My Bell Labs – Lucent Technology Lectures

A tribute to Claude Shannon at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey

Tribute to Claude Shannon at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey

In July 1948, Claude Shannon of Bell Labs published his seminal paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” This is THE definitive work on engineering communication theory. It laid the groundwork for the information age we live in today.

perry-main59 years later, in April 2007, I gave a lecture to 120 engineers at Bell Labs, which is now a division of Alcatel-Lucent Technology in Warrenville, Illinois. These engineers design servers, software, data networks, fiber optic equipment, microwave stations, and devices for cell phone and Internet communication.

These guys tracked perfectly with every point. They knew who Claude Shannon was. They all knew how data is encoded, how it’s sent in streams of 1’s and 0’s, and decoded on the other side. It was kind of nice to not have to explain things like “information entropy” and “redundancy” and “encoding” and “decoding” and “OSI 7-layer model.”

Since the audience had a strong technical background, I didn’t dumb it down. I gave a geek version of my talk on DNA and Information Theory, linking Claude Shannon’s work to modern biology and its implications for design in living things.

The folks in the audience did not miss a beat. They were sharp. I understand one guy was a Bell Labs Fellow and holds over 50 patents. That day there were people from every major race, color and religion.

–> Would you like know the most interesting thing of all?

Nobody at Bell Labs had any significant disagreement with any of the technical aspects of what I presented. None. They tracked 100%. The science aspect of my argument for design is airtight.

When it was done, almost all the questions were theological and philosophical questions, not scientific ones. Questions like “Why would God do it that way” or “If God exists then why…”

(You can listen to the recordings of this talk at http://evo2.org/lucent and hear the entire presentation including the Q&A for yourself. You’ll also find videos that show my Power Point slides.)

My point is this:

To a person with a technical degree (Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology) who uses this knowledge in his or her work every day, my definitions are crisp and clear and fully accepted in the engineering disciplines. Such people typically have no argument with any of the technical details.

You may not be aware of this, but there is also nothing controversial about Shannon’s work. It has been thoroughly vetted and accepted. It makes the modern world possible. Scientific American called it “The Magna Carta of the Information Age.”

Seldom will a person with a background in digital communication even attempt to debate this.

But then there are the others…  :^>

In August 2005 I was pulled into a debate on the Infidels Forum, the largest atheist discussion board in the world. That particular discussion thread has been open ever since, and is now the most viewed, longest-running thread in the history of the entire Infidels site.

So anyway, a guy whose screen name is “Robert Webb,” who himself was an atheist and some kind of Information Technology specialist, shows up in the forum around January 2008 and says, “Look guys, Perry’s right. DNA is a code. And I’m sorry but he’s right. There’s no such thing as a naturally occurring code, by his definition. His first two points are correct, and you’ll never win this argument. I just don’t accept the conclusion, which is his third point.”

He got BLASTED by his atheist brethren for saying this. Some even accused him of secretly being on my side.

(I’ll tell you more stories about this debate in a future installment.)

People who understand the world of 1’s and 0′ have no objection to my argument. To be frank, almost everyone who argues against it are regular guys who’ve never studied Information Technology or programming.

Case in point: Do a Google search on “Atheist’s Riddle” and start clicking on the sites that come up.

As you go down through the search results, ask yourself how many of the websites you find are loaded with emotional tirades and “Perry Marshall is a stupid idiot / fool / moron / silly creationist” yada yada yada?

And… how many do you find from technical professionals who present a careful, balanced, thorough technical discussion?

Seriously. Do it. Go take a look for yourself. Right now.

What did you find?

I rest my case.

This is how people behave when they are losing an argument.

All those websites prove is that there are a lot of uninformed people voicing their opinions on the Internet, angrily insulting specialists who have mastered a scientific discipline.

I know communication theory because I studied control systems and communications in college where I got an Electrical Engineering degree; I advised customers who purchased industrial networking equipment for nine years, wrote dozens of magazine articles and white papers, and published a book, “Industrial Ethernet” now in its 2nd edition, published by ISA.

The question you may naturally ask is, “OK that’s fine, you convinced the engineers. But what about the biologists?”

Let’s not forget, the people who cracked the Genetic Code and defined it as a such were mostly biologists, not engineers. And yes, the pattern in DNA is definitely and literally a code.

