Snare / Rackets' claims
I think you meant Apognophos' claims? Unless Snare said the same thing earlier and I didn't catch it.
about the dna code not really being a code, and the information storage capacity just giving the appearance of such is marginalized by statements by many within his own camp:
I don't understand. You quoted Dawkins after this, talking about how much information (data) there is in a cell. My point was that the data is the primary component of the strands of DNA or RNA, and that the process that allows cell division is the code. So talking about how muuuuuch data there is in the cell does not marginalize or even relate to my statement.
Also, most of the people who talk about DNA are not computer scientists and so they use the word "code" loosely; therefore, just because they call the entirety of DNA "code" does not defeat my point. You would first have to understand the difference between "data" and "code" to appraise what I'm saying and compare it to statements by scientists, and while I assumed you would understand this difference when I was making my post, I'm no longer sure that you do.
Cell biologists understand how the DNA works (better than I do), but they aren't attempting to speak in precise computer terms like I was earlier. My point in doing so was to delineate the difference between the tons of data that is in the cell, which naturally accreted over countless generations, and the process of making new cells using this data, which has likely not changed much in billions of years.
DNA information requires a complex decoding machine, the ribosome, but the instructions to build ribosomes are on the DNA - How Did That Just Happen?
I am pretty sure there are theories to answer this. I have to devote some real time to reading up on this once every waking hour of my day doesn't center around trying to build a new life for myself, and in the meantime pretending to be a Witness. The gist of the answer is probably that chemical reactions started things going, and they gradually became more complex. Imagine taping a strip of paper together to form a circle, then progressively making more kinks in the circle and cutting notches in it. The one rule is that if you accidentally snip too far and break the loop, you have to start over again with a new circle.
Now, someone could look at the end result -- a complex, somewhat random loop shape -- and say, "There's no way that could just happen"... but it didn't. Only the circle needed to be completed (in the metaphor, this circle is a simple chemical reaction that perpetually feeds off the environment, forming the first predecessor of the modern cell), and everything that happened after that was just a series of tweaks to that circle. If the circle of cell reproduction had been broken by any tweaks, those cell lines would die out and be replaced by the ones whose processes mutated over time in ways that aided their reproduction instead of hurting it.
“We now know that the secret of life lies not with the chemical ingredients as such, but with the logical structure and organisational arrangement of the molecules…. Like a supercomputer, life is an information processing system…. It is the software of the living cell that is the real mystery, not the hardware.”
He further writes:
“How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software? … Nobody knows … ” [Life force, New Scientist 163 (2204):27–30, 18 September 1999.
This is rather misleading. We are still working on understanding the effects of each gene in DNA, but the overall process is much less mysterious than this makes it sound. The proof is in all the books that have been published on this topic. I'll give you a hint, those hundreds of pages aren't blank; when you open a book about cells to page 1, it doesn't say, "It's a mystery. The End." and the rest is just white space. Scientists know a lot about how DNA works.
Snare, I believe it was, already mentioned earlier that molecules have a natural attraction to each other based on the laws of chemistry. Surely you learned this in school, Perry. Atoms did not write their own software, they gathered into molecules, and the molecules began reacting in a self-sustaining way. The end result can be compared to software and hardware, but it's really just a chemical process from start to finish. The atoms did not need any intelligence to end up this way.
‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
Let me explain why this quote makes a science-minded person want to smash their head against a wall. We would not have modern technology if people did not think this way. The very fact that you can interact with us on this forum is due to materialists who built computers and networks. Some of them may have believed in God, but none of them relied on that belief to figure out the universe. They started with the assumption that everything in this universe, whether created by intelligence or not, would be understandable if examined. That's what materialism means. It means, not assuming that God formed cells with his bare hands, but that a natural process formed them. That doesn't mean God didn't design the process; it just means assuming that we can understand what he, or the universe, made.
Frankly, if God exists, he probably would have used much more clever means to create life than making each animal, plant, etc. on its own, as in Genesis. He would have an efficient method of deriving complexity from simple inputs, like the fractal algorithm I mentioned earlier. It's also possible that everything formed without an intelligent guide, because we don't know how many universes existed before this one, so we have no way to state that the odds are just too long for X or Y to happen by chance. Either way, God or no God, we are able to manipulate the environment we find ourselves in, and improve our quality of life, but only by first studying the environment diligently, painstakingly.
Scientists reject the idea of God only within a laboratory setting, when trying to understand cause and effect. It is this stubborn devotion to materialism that took us from cave-dwelling to the modern world. If everyone bowed down to the fires that started in nature, as the gods that they obviously were, we would still be bowing down to fire gods and throwing rocks at each other. Thankfully, a handful of people thought, "There must be a way to harness this. This isn't just some act of a god, there are laws that govern this. If we can understand it, we can make this fire work for our benefit."
So, if you want to turn your nose up at materialism and not be a hypocrite, then I strongly suggest you turn off your computer, throw it out, and stop seeing doctors for health problems. Don't take advantage of anything modern society offers, because it's all based on a heretical mindset that you disapprove of (and don't understand).
