Testable Hypothesis for Intelligent Design, Pt 2

3% of our DNA codes for proteins. For many years nobody knew what the other 97% was for.

Since the 1970’s, that other 97% that wasn’t understood has been called “Junk DNA.”

(If I only had a dollar for every guy who has sent me an email that said, “OK Perry, then if DNA is designed how come 97% of my DNA is junk? Huh? Answer me that!!!”)

Today’s hypothesis is very simple:

There is no such thing as “Junk DNA.”

Suppose you took your new car to the mechanic and he said to you, “I found a big cluster of hoses in your engine that are absolutely useless, do you want me to take them out?”

The most reasonable response would be “I’m pretty sure that if Toyota put those hoses in there they must be there for a reason, so no sir you cannot take those hoses out.  I will pick up my car tonight and find another mechanic.”

Presuming that a functional machine is loaded with “junk” is just as damaging to the study of living things as it is to your car. The term “Junk DNA” is a piece of anti-intellectual, anti-scientific slander that has obstructed scientific progress for three decades now.

It demonstrates blatant disrespect for the object of study, which is always dangerous. It’s derisive and insulting. The time has come to discard this term and the theory that goes with it.

The term “Junk DNA” would have made perfect sense for those who had believed the “random mutation” hypothesis of evolution. I certainly understand, it made perfect sense for people who had thought evolution was driven by random copying errors. Then a whole bunch of garbage would surely accumulate somewhere.

Yes, at one time that might have made sense.

But today I am stating the exact opposite. NONE of it is junk.

In the previous installment I hypothesized that the “random mutation” theory is false and is in the process of being overturned even as we speak.

So if evolution is driven by natural genetic engineering…. if DNA is like a Swiss Army Knife with all kinds of extra evolutionary blades tucked away… then the least you could possibly say about ANY section of DNA is that it’s merely switched off.

NOT that it’s “junk”!

If you own a Honda Civic DX, you see dashboard has openings for buttons and gauges that aren’t used. In the more expensive LX model, those spaces are punched out and the dash has more bells and whistles.

DNA is the same way.

I propose to you that the best way – and in fact the ONLY way to discover the wonders of DNA is this:

When you find something you don’t understand, you always want to ask: “There is a reason for this. What is it?”

You NEVER say, “I don’t understand what this is for. Therefore it must be garbage.”

It’s always best to presume it is there for a good REASON. If you don’t ask the question, you may never find out.

The existence of REASON is the only assumption that consistently leads us to maximum scientific discovery.

Anything less is anti-scientific.

I submit to you that allowing anyone who truly believes in “Junk DNA” to teach biology or perform scientific research is like appointing a German Shepherd to guard a brown paper bag full of ham sandwiches.

Don’t be surprised if the brown paper bag is ripped to shreds and there’s nothing left but a few scraps of lettuce on the ground. Because frankly, that’s the effect that the “Junk DNA” hypothesis has had on scientific research for the last 30 years. It’s preposterous.

Prediction: Research will provide growing evidence that ALL elements in DNA have a vital function.

Just as the term “Junk DNA” in the past has been touted as evidence of purposeless, naturalistic processes, the opposite indicates deliberate design.

Prediction: Non-coding DNA will prove to be just as important as Coding DNA. (The term “Junk DNA” is already beginning to fall out of favor. The preferred term now is “Noncoding DNA.”)

Prediction: Coding DNA just specifies the raw materials. The other 97% of DNA describes how and where to assemble them.

Prediction: As time goes on, the amount of DNA that is known to have a purpose (as chronicled in the literature) will slowly approach 100%.  Currently only 3-5% of DNA is understood.

Prediction: By the time we reach the 50% mark, landmark discoveries will have been made which can be directly applied to communication systems (since DNA is a communication system), databases (since DNA is a database) and programming languages (since DNA is a programming language).

Prediction: The very notion of “junk DNA” will be discarded as anti-intellectual, anti-discovery, anti-scientific relic of 20th century materialism.