I don’t know of a biologist who’s produced an example of a naturally occurring code.

Of course there are many biologists who believe that DNA somehow emerged spontaneously. But none of them have proven this, and I would argue that the Origin of Life field has made less progress in the last 50 years than almost any other branch of science.

Naturalistic theories continue to hit brick walls at every turn.

The biology profession is an industry just like any other industry. It has politics and fiefdoms and areas of mediocrity and stagnation just as in every other profession. Biology has been mired in an assumption of “evolution through random accident” that is faring rather poorly these days, especially in light of recent discoveries. There is considerable dissent in the field right now.

In 2004, I came to this question as an outsider. I was seriously looking for answers and I was disturbed at how incredibly sloppy most of the arguments were – on both sides. I was appalled at the lack of precision and rigor of most of the books I read.

I thought, “Many of these biology books seem to get away with a level of slop that would get most engineers fired.” After all, engineers have to design things that work. People have to take those products off the shelf and use them and enjoy them. They have to be reliable and easy to manufacture.

If a product becomes a warehouse of warranty returns because some part always fails after 6 months, the engineer is going to be in deep yogurt. Or if an engineer only hypothesizes about how something might be produced but never develops a process that produces it, he’s gonna be out of a job real quick.

How do biologists get away with this?

Do you suppose engineers – who design things for a living – might be better at recognizing design than others?

Biology has much to teach engineers. Orville and Wilbur Wright, who invented the airplane in 1904, spent countless hours watching birds fly at Kitty Hawk, and got ideas and inspiration for their glider.

Engineering likewise has something to say to biology. Engineering gave us the information age. And remember, Claude Shannon published his paper five years before DNA was discovered. And then here we are in the 21st century with cell phones and Wi-Fi and satellite communications.

Suddenly today we find that the genetic code is incredibly similar to the commands that transport data across the Internet. Error correction codes, redundancy, layers of information, modularity and digital data.

Except that DNA is a lot more elegant and it stores even more data in less space.

Information Technology is one of the most evolved branches of science today. And everything we know about information and communication theory infers that DNA was designed.

Let’s stop assuming it’s the result of a cosmic accident. That approach hasn’t been working very well, and it’s not even science. It’s produced a string of failed theories like “Junk DNA” and stories of how beautiful, self-replicating machines supposedly emerged from slime, by accident.

It takes a lot of faith to believe that – especially when nobody’s ever seen it.

Let’s ditch that theory and get on with recognizing and studying the immense beauty of DNA’s design.

Perry Marshall

Listen to my Bell Labs lecture (2 parts) and hear the engineers’ Q&A, or watch the presentation on video at http://evo2.org/lucent/

Download The First 3 Chapters of Evolution 2.0 For Free, Here – https://evo2.org/evolution/

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. Learn More About It, Here – https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0

51 Responses

  1. Jon says:

    You said…

    “I don’t know of a biologist who’s produced an example of a naturally occurring code.”

    But then…

    “I know communication theory because I studied control systems and communications in college where I got an Electrical Engineering degree” (This explains a lot by the way)

    So how could you possible know anything biology, or about the nature of DNA and the complexity of the genetic code. Hello?

    DNA IS A NATURALLY OCCURRING CODE.

    Have you detected and studied other life in the Universe?

    How can you draw the instance that just because we know of one way genetic codes and information is used to make life, is the way it is across the Cosmos.

    Life probably evolves and grow in ways that are beyond our imagination. You can’t make a conclusion based on insufficient evidence, that’s not Science.

    • Jon,

      I agree, you can’t make a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. Which is why I am asking you to supply evidence that DNA is a naturally occurring code. Also, please provide information about other life forms throughout the cosmos.

      If I have made any errors in my statements about the nature of the genetic code or the structure of DNA, you are invited to point them out.

      Perry

      • Jon says:

        But I am not the one claiming information has a creator or that DNA is a naturally occurring code, you are. You are the one who must supply more data because what you have is insufficient results based on one planet, Earth.

        • Why is planet earth enough data for things like gravity and thermodynamics and entropy but it’s not enough data when it comes to living things? We’ve been listening for aliens with our telescopes and the SETI project for decades and have found nothing.

