The origin of DNA, is it due to Evolution, or design ?
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1809-dna-is-designed
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that stores genetic information. It is found in almost every cell of every living thing on the planet. As you read the following information about dna ask yourself this question: could randomness and time produce this?
Incredible storage capacity
The information storage capacity of DNA is vast; a microgram (one millionth of a gram) of DNA theoretically could store as much information as 1 million compact discs. And all that storage is packed into a cell nucleus, whose volume is only a few millionths of a cubic metre!
Is it feasible that a storage mechanism better than anything man has made can come about by purely naturalistic means?
Replication
For a cell to divide it must first replicate it’s dna.
Watch this amazing simulation of dna replication:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jtmOZaIvS0
Incredible right?
All cells must replicate for an organism to survive. How did the replication machinery come into existence?
How does the machinery know how to unwind the dna?
How does the machinery know that one of the strands is backwards? and that it has to copy it in loops?
DNA repair
Unfortunately the dna in cells gets damaged everyday by such things as uv light and radiation. Fortunately, we have special machines that can repair our dna. So far, 130 repair mechanisms have been identified.
With 3 billion letters in the dna strand there is a lot of checking to be done. Amazingly, unbroken DNA will conduct electricity, while an error will block the current. One pair of enzymes lock onto different parts of a DNA strand. One of them sends an electron down the strand. If the DNA is unbroken, the electron reaches the other enzyme, and causes it to detach. I.e. this process scans the region of DNA between them, and if it’s clean, there is no need for repairs.
But if there is a break, the electron doesn’t reach the second enzyme. This enzyme then moves along the strand until it reaches the error, and fixes it. This mechanism of repair seems to be present in all living things, from bacteria to man.
How did a repair mechanism evolve to check the electrical conductivity of the dna?
DNA is being damaged all the time therefore dna and dna repair had to evolve at the same time?
DNA is code
DNA is made up of 4 chemicals: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine. These 4 chemicals are the letters (A,T,C and G) of the dna code language. The human dna code is 3 billion letters long.
Although DNA code is remarkably complex,it’s the information translation system connected to that code that really baffles evolutionists. Like any language, letters and words mean nothing outside the language convention used to give those letters and words meaning. For example, you can read the information on this page because there is a common understanding or agreement of what the words mean. However, this page will be gibberish to anyone who does not know how to read english. It’s the same with dna and proteins. The instructions for how to build proteins are built into the dna. The machine that builds the proteins has to read the instructions but it can only do that if it understands the meaning of the instructions…
Protein sysnthesis
Cells need to make proteins for pretty much everything they do. The DNA contains the instructions for how to build proteins. Watch this amazing simulation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erOP76_qLWA
Isn’t that astounding? Just some questions that should be asked:
How did the instructions to make the required protein get into the dna?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know where in the dna to find the instructions to make the required protein?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know how to unwind the dna?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know to make a copy of the instructions?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know what a ‘stop code’ means?
How does the ribosome understand the instructions on the ‘messenger rna’?
If accurate folding of the protein is essential then how did the Chaperonin know the right way to fold the protein?
DNA is required to make proteins… but proteins are required to build proteins from the dna instructions. So, which came first?
Based on these scientific facts, i infere, DNA is designed.
Common objections :
Is intelligent design merely an "argument from ignorance?"
No. Some critics have misunderstood intelligent design and claimed that it is merely claims that because we can't figure out how some biological structures could have arisen, therefore they were probably designed. The argument for design is not like this. In reality, the argument notes that intelligent design theory is a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of specified (or irreducibly) complex information, and thus argues from positive predictions of design. The lack of detailed step-by-step evolutionary explanations for the origin of irreducible complexity is the result of the fact that irreducible complexity is fundamentally not evolvable by Darwinian evolution.
Argument from incredulity:
"Incredulous" basically means "I don't believe it". Well, there's a big difference between "not believing" that an actual animal, plant, phenomenon etc. *exists*, versus believing a certain "just so" story about HOW it came to exist.
That is the THING that we are incredulous about - a *certain scenario* (Neo-Darwinism) that's only *imagined* about how various amazing abilities of animals and plants happened all by themselves, defying known and reasonable principles of the limited range of mutations and Natural Selection.
The atheist is "incredulous" that God could exist, beyond and behind our entire space-time continuum, who is our Creator. But there is nothing ridiculous about that - especially if you can't personally examine reality to that depth - how do you know nature is all that exists ?
What IS ridiculous (IMO) is trying to imagine a *naturalistic origin* of these things. ORIGIN is not the same as OPERATION. To study how biology works today, is entirely different from giving a *plausible* account of how it came about to be in the first place.
If someone is giving you an *implausible* story of how something could have happened, you have every right to be "incredulous" about the story, until its shown how it's plausible.
There is a big difference between 'not believing' something that can be demonstrated every day, and 'not believing' something that has NEVER been demonstrated - ever - such as Abiogenesis or macro change .
THE proponents of naturalism are the ones who have the explaining to do, after they have removed (for purely philosophical reasons) all the abilities of Intelligent Agency (God) out of their toolkit. They are just left with primordial gases, and lots of time for things to bump around.