Because science only moves forward under a presumption of underlying order, the most productive hypothesis about the genetic code will be that it is intelligently and optimally designed to achieve a pre-determined goal.

All the same things can be said about so-called “Vestigial Organs”, a concept similar to “Junk DNA” and built on the same assumptions. 100 years ago, many science books claimed that the human body had nearly 100 useless organs. Leftovers of the evolutionary process.

Would you like to have all 100 of your “Vestigial Organs” removed?

Which ones would you like to have taken out first?

The “vestigial organ” theory has fared very poorly during the last 50 years and the number of “vestigial organs” we humans supposedly have is now approaching zero.

Prediction: Future discoveries will confirm that, like DNA, every organ in your body has some function, even if it’s evolutionary.

We human beings should always stand humbly before the wonders of nature. We should never assume that anything we don’t currently understand is junk.

In Wired Magazine 2/2007, page 113, Steve Olson wrote:

What is the purpose of noncoding DNA?

“A typical human cell contains more than 6 feet of tightly cornrowed DNA. But only about an inch of that carries the codes needed to make proteins, the day laborers of biology. What’s the other 71 inches?

“It’s junk, Nobelist Sydney Brenner said after it was discovered back in the 1970s. The name stuck, but biologists have known for a while that the junk DNA must contain treasures. If noncoding DNA were just along for the ride, it would rapidly incorporate mutations. But long stretches of noncoding DNA have remained basically the same for many millions of years – they must be doing something.

“Now scientists are starting to speculate that proteins, and the regular DNA that creates them, are just the nuts and bolts of the system. ‘They’re like the parts for a 757 jet sitting on the floor of a factory,’ says University of Queensland geneticist John Mattick. The noncoding DNA is likely “the assembly plans and control systems.” Unfortunately, he concludes, because we’ve spent 30 years thinking of it as junk, we’re just now learning how to read it.”

Stay tuned for more in the Testable Hypothesis series – and let us always remain humble in the face of nature.

Perry Marshall

For further reading: BBC News: ‘Junk’ throws up precious secret

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

107 Responses

  1. vachan k.v says:

    here’s my email
    [email protected]
    if you have answers then send me a mail that i have answers but it will take time to appropriately answer my question i will give you 1 month time if you don;t then send me a message that you accept defeat
    i won’t trouble you any more
    also if snowflakes started replicating themselves there won’t be any difference between a snowflake and a DNA
    i was just thinking why some one couldn’t figure out such a big loophole in your theory it’s like seeing a bald man saying which hair dye you applied???
    i think pupils figured this out but you ignored them thats all
    i tried to assemble some biologist but they laughed at me saying why you tried to argive with man. what’s the point!!!! After reading your defination about evolution they started laughing like hell dude they told you are more than enough for this guy!!!!
    sorry for waking you up from your dream that you will get nobel prize for proving existance of god or something like that
    all evolutionary biologists will accept defeat in front of the world and all religious pupil will rule the world and atheism will be called a dark part of human history etc
    first you answer my question dude!!!!!!!
    if DNA is code then even snowflake is a code
    if snowflake is not a code then even DNA is not code!!!!!!!

    • Snowflakes are not self replicating. They are crystals. Crystals are not built from a code. Cells are.

      Based on the extreme lack of comprehension you have of what I am saying – as demonstrated by your comments – I am not surprised that they laughed at you. You are misrepresenting what I said here on my forum – I can only imagine how badly you are misrepresenting it to others.

    • Vachan,

      These are my instructions to you:

      Before you post ANYTHING else on my site, you are to watch this video from beginning to end:

      http://perry.fingerprints.s3.amazonaws.com/index.htm

      It’s 1 hour.

      Apprise yourself of what I’m talking about.

      Then, when you post, post a coherent, logical, thoughtful, complete set of thoughts. Not these little one-liners. Use complete sentences and proper punctuation. Present yourself in a proper manner. And above all, make sure you understand my argument.