          Sure, life may exist elsewhere in the universe. But nothing has been discovered so this fact gives us no new information. So far as we know according to all existing scientific research, all codes are designed.

          • Jon says:

            Well those things you listed are LAWS OF NATURE that have been tested and observed. Life is abundent on our planet but all life makes up of the same recipe book. Just mixed in different ways.

            It would only be extreme luck if we heard from someone by SETI because we have only been looking for a few years and our technology is not very only, only 60 years. Think about the distances we are talking about.

            I heard a report by SETI that said all our television and radio signals die out at around 2 light years. The closet star is 4 light years. Maybe the reason we haven’t heard is they don’t know we are here. Same with other life, they have the same problem we are having.

            Evolution and Natural Selection isn’t about creating new information, it’s about those mutations (there is that word you hate!) to existing information that cause some organisms to die and some to thrive. That is where the chance and randomness comes into place.

            Many mutations are dangerous and cause the orgainism to die. But there is one that happens that benefits and causes the orgainism to evolve and over time, could result in a new species.

          • Svullo says:

            A bit off topic, but didn’t Newton get the idea for the theory of gravity from observing all the (then known) planets in the solar system and the sun itself?

          • GuvJim says:

            @ Perry,

            I’d like to ask,

            If somehow the final conclusion is just in your hands and says: “God does not exist” a final proven statement.

            How that would affect your life? what could differ from the life you have now?
            …please if answered, just besides the obvious.

            How can someone prove the inexistence of an entity that does not exist?
            Could you prove to me that my imaginary friend does not exist?

            Thank you very much

            • I seriously considered the possibility that God did not exist when I started this science journey 7 years ago. That actually opened the door for me because I asked the question:

              “If God did not exist then what would have to be true about the laws of the universe, and of biology?”

              And to be brief, I discovered that information would have to have a purely physics/chemistry origin. But it does not. All information we know the origin of comes from intelligence.

              You ask a great question. Nobody can prove the inexistence of something that does not exist. However you can prove the existence of something that does exist, and I have shown that to the extent that science can prove anything, science 100% infers that God exists.

              • GM says:

                I know what you are saying and I can’t agree. You can not prove the existence of God anymore than you can prove science doesn’t change with time and intelligence.
                Regional cultures have created their own God for thousands of years and produced evidence to support their religious piety. I have studied some of the major religions of the world and Buddhism for me is the perfect religion. Choose your own God if you want. The end place is the same for everyone who has ever lived.
                I too am an EE and have taught graduate MIT students. A young mind is a terrible thing to waste.
                Now majoring in biogenetics.
                Science has been my passion since 1963.

              • chris says:

                Please define “information”. This is not a petty query. You have often interchanged “coded language” and “information” before and continue to do so on this site.

                Do you refer to the most basic definition, that noted by Shannon, that it applies to the choice between two equally likely alternatives such as “is the atom here or there”?

        • IanWright says:

          Jon,

          No you’re not claiming that information has a creator. But you are claiming that it can arise on its own? I don’t think any biologists would contradict that DNA is a code. Shannon’s theories which are used throughout the modern world and the communication infrastructure state that a code can not produce more information.

          This is proven mathmatically, and works in practise else you’d hear random words on the other end of the telephone, which the person you’re speaking to never really said!

          The point is, we have an industry built around these laws, yet evolutionists claim that DNA can break these laws. So the onus is on the evolutionists to provide another example (as we can’t realistically test DNA over xx million years) of a code that can produce new information.

    • Renny Jumbo says:

      Without doubt only knowledgeable people like you can postulate hypothesis

      which ultimately would be proven or disproved by other knowledgeable

      people. Obviously, your work is motivated by love for knowledge which creates

      the positive changes generation after generation experience in perfecting

      sequence like DNA and a reflection of its Creator, but which the un-

      knowledgeable poeple continue to oppose, propelling their DNA to implode

      upon them to their selective extinction. The creator coded the perfection (DNA)

      of the supervicing species to be knowledge motivated.

  2. Jon says:

    I think I have figured it out.

    Your view-”The theory of Information” That all information, DNA and codes has a creation, a creator that exists outside of space and time, an infinite being called God.

    My view-That the universe was never created and has simply always existed. (Entropy doesn’t apply if this is the case, “the candle has been burning forever”.)

