant a priori Lewontin-style evolutionary materialistic scientism of recent generations. KF kairosfocus

Fred Hickson, if you are somehow trying to support an 'evolutionary' account for the origin of human language, you are going to be sorely disappointed. An impressive who’s who list of leading ‘Darwinian’ experts in the area of language research, after decades of extensive research, authored a paper in which they honestly admitted that they have, "a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved."

Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Casey Luskin added: “It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html

As Robert Berwick & Noam Chomsky noted elsewhere, "The human language faculty is a species-specific property, with no known group differences and little variation.,,, There is no evidence that great apes, however sophisticated, have any of the crucial distinguishing features of language and ample evidence that they do not.48 Claims made in favor of their semantic powers, we might observe, are wrong."

The Siege of Paris - Robert Berwick & Noam Chomsky - March 2019 Excerpt: Linguists told themselves many stories about the evolution of language, and so did evolutionary biologists; but stories, as Richard Lewontin rightly notes, are not hypotheses, a term that should be “reserved for assertions that can be tested.”4 The human language faculty is a species-specific property, with no known group differences and little variation. There are no significant analogues or homologues to the human language faculty in other species.5,,, How far back does language go? There is no evidence of significant symbolic activity before the appearance of anatomically modern humans 200 thousand years ago (kya).22,,, There is no evidence that great apes, however sophisticated, have any of the crucial distinguishing features of language and ample evidence that they do not.48 Claims made in favor of their semantic powers, we might observe, are wrong. Recent research reveals that the semantic properties of even the simplest words are radically different from anything in animal symbolic systems.49,,, Why only us?,,, We were not, of course, the first to ask them. We echo in modern terms the Cartesian philosophers Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot, seventeenth-century authors of the Port-Royal Grammar, for whom language with its infinite combinatorial capacity wrought from a finite inventory of sounds was uniquely human and the very foundation of thought. It is subtle enough to express all that we can conceive, down to the innermost and “diverse movements of our souls.” https://inference-review.com/article/the-siege-of-paris Robert Berwick is a Professor in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems at MIT. Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at MIT.

What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create information, (and have come to ‘master the planet’ precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrates), is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis.

"The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena." Vlatko Vedral - Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College

And just like Darwinists have no clue how humans acquired language, (and as ID proponents have been pointing out to Darwinists for years), Darwinists also have no realistic clue how the 'language' in DNA got there.

Information Enigma (Where did the information in life come from?) - - Stephen Meyer - Doug Axe - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g Complex grammar of the genomic language – November 9, 2015 Excerpt: The ‘grammar’ of the human genetic code is more complex than that of even the most intricately constructed spoken languages in the world. The findings explain why the human genome is so difficult to decipher –,,, ,,, in their recent study in Nature, the Taipale team examines the binding preferences of pairs of transcription factors, and systematically maps the compound DNA words they bind to. Their analysis reveals that the grammar of the genetic code is much more complex than that of even the most complex human languages. Instead of simply joining two words together by deleting a space, the individual words that are joined together in compound DNA words are altered, leading to a large number of completely new words. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109140252.htm

It is hard to imagine a more convincing scientific proof that we are ‘made in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and, moreover, have come to ‘master the planet’, not via brute force as is presupposed in Darwinian thought, but precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrate. Verses

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men.

Of course, a more convincing proof that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, and then defeated death itself on a cross in order to prove that he was God. And that just so happens to be precisely the proof that is claimed within Christianity.

Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to 3-D Hologram - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis The evidence for the Shroud's authenticity keeps growing stronger. (Timeline of facts) - November 08, 2019 What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know - Myra Adams and Russ Breault https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html

bornagain77

1200BC? Humans have been leaving their marks long before that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-writing and they've been signing their paintings long before that. Fred Hickson

"The potentially history-changing lead tablet that was found at Mount Ebal may provide proof that the Israelites were literate when they entered the Holy Land." This highlights a HUGE difference between the evolutionary view of man and the biblical view of humans. Evolutionists tell us that early man were stupid, half-evolved, ignorant beings who spent hundreds of thousands of years in caves before one of them finally came up with the idea of farming and riding horses, etc. They talked with grunts early on as language slowly developed, etc. But the Bible gives us a totally different picture of the first humans. They could speak and write from early on. They were farmers from the beginning and metal workers, musicians, city builders, etc from early on. They were not ignoramuses living in caves with a half evolved monkey brain and speaking ability. Whether or not this particular archeological find provides clear evidence that the Israelites were literate when they entered the Promised Land or not, that is what the Bible records. Humans were humans from the beginning created in the image of God, able to have a relationship with Him and with each other from the beginning - which included language and writing. tjguy

Dear Paxx, There is only one supreme being - God. There cannot be more than one supreme being. If there were more than one supreme being then they, he, she, it etc. wouldn't be supreme. So, not God. Thanks for playing! ronvanwegen

You mean Israel's god. There are lot of gods with different names. Paxx