      And pick one thing at a time to talk about. The first thing for us to discuss is the origin of information. That is the starting point of this conversation.

      Perry Marshall

  2. vachan k.v says:

    To Darryl
    Rocket’s don’t have wing but they fly and defy gravity to reach outer space
    science is like a rocket it always goes up never comes down
    but religion is different here’s a perfect example
    In times of greek and romans
    there was improvement in science and technology because they all promoted free thought and there were atheists too in the society
    but in mediveal times religion and politics git mixed thus plunging europe to dark age
    religion must be kept away from all others because it spoils everything
    why nowadays we are developing because now all our governments are secular and religion and science are not 1
    we must learn from out past mistakes
    it’s like keeping a pile of gold in front of sharpshooter but he dosen’t recognize it because his eyes are covered by cloth(religion) which makes him blind
    a theist is like a blind person who he is only guided by his imagination and not perception

    • billy says:

      In an apocryphal book of spirituality you will find an interesting perspective on evolution.

      “These planes with all their teeming thoughts of God, are never seen by eyes of man in flesh; they are composed of substance for too fine for fleshly eyes to see, and still they constitute the soul of things; And with the eyes of soul all creatures see these ether planes, and all the forms of life. Because all forms of life on every plane are thoughts of God, all creatures think, and every creature is possessed of will, and, in its measure, has the power to choose. And in their native planes all creatures are supplied with nourishment from the ethers of their planes.

      And so it was with every living thing until the will became a sluggish will, and then the ethers of the protoplast, the earth, the plant, the beast, the man, began to vibrate very slowly. The ethers all became more dense, and all the creatures of these planes were clothed with coarser garbs, the garbs of flesh, which men can see; and thus this coarser manifest, which men call physical, appeared. And this is what is called the fall of man; but man fell not alone, for protoplast, and earth, and plant and beast were all included in the fall. The angels and the cherubim fell not; their wills were ever strong, and so they held the ethers of their planes in harmony with God.

      Now, when the ethers reached the rate of atmosphere, and all the creatures of these planes must get their food from atmosphere, the conflict came; and then that which the finite man has called survival of the best, became a law. The stronger ate the bodies of the weaker manifests; and here is where the carnal law of evolution had its rise. And now man, in his utter shamelessness, strikes down and eats the beasts, the beast consumes the plant, the plant thrives on the earth, the earth absorbs the protoplast. In yonder kingdom of the soul, this carnal evolution is not known, and the great work of master minds is to restore the heritage of man, to bring him back to his estate that he has lost, when he again will live upon the ethers of his native plane.

      The thoughts of God change not; the manifests of life on every plane unfold into perfection of their kind; and as the thoughts of God can never die, there is no death to any being of the seven ethers of the Seven Spirits of the Triune God. And so an earth is never plant; a beast, or bird, or creeping thing is never man, and man is not, and cannot be, a beast, or bird, or creeping thing. The time will come when all these seven manifests will be absorbed and man, and beast, and plant, and earth and protoplast will be redeemed. (Jesus- Aquarian Gospel Ch. 32:20-39)”

      To me that explains alot. It does make sense that in order for there always to be a balance of species in the eco system, a limit has to be put on the code. And the reasons why there are no missing links is because man did not descend from the primate but the dna of those beasts were used as a template, a prototype which was modified, and perfected so that the higher souls had an adequate vessel for spiritual development and through psycho genesis, was manifested as the homo sapiens. That would also explain why the dna are so close. Or why there are gees to make legs in animals with no legs. These spirits used the lower forms of dna and mutated it, [designed mutation rather than it randomly mutating] adding information here, suppressing some information here, and then manifested a life form according to that code. Like a programmer would do when updating msdos os to windows 95, 98, xp. Something like what perry said in the vid. Would you not find remnants of dos in xp? But dos definitely doesnt go to xp by randomly mutating the code. It was designed mutation by genius beyond genus.