    Your view-The most important aspect of your theory is the SUPERNATURAL. Since God exists outside of our reality, we can call him Supernatural. which means that when something is Supernatural, it can’t be explained by the Laws of Nature. (AKA, Science)

    My View-The most important aspect of my “theory” is the Universe itself. We can all agree that the universe is real, the Universe is NATURAL. We know this by studying the Cosmos and applying LAWS that explain the natural processes in our complex universe.

    The very fact the Universe exists does not mean we are the only one or designed. If there is more than one, then why not an INFINITE amount.

    The burden of proof lies with you since you must prove your theory by producing something that lies outside our reality (God).

    I have nothing to prove, we do live in a universe and if there was a God, he exists outside our existance and is unknowable.

    • Jon,

      You can’t escape a burden of proof. You’re saying the candle has been burning for an infinite amount of time – and no candle does that. No star does that. If you’re going to come here and say that I expect you to prove your assertion that there is anything in this universe that is NOT subject to the laws of entropy. Your theory violates entropy. I’m not letting you off the hook, I’m asking you to prove it.

      Perry

      • Jon says:

        I have never said that I could prove that. All I am saying is that if there is an infinite cosmos, then entropy does not apply. How could it? All of these other universes that exist outside ours are probably subject to different laws of nature and physics all together. But then again, we just don’t know.

        Remember, this is your website. The burden of proof is with you. I am simply putting out there another view as you have invited me to do so.

        • The cosmos is not infinite.

          • Shane Vaillancourt says:

            Perry,

            I agree with your assertion that Jon has created a burden of proof by saying that the universe is infinite. The problem here is that you make two assertions.

            Assertions made by Jon:
            1) Entropy is not universal (The universe is and always was)

            Assertions made by Perry:
            1) Entropy is not universal (God is and always was)
            2) God exists

            So, Perry, my question is this: Why is your idea good enough to violate Occam’s razor?

            • Shane,

              Let’s consider the possibilities:

              1) Time is infinite and entropy is universal
              Result: The universe would be at a zero state right now

              2) Time is infinite and entropy is not universal
              Result: We have to assume (without evidence, against all science) that entropy doesn’t apply in some situations

              3) Time is finite and entropy is not universal
              Result: We have to assume (without evidence, against all science) that entropy doesn’t apply in some situations (I believe this is Jon’s position)

              4) Time is finite and entropy is universal (this is my position, contrary to what you are saying).
              Result: The universe came into being a finite time ago and it is burning out.

              This is also the position held by modern science.

              Which leaves us with a question.

              If we believe in cause and effect then we believe:

              -Something had to cause time to come into existence.
              -Something had to cause matter and energy to come into existence.

              Eventually we have to reach an uncaused cause.

              I don’t see where Occam’s razor is being violated here.

              Perry

            • Albert says:

              Occam’s razor:
              Way back in the 60’s scientists were trying to simulate the conditions of the earth as existed billion years ago, in the primordial past, mimicking these conditions in laboratory flasks, adding heat, water, methane, mud, sparks, whatever they got into their head that could create a self replicating double helix. It never came to pass. Fast forward a few decades. The human genome project kicks in, Graig Ventner comes into the game as a late starter and finishes first. But not only. Later on he states: I can create synthetic DNA. What does this mean? It means that we, the gods of this planet, having the DNA of God, have become gods within our own right and discovered how to make life, intelligently not stupidly. Stupidity does not create life. Intelligence does and the proof is in the pudding. Years of trying to push luck, oading the dice, and coaxing them into trying to producing life by ‘chance’ (so, even if those primordial scientists had somehow succeeded in creating life by ‘chance’, that chance would have been biased, pushed, and would have had some intelligence seeded in it too) failed, but a few years of knowledge succeed in creating life intelligently.

              This sequence of events suports Occam’s razor beautifully. The simplest way to produce a perfect thing is by designing it. The hardest way to produce it is by mixing the elements and chemicals of this planet inside a mixing chamber and wait for it to happen by chance.