They are the ones who need explain all we see today, on the basis of that empty toolkit. Its not wrong to ask that from them.
Bad design:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/faq/#nobdesn
Bad Design Means No Design
This argument assumes an infallible knowledge of the design process.
Some, for example, point to the cruelty in nature, arguing that no self respecting designer would set things up that way. But that need not be the case. It may well be that the designer chose to create an “optimum design” or a “robust and adaptable design” rather than a “perfect design.” Perhaps some animals or creatures behave exactly the way they do to enhance the ecology in ways that we don’t know about. Perhaps the “apparent” destructive behavior of some animals provides other animals with an advantage in order to maintain balance in nature or even to change the proportions of the animal population.
Under such circumstances, the “bad design” argument is not an argument against design at all. It is a premature — and, at times, a presumptuous — judgment on the sensibilities of the designer. Coming from theistic evolutionists, who claim to be “devout” Christians, this objection is therefore especially problematic. For, as believers within the Judeo-Christian tradition they are committed to the doctrine of original sin, through which our first parents disobeyed God and compromised the harmonious relationship between God and man. Accordingly, this break between the creator and the creature affected the relationship between men, animals, and the universe, meaning that the perfect design was rendered imperfect. A spoiled design is not a bad design.
There are other alternatives we have not figured out yet :
Pretend you wake up in the morning and there's a birthday cake sitting on your kitchen table, and it just happens to be your birthday. What do you think? You ask yourself, "Where did this cake come from?" There are only a couple of possibilities, theoretically. It could have just materialized out of nowhere on your kitchen table coincidentally on your birthday. It could have just "poofed" into existence. I guess that would be in the realm of theoretic possibilities. Or maybe a great, hot, wet wind blew through your neighbor's kitchen gathering up a bunch of ingredients and kind of accidentally baked a cake that landed on your table. The fact that it happened on your birthday is a coincidence. I guess that would be "possible" too. The cake could have come out of nowhere, or could have just assembled itself by chance. Or the other alternative would be that a person baked the cake for you and dropped it off in the middle of the night.
Now here's the trick. When faced with limited options you don't have the liberty not to believe something. If you reject the idea that somebody baked the cake for you, you must assert in its place that the cake either materialized out of nothing or formed itself by accident. When you reject one option you are asserting an alternate option when all the options are clear.
1. The origin of the universe, its fine tuning, and the arise of life and biodiversity is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160120021147/http://goddidit.org:80/dna/
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1809-dna-is-designed
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that stores genetic information. It is found in almost every cell of every living thing on the planet. As you read the following information about dna ask yourself this question: could randomness and time produce this?
Incredible storage capacity
The information storage capacity of DNA is vast; a microgram (one millionth of a gram) of DNA theoretically could store as much information as 1 million compact discs. And all that storage is packed into a cell nucleus, whose volume is only a few millionths of a cubic metre!
Is it feasible that a storage mechanism better than anything man has made can come about by purely naturalistic means?
Replication
For a cell to divide it must first replicate it’s dna.
Watch this amazing simulation of dna replication:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jtmOZaIvS0
Incredible right?
All cells must replicate for an organism to survive. How did the replication machinery come into existence?
How does the machinery know how to unwind the dna?
How does the machinery know that one of the strands is backwards? and that it has to copy it in loops?
DNA repair
Unfortunately the dna in cells gets damaged everyday by such things as uv light and radiation. Fortunately, we have special machines that can repair our dna. So far, 130 repair mechanisms have been identified.
With 3 billion letters in the dna strand there is a lot of checking to be done. Amazingly, unbroken DNA will conduct electricity, while an error will block the current. One pair of enzymes lock onto different parts of a DNA strand. One of them sends an electron down the strand. If the DNA is unbroken, the electron reaches the other enzyme, and causes it to detach. I.e. this process scans the region of DNA between them, and if it’s clean, there is no need for repairs.
But if there is a break, the electron doesn’t reach the second enzyme. This enzyme then moves along the strand until it reaches the error, and fixes it. This mechanism of repair seems to be present in all living things, from bacteria to man.
How did a repair mechanism evolve to check the electrical conductivity of the dna?
DNA is being damaged all the time therefore dna and dna repair had to evolve at the same time?
DNA is code
DNA is made up of 4 chemicals: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine. These 4 chemicals are the letters (A,T,C and G) of the dna code language. The human dna code is 3 billion letters long.
Although DNA code is remarkably complex,it’s the information translation system connected to that code that really baffles evolutionists. Like any language, letters and words mean nothing outside the language convention used to give those letters and words meaning. For example, you can read the information on this page because there is a common understanding or agreement of what the words mean. However, this page will be gibberish to anyone who does not know how to read english. It’s the same with dna and proteins. The instructions for how to build proteins are built into the dna. The machine that builds the proteins has to read the instructions but it can only do that if it understands the meaning of the instructions…
Protein sysnthesis
Cells need to make proteins for pretty much everything they do. The DNA contains the instructions for how to build proteins. Watch this amazing simulation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erOP76_qLWA
Isn’t that astounding? Just some questions that should be asked:
How did the instructions to make the required protein get into the dna?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know where in the dna to find the instructions to make the required protein?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know how to unwind the dna?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know to make a copy of the instructions?
