Now that's a good summary of your posting history.

Lagtight, you could take this as an opportunity to tell Alter2Ego what SJG had to say about creationists quote-mining him like this.

A lot of scientists get to the genetic code being written like a book and it brings them back to believing in God bc there’s literally no way the book wrote itself.

I would be interested in seeing anything to suggest that this kind of reasoning has swayed anything like a significant number of scientists. It sounds like an argument you've heard someone make and are projecting that it must be convincing to many.

Calling DNA a book is yet another analogy. But DNA isn't actually a book. Books are made of paper. It's not a language, languages are for communication between agents. It's not even a code in some stricter definitions.

It's a group of chemicals that interact, and we describe it in different ways. But whether it's the type of thing that requires agency is the very thing you're being asked to establish.

I can get why books need a publisher. Now explain how DNA is like the book. Just stating the analogy doesn't help me get there.

I doubt your first statement there.

But just as I can't prove the non-existence of god, no one can prove the non-existence of a way for life to come from non-life. Sorry if you don't see this. Ergo, the original statement is false.

It literally is a code or sentence of the 4 nucleotides written like a book to make up your dna.

This isn’t even debatable science either.. we can argue over God and science all day long. But the simple FACT is the genetic code is written like a book.

So who wrote the book???

No, not literally. Figuratively. There's no pen or typewriter or word processing software involved so it's not written like a book. It doesn't have pages. It doesn't have an author's name written on it. It's not communicating between conscious agents. It's not a language. It's not symbolic. That's all analogical.

Don't ask me "who" when the very thing in dispute is whether a "who" is required.

Some people wrongly think that Biblical Creation says that God created humans from nothing, like we popped up from "thin air". In fact, the Book of Genesis doesn't say that at all. Everything else in the universe, except humans, was created from nothingness or from something unspecified. But for humans, the Book says that Adam was uniquely created from "dust" rather than nothingness. (I mentioned this in an earlier post). "Dust" is not thin air and it is not nothing either. Why the exception? Why does the Book of Genesis go to the trouble of specifying this? Why choose "dust" over nothingness or over some purely inorganic material? Well, what dust is composed of ? We know that dust typically contains non-living materials and, more importantly, dust typically contains microorganisms. For example one study of African outdoor dust found the most abundant bacterial species, during the dust event, grouped in three different phyla: (a) Proteobacteria: Rhizobiales, Sphingomonadales, Rhodobacterales, (b) Actinobacteria: Geodermatophilaceae; (c) Firmicutes: Bacillaceae.

Could it be that as a way to create humans God decided to invigorate other living things, namely microorganisms? Choosing "dust" instead of some totally dead substance or instead of nothingness would make sense if that were the plan. So the Book of Genesis' account could very well imply that we humans are descended from microorganisms. This belief is also in accordance with the Theory of Evolution, while the "thin air" creation myth conflicts with the Bible. Bible literalists should take note.

You should listen to yourself. And also perhaps read an actual book on ToE?

Beau ur good at taking things out of context.. which just shows all your posts are misguided.

My understanding on TOE can’t be used as proof anyways.

Dig deeper!

You could take it even further. While I don’t believe for one second that there was any scientific insight in the oral traditions of the Hebrews that later became compiled into the Genesis creation account, it is possible to reconcile it with much of what modern science says about the origin of the universe. You just can’t take it literally, and you have to realize that the Genesis account is a fable, a story serving a moral purpose, not necessarily a totally realistic account.

First of all, Genesis says it took God six days to create everything. Why? God is omnipotent; presumably just by divine will it could all have been done instantly. What is the message behind the fact that it was done in six days instead? Remember, we’re dropping the literal reading here, so the true message is that creation was not an event, but a process. Everything did not instantly spring forth as we now see it, but rather developed over time. Since it’s not a science book, the details are omitted as to how long it took (plus the Hebrews likely would have had no real understanding of the number 13.7 billion or any way of even expressing such a large value).