              The Big Bang: This was the downfall of aethism. Atheists still cannot accept that the universe has a beginning. Therefore they just don’t accept it, or they postulate, without any scientific proof whatsoever, but solely as an act of faith, that the universe is a cyclical event, expanding and imploding. But there are no scientific indications of such or similar events. Before the Big Bang nothing existed , not time, not energy, not matter, not space, nothing. Reversing mathematically the expansion of the universe, the mathematics collapses into mathematical chaos at a fraction of a second before reaching zero time of the Big Bang. Out of CHAOS was the universe created.

    • james strait says:

      Mr Perry,

      You state that you know the total number of “particles” in the universe…10 to the 80th….that is patently ridiculous. I learned the same information in astronomy class thirty years ago…it was a preposterous speculative statement then, and remains such.

      You state that the universe could not have existed “forever” because stars have finite life cycles…how does the latter prove or disprove the former?

      You state that radnomness cannot produce a recipe for biological life…yet your existence proves otherwise. The absence of a verifiable deity or first source progenetor negates your emotionally driven thesis.

      The irony is not missed in how you hide behind science in an effort to sustain the supernatural. You’ve structured this riddle so that it is unsolvable with present human understanding.

      Your efforts to legitimize and mainstream ID using a puzzle designed to loop endlessly without absolution is strong evidence of the depth of your fear.

      I understand you emotional need for there to be a reason behind it all, but, life is far more meaningful if viewed from the frame of reference that it’s a one time inexplicable journey.

  3. Ragnar Krempel says:

    Greetings,

    As I’m a firm agnostic, I have little interest in actually proving anything. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the debate itself.

    You’re right, Shannon is right. Noise obviously cannot create information. However, in your argument, you’ve seemingly created a system in which entropy is the only possible force of change. This may be the case in a decaying signal, but that’s not so obviously so for DNA. This is a shame, because no matter how convincing the rest of your argument, at the end there’s always that question.

    I can´t debate the topic in detail, as I lack the knowledge to on exactly how DNA does differ from a signal, let alone the consequenses of that, but it is obvious to me that the interactions between chaos (e.g random mutation) and order (e.g. natural selection) should be fully understood before one can build an argument that goes either way.

    Therefore, I am not convinced that the formation of the planets and the creation of life could not be different and possibly even likely results of the same fundamental physics. Both “results” have me in awe and to both I thank my existence.

    I also believe there is no awnser to be found here, at least not yet. If I walk into a room and the Ace of Hearts lies on a table, I have no way of knowing if someone drew that card from a deck or if it was selected from it. Right now, I feel we don’t even know how many cards the deck had. So only when someone can show how life could (not) evolve randomly, we can ascertain the (un)likehood of the event and thus count our luck or blessings as the case may be.

    regards,
    Ragnar Krempel

    • Ragnar,

      In http://evo2.org/new-theory-of-evolution/ I talk about another source of change: An intelligent mutation algorithm. In future installments I’ll go into greater detail about this and offer a testable hypothesis for intelligent design. I’ll predict what biology will discover in the next 3-20 years.

      Perry

      • Ragnar Krempel says:

        I think I already knew this. I must confess I haven’t studied developments in molecular biology seriously for 15 years. However, it seems you agree: DNA does stuff a “signal” cannot do. So, the “noise cannot produce information” argument is correct, but also irrelevant.

        The DNA “could not possibly have developed naturally” argument is not particularly convincing by itself. Eventually, science may be able to produce a suitably detailed theory on the origins of life. Or not. I really think it is way too early to place any bets, though.

        regards,
        Ragnar Krempel

  4. aloctavodia says:

    Please read this paper and references there in (at lest reference 5)… I mean read it carefully…

    http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000206

    • Scott says:

      If you read the paper carefully you will notice a very large fundamental problem, the paper is correct and follows scientific procedure, but in no way does the process shown resemble the suggested process of genetic growth.

      The examples use mutation and then selection of the fittest based upon a specific goal. Here’s a more explicit example simplified a lot but this is the essence of it, take a random string of letters and the sentence, “Me thinks it is like a weasel” and then change each letter randomly selecting the ones that match the sentence. Who is responsible for remembering the goal sentence or logical operators? Natural evolution can’t have such a memory or it would be so called “intelligent design” .