How does the ‘rna polymerase’ know what a ‘stop code’ means?
How does the ribosome understand the instructions on the ‘messenger rna’?
If accurate folding of the protein is essential then how did the Chaperonin know the right way to fold the protein?
DNA is required to make proteins… but proteins are required to build proteins from the dna instructions. So, which came first?
Based on these scientific facts, i infere, DNA is designed.
Common objections :
Is intelligent design merely an "argument from ignorance?"
No. Some critics have misunderstood intelligent design and claimed that it is merely claims that because we can't figure out how some biological structures could have arisen, therefore they were probably designed. The argument for design is not like this. In reality, the argument notes that intelligent design theory is a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of specified (or irreducibly) complex information, and thus argues from positive predictions of design. The lack of detailed step-by-step evolutionary explanations for the origin of irreducible complexity is the result of the fact that irreducible complexity is fundamentally not evolvable by Darwinian evolution.
Argument from incredulity:
"Incredulous" basically means "I don't believe it". Well, there's a big difference between "not believing" that an actual animal, plant, phenomenon etc. *exists*, versus believing a certain "just so" story about HOW it came to exist.
That is the THING that we are incredulous about - a *certain scenario* (Neo-Darwinism) that's only *imagined* about how various amazing abilities of animals and plants happened all by themselves, defying known and reasonable principles of the limited range of mutations and Natural Selection.
The atheist is "incredulous" that God could exist, beyond and behind our entire space-time continuum, who is our Creator. But there is nothing ridiculous about that - especially if you can't personally examine reality to that depth - how do you know nature is all that exists ?
What IS ridiculous (IMO) is trying to imagine a *naturalistic origin* of these things. ORIGIN is not the same as OPERATION. To study how biology works today, is entirely different from giving a *plausible* account of how it came about to be in the first place.
If someone is giving you an *implausible* story of how something could have happened, you have every right to be "incredulous" about the story, until its shown how it's plausible.
There is a big difference between 'not believing' something that can be demonstrated every day, and 'not believing' something that has NEVER been demonstrated - ever - such as Abiogenesis or macro change .
THE proponents of naturalism are the ones who have the explaining to do, after they have removed (for purely philosophical reasons) all the abilities of Intelligent Agency (God) out of their toolkit. They are just left with primordial gases, and lots of time for things to bump around.
They are the ones who need explain all we see today, on the basis of that empty toolkit. Its not wrong to ask that from them.
Bad design:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/faq/#nobdesn
Bad Design Means No Design
This argument assumes an infallible knowledge of the design process.
Some, for example, point to the cruelty in nature, arguing that no self respecting designer would set things up that way. But that need not be the case. It may well be that the designer chose to create an “optimum design” or a “robust and adaptable design” rather than a “perfect design.” Perhaps some animals or creatures behave exactly the way they do to enhance the ecology in ways that we don’t know about. Perhaps the “apparent” destructive behavior of some animals provides other animals with an advantage in order to maintain balance in nature or even to change the proportions of the animal population.
Under such circumstances, the “bad design” argument is not an argument against design at all. It is a premature — and, at times, a presumptuous — judgment on the sensibilities of the designer. Coming from theistic evolutionists, who claim to be “devout” Christians, this objection is therefore especially problematic. For, as believers within the Judeo-Christian tradition they are committed to the doctrine of original sin, through which our first parents disobeyed God and compromised the harmonious relationship between God and man. Accordingly, this break between the creator and the creature affected the relationship between men, animals, and the universe, meaning that the perfect design was rendered imperfect. A spoiled design is not a bad design.
There are other alternatives we have not figured out yet :
Pretend you wake up in the morning and there's a birthday cake sitting on your kitchen table, and it just happens to be your birthday. What do you think? You ask yourself, "Where did this cake come from?" There are only a couple of possibilities, theoretically. It could have just materialized out of nowhere on your kitchen table coincidentally on your birthday. It could have just "poofed" into existence. I guess that would be in the realm of theoretic possibilities. Or maybe a great, hot, wet wind blew through your neighbor's kitchen gathering up a bunch of ingredients and kind of accidentally baked a cake that landed on your table. The fact that it happened on your birthday is a coincidence. I guess that would be "possible" too. The cake could have come out of nowhere, or could have just assembled itself by chance. Or the other alternative would be that a person baked the cake for you and dropped it off in the middle of the night.
Now here's the trick. When faced with limited options you don't have the liberty not to believe something. If you reject the idea that somebody baked the cake for you, you must assert in its place that the cake either materialized out of nothing or formed itself by accident. When you reject one option you are asserting an alternate option when all the options are clear.
1. The origin of the universe, its fine tuning, and the arise of life and biodiversity is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160120021147/http://goddidit.org:80/dna/