The first day: “Let there be light”. Well, the first “day” in our universe corresponds to the Big Bang and the inflationary universe. At the earliest moments after the Big Bang, the universe was dominated by radiation. It’s would not have been visible light, but gamma rays at the high energies imvolved, but close enough, especially to prescientific people who would not have understood what gamma rays are and that they are light that has a wavelength too short to be seen.

Second day: creation of the firmament - corresponds to creation of matter/antimatter pairs from the energetic radiation filling the universe. Third day - starts to get a bit more convoluted since plants were created and we aren’t there yet in a scientific account, but gathering the waters and creation of lights in the firmament could correspond to the vcombination of electrons and protons to form neutral atoms, which made the universe transparent to light.

From there the correspondences become more obvious; creation of the stars and sun corresponds to scientific models of stellar formation. Days 5 and 6, dealing with creation of animals and humans correspond to evolution.

Again, I’m not suggesting any accuracy in the Genesis story; the story was not intended to be accurate scientifically. The point is that it is possible to reconcile religious belief with scientific accounts of the universe. Believers would be much more convincing if they did not deny scientific reality and instead look to reconcile with it. Science is necessarily mute on the existence of any deity; it does not imply atheism as many theists on here seem to think.

Life is non-uniform acceleration.

Totally agree.
There are essays on the web that demolish the Genesis account of creation when taken as strictly scientific. There is no need to repeat them here. But when taken mostly as poetry or an allegory, IMHO Genesis is fine literature with deep meaning.

Hey thanks!

Oh nooo!

Errr, proof of what?

Now I'm really confused. What am I digging for?

Bladesman87:

Telling us that DNA is merely "a group of chemicals that interact" is a poor attempt at minimizing the fact that the DNA is a code. Your attempt failed, and here's why:

Credible science has repeatedly confirmed that DNA is code. Do you understand the significance of DNA being a CODE?

Let us know.


Alter2Ego


________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

Saying "nuh-uh" isn't much of a refutation. Credible science(TM) calling it a code is purely an analogy and the reactions are driven by thermodynamics, electrostatic interactions, etc. I'd like to hear your explanation of the significance of DNA actually being a code because you've got a lot of work in front you to prove that it is.

Alchemist:

If that is the best response you can come up with, I strongly advise that you wait for Bladesman87 to help you out. Perhaps the two of you can DREAM UP something that says DNA is a not a code.

"​Genetic Code

The instructions in a gene that tell the cell how to make a specific protein. A, C, G, and T are the "letters" of the DNA code; they stand for the chemicals adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T), respectively, that make up the nucleotide bases of DNA. Each gene's code combines the four chemicals in various ways to spell out three-letter "words" that specify which amino acid is needed at every step in making a protein."
https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Genetic-Code

You and Bladesman87 have got your work cut out convincing any sane person that DNA is not a code.


I will wait.


Alter2Ego


________________
"That people may know that you, whose name is JEHOVAH, you alone are the Most High over all the earth." ~ Psalms 83:18

And here is the error. If we zoom in with a microscope on to some DNA, what do you think we see? It's not tiny letters. It's a mishmash of chemicals doing what chemicals do and reacting with each other.

The genetic code, written using the symbols A, C, G, and T, is a code. But DNA itself is not. This is a map for the territory error. The genetic code is a representation of DNA but it is NOT DNA itself.

Now this is, in almost all circumstances, a total nitpick. We describe DNA as a code, we talking about coding and non-coding RNA/DNA and whatever. It's common language, and it's scientific language, and it has a meaning well understood and I take no issue with it.

The only time I ever have to bring this up is when people start to make inferences like "DNA is a code therefore there must be a coder". Then it's important to point out that DNA is NOT a code in that sense of the word. When a cell replicates its DNA it isn't "communicating" in the way agents do. It isn't having a covert conversation through symbols. It's a chemical reaction. The "code" is what we humans have created to describe and explain that reaction. We've given the entirely arbitrary letter A to one chemical, and C to another. It isn't written on the DNA itself.