      The genetic algorithm given a goal or goals to remember as a fitness function can optimize a code, but that’s all it can do. If the goal is a simple natural one like “don’t die” then thermo-dynamics dictates the optimization will happen through genetic loss rather than gain, forever trimming down to what’s absolutely necessary and any other mutations are signal noise. Consider a tiger loosing it’s orange pigmentation to survive in a snowy environment, this Tiger becomes selected by having lost genetic code.

      You could over come this problem by creating a series of goals the genetic algorithm selects toward in sequence, but then there are more goals to remember essentially dictating a designed blue-print and you’ve ended up at intelligent design again.

      If it’s still not explicit enough, consider the following thought problem, given the simplicity of mutation and selection, leave a computer mutating and evaluating fitness of a population of simple AI, the speed is incredibly fast covering thousands of years of mutation and selection in just moments. Given this, why do we not have AI vastly more intelligent that humans are currently? If you can do this your Nobel prize awaits. I’d take that over arguing philosophy any day. 🙂

  5. Joseph says:

    Dear: Mr. Perry Marshall

    There’s something bugging me in the way you describe code cannot be naturally created except designed by an intelligent being. the mark of intelligent is ‘purpose’ right? but what if accident happened?

    take an example if I create a Programs Generator Program (PGP for short) that would do this task:
    1. random ASCII character for 50 trillion times
    2. write it down
    3. execute whatever the string that’s written.

    Some of the code that generated are uncompilable and some are compilable but may not have any meaning and the rest are the one that matter: it creates a string that (looks like) have a purpose.

    analogically speaking, I say the PGP as the primordial soup that always generate random chromosomes, the combined chromosomes that fails (uncompilable) dead or not create anything, the combined chromosomes that work (compilable) become a uni-cell and the combined chromosomes that’s lucky (looks like have a purpose) have chance to live and evolving. If things happened like my analogy, these codes are achieved through accidents since they occurred randomly (naturally) not by designs.

    IMO ‘designs’ and ‘accidents’ only have two difference that is purpose and proof. If things happened in succession without purpose it is an accident and if it happened with purpose then it’s design. One other difference is accidents cannot be proven but designs can. you should be the one to give proof not us.

    but I did proof that codes including DNA can be created without design.

    regards,
    Joseph Leandro

    • Joseph,

      1. Your scenario requires a Program Generator Program to be in place before anything can happen. Within the computer analogy it requires a PROGRAM to be in existence in the first place. Note that this entire conversation is about determining the origin of the first program. If your program first requires a program, then your scenario doesn’t answer the question.

      2. Your scenario assumes random ASCII characters. Where did the ASCII characters come from? That’s not the same as just assuming “noise” from wherever noise can be found.

      3. As I said, you can’t execute any string that’s written without a program.

      4. The alleged “pre-biotic soup” from which life emerged did not have any program that we know of, it was just soup.

      5. Do you have any evidence that this pre-biotic soup generated random chromosomes?

      6. Do you have any examples of useful computer programs being generated from random ASCII characters? In other words is your PGP scenario even known to work in the real world – GIVEN a program and GIVEN ASCII characters? Do you know of any software companies that write code this way?

      Perry

      • Joseph says:

        Answering the question… 🙂

        1. The same question applies to your arguments. If Higher being exists what create it? when it started? even the modern science haven’t got the answer your question. I’m just proofing code could exists without purpose or designs. That accidents happened even it takes a REALLY long time.

        2 & 3. random ASCII character is like the Adenine, Thymine,Cytosine, Guanine in your presentation and many of different kind. which combined in random sequence like you said in your presentation. And this world is the program that execute the strings as the stage where everything happened. Where do you think chemical reaction happened? this world of course… 🙂

        4 & 5. Just like a dead seed that could grow into a plant. It was just a dead seed, how could it become a living plant? same reason. as you answer how could a soup become a living being. About the random chromosomes, if the components exists accident can happened.

        6. Nope, because it is not the most efficient way to create a program, of course no one would use this way… but the possibility of compilable code is not 0%. On second thought, since it is accidental instead of designed I assume that nobody would depend their living on ‘generated accidents’. 😀 (sorry if my English is bad)

        Joseph Leandro

        • Joseph:

          1) I address this question at https://evo2.org/faq/

          2-3) Please demonstrate that strings of Adenine, Thymine,Cytosine, Guanine occur naturally, and that “this world” would decode them once they appear.

          4-5) A seed contains DNA. The origin of the information in DNA is the subject of my Bell Labs talk. You still have not explained where living things come from.

          6. What is the % possibility of compileable code? Do you have an experiment to support this number?

          • Joseph says:

            Perry:

            1. no answers beyond that matters now. If i have I would have won the noble prize.
            2-3. Demonstration would take a long time I mean a VERY long time and since who would want to wait just to see a string of random character to form a code?
            4-5. The primordial soup contains the essence of DNA but not in the right sequence like in the seeds.
            6.The % is very small and it would take more than our lifetime to proof. but even in the most rarest occasion, accidents happened.

  6. Joseph says:

    sorry, mistype please edit it:

    2 & 3. random ASCII character is like the Adenine, Thymine,Cytosine, Guanine in your presentation and many of different kind. which combined in random sequence. And this world is the program that execute the strings as the stage where everything happened. Where do you think chemical reaction happened? this world of course… thanks. 🙂

  7. Cal Perrine says:

    When will you be presenting your “theory” to an audience of biochemist involved in trying to determine how life started on earth?

    Cal

  8. Jim Diamond says:

    Robert Webb is not all knowing and atheists only have one code. No god. There are no other rules and atheists are not a collective of any kind. He is entitled to his opinion, and some other atheists will naturally disagree with it.

    The creation of life has lagged for obvious reasons. No money in it, and funding is all important. We have enough living units and labour is cheap. However in the Feb 12 2005 edition of New Scientist, a number of labs were going to work on creating life from inanimate materials using different methods. They expected results in 10-20 years. The results so far is the creation of RNA, which it is believed was created before DNA.

    If it took a whole planet full of materials as well as incoming comets, and several hundred million years to make the first life, I don’t think we can expect scientists to make it in a lab in just a few years.

    If you had said heavier than air flight was impossible 110 years ago, almost all people would have agreed with you. Yet it was achieved just 4 years later and 66 years after that, Man walked on the Moon. Just because we have not yet made synthetic humans in a laboratory, it does not mean that we never will.

  9. Chuck Linden says:

    I offer some factors which add to the fire…
    #1. IF there was evolution they speed at which they occur, There isn´t enough time since the “Big Bang” in which a fly would evolve let alone an entire human being.
    #2. Given the nature of each species, An individual with an abnormality would be cast out of any particular group and face immediate extinction, not unlike that which is done today in many tribes in far-off outposts of the Earth.
    #3. The anomoly would and must have been repeatative and the same in large groups of species not occuring sporatically every now and then.

  10. Harry Mickalian says:

    Perry

    You stated, “a code cannot produce more information”. Can it produce new information from old information?

    Take a look at Bruce Lipton. It is about the new biology that corresponds
    with quantum mechanics.

    The genes are controlled by the proteins in the membrane of the cell;
    cells control the genes not the other way around.

    Harry

  11. Jim Diamond says:

    Chuck Linden. 1. We have factual proof that dinosaurs which lived less than 200,000,000 years ago changed into today’s birds. We have factual proof that the pakicetus, a wolf like land animal changed into today’s whales, etc in a similar time. We have factual proof that we split from the rest of the “ape” line just several million years ago. How long do you think evolution takes? The Earth has provably been around for nearly 4.6 billion years. The alternative to these truths is that your god deliberately planted false evidence to make a young Earth look old and evolution look real. The reason god would do that is….?

    2. You don’t seem to think evolution would occur over 13.7 billion years and yet you talk of major evolution as in evolutionary differences appearing as abnormalities happening in a lifetime. Can I assume that like all other creationists your knowledge of evolution is summed up by “Darwin = Satan”? Changes occurred very, very slowly, so slow that the people would not have been aware of it as all would have looked like their great grandfathers and their grandchildren would look like them. Even a minor change like wolves to dogs took 130,000 years.

    3. Evolution does not “just happen”. There is a cause: Predators, prey, weather, environments, etc. Such changes make an animal more likely to succeed so those without sufficient changes will fall behind the successful ones, which will not be chosen to mate with and not breed, so die out. It goes through all the species so that what eventually evolved into ape and man no longer exists.

  12. Namini de Silva says:

    Okay, now in your second mail you’re saying that the chance of a specific character coming out of a DNA is very very less. But then you’re saying that it can’t be a cosmic accident! Pls get your facts right!

  13. Warrior king says:

    Sir,
    do you mean that the stories about jesus or the kingdom of zeus are true?
    Or if not then how do you define or state the structure of God?

  14. John Crowley says:

    Mmmmm,

    “Before posting, please check the other comments” (RNA) “and see if it has already been answered.” (DNA) “Also check the Frequently Asked Questions.” (CRC)

    “Questions must be respectful, clear, thoughtful and on-topic” – (LIFE) “all others will be deleted by the moderator.” (GOD)

    Mmmmm,

    😉

  15. GuvJim says:

    Perry doesn’t support probability as part of evolution but he can perfectly rely on “Magic”. Quite odd I think.

    Probability is not an accident as Perry calls it. Probability=Opportunity is a better match. Now probability is something that humans have experienced but MAGIC?… Magic, sort of God came blew on us chimps, since then we have souls and started to think…

    That’s a good scientific statement… all in this site is half truth and that half truth is misleading…

  16. otownley says:

    A recent article in NewScientist “DNA replication… without life” (27 May 2010 by Kate McAlpine) now proposes black smokers as possible origin of DNA. The article says “convection currents could concentrate nucleotides, strands of DNA, and polymerase, providing a setting that would promote replication.”

    “To test this theory, Mast and Braun put these ingredients into tubes 1.5 millimetres long. They used a laser to heat one side of the water and create thermal convection. Sure enough, they found that the DNA doubled every 50 seconds (Physical Review Letters, vol 104, p 188102).”

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627623.000-dna-replication-without-life.html

    What are your thoughts on the possibility of such auto-generated code here touted?

  17. algail says:

    Hi harry
    What is a gene?
    A gene is the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. Genes, which are made up of DNA, act as instructions to make molecules called proteins. In humans, genes vary in size from a few hundred DNA bases to more than 2 million bases. The Human Genome Project has estimated that humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes.
    Alastair

  18. sweng says:

    Perry,

    About 30 years ago I have very bright teenager (170 + IQ) working for me.

    Some of the code he wrote was self modifying ( the exe was modified on the fly ).

    I bit difficult to debug.

    Is the DNA/RNA/??? system similar

  19. IanWright83 says:

    Sweng, self modifying exe’s aren’t uncommon and as you’ve pointed out aren’t that new. In fact many of the more advanced computer viruses work this way.

    The thing with these is that they have all been intelligently created, someone designed the system that was able to adapt itself based on some certain parameters.

    I believe that the difference in DNA according to an evolution perspective is that these changes are deemed to be random and therefore haven’t been designed. From a code perspective this would normally create bad code that no longer works. Therefore the mutation is almost certainly not going to help the organism.

    An alternative is that the changes in DNA have been designed and therefore generally produce improved mutations or that evolution on a grand scale doesn’t exist.

  20. algail says:

    I have a question that is unrelated.
    I have recently viewed a program on TV “The Cosmos”
    Mention of the Big bang was frequently referred to also the expanding universe. My question is from what point in the cosmos is the universe expanding.? Are we speeding away for it or what? Does anybody know?
    BTW it is not rare or common monogenetic changes in DNA that bring about change as much as it is polymorphisms. Many polymorphisms are of immense value to us, example there is a certain part of India where the population has developed a polymorphism that stops them getting malaria so, is that a good thing or a bad thing. I suspect it’s a good thing. There are many such polymorphisms that occur on a continual basis and these are Pharmagenetics, epigenomics, etc etc some good some bad. One of the most important aspects of delivering gene therapy is ethnicity which should be thoroughly examined . A patients ethnicity will bring about different reactions when similar polymorphisms are present some, fatal . Gene tests should be the order of the day when delivering many therapies. All Cancer chemo shpuld only be delivered after a gene test so one will know is a particular medicine going to work, if not ,then don’t waste money delivering it. This also applies to HRT where many woman suffer strokes after being put on HRT a gene test is a must prior to HRT therapy.
    I had two patients last year who were diagnosed from blood test to be victims of Multiple Myelomas. I didn’t agree so arranged gene tests. In each case the patient was simply VitB12 dominant showing the value of gene testing..
    Alastair

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