      Surprisingly The ether (aether) that was talked in the gospel mentioned above was presented by Einstein as real, years later but remains highly controversial to even be in existence.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH9vAIdMqng

      Edgar Cayce presented the aether as the means through which, when discovered “flying machines without wings” will be in development.

      “A mechanical device might be constructed where a vacuum even excluding ether could be drawn and maintained creating thereby a levitating force. This is similar to that force which exerts pressure upwards when air is pumped into a steel barrel while submerged below surface of a medium such as water. This levitating force will be utilized in many ways, particularly in heavier than air ships with the result that air navigation will be possible without the use of wings or gas.

      This correct when the elements must be made so condensed in their form as to prevent ether from escaping through the various elements that are ordinarily used for creating of such vacuums…a container in which a vacuum may be made may be of such a condensed element as to prevent the ether from going through the atomic forces of the element itself as is seen in that of an electric bulb-this is NOT a vacuum, only a portion! [195-70]

      More on Einstein and the aether is here:

      http://www.aetherometry.com/Electronic_Publications/Science/einstein_aether_and_relativity.php

      More on Psychogenesis here:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDeBSAO-b60

      This lends credence to the evolutionary instances in the apocryphal books. We are not guided by “imagination”. Only logical deduction

  3. santosh kumar.Tumma says:

    hi perry,
    if we really consider the presence of God,then what the fun of God in creating inter-linking organisms,between different species/genera?

  4. wmontez says:

    Dear Perry

    I absolutely share all of your arguments in favour of a creationist view of the origins of the universe. Sometimes though, I stumble upon an scientific argument that I just can’t rebut right away.This is the case of this statement of Haley Bruggemann in his article: Intelligent Design: Will it Stand the Test of Time?

    “Intelligent design can be challenged beginning with the idea that every organism is perfectly designed and optimally suited to their life and environment. The problem with this idea is that there are design flaws in many organisms, flaws which no intelligent designer should have dreamed of including. The human eye, for instance, is only one example. According to Richard Dawkins, “some of the parts in our eyes have been wired backwards.” He goes on to say that the eye of a squid or octopus is similar to the human eye, except wired correctly. There are scores of other examples, animals with tusks that are too heavy and weigh them down, even if only slightly, the blind spot in a horse’s eyesight, or the fact that male birds use their brightly colored chests to attract mates, but at the same time, attract predators.”

    How would you respond to that?

    Thank you

    Washington

    • First of all I believe that the first cells were designed but I embrace an evolutionary view. I believe that evolution is a goal-seeking algorithm. Thus I think living things are highly optimized but not necessarily perfect.

      Also, people who criticize biological forms are seldom in any position to design something better. I think these assumptions about “bad design” in an eye or whatever else should be taken with a BIG dose of humility. Having worked as a design engineer myself I can assure you, you can disassemble all kinds of products and find things you think are “stupid” but if you talk to the designer you find there are very good reasons for the choices he made. There are always tradeoffs that the person who did not design it failed to consider.

  5. levgilman says:

    Perry, none of youe predictions, if fulfilled, prove your point.To state that “junk DNA” is 100% junk was premature, but nothing of “anti-intellectual, anti-discovery”. Random mutations and natural selection may well lead to the same result. One reason is that when something is present in many generations, it makes conext in which other genome evolves. Genes are selected to be adaptive in presence of what can be called, imprecisely but not pointlessly, junk.
    Junk is not necessarily 100% so. Functional restrictions on DNA sequence may be loose, and changing content of apparent junk may lead to very weak change of phenotype. In other words, STATEMENT ABOUT JUNKNESS OF A DNA is, generally, not clear cut.

    “But long stretches of noncoding DNA have remained basically the same for many millions of years – they must be doing something.”
    Nearly every biologist admits it by default. But it has nothing to do with intelligent design.

    • Individual genes are not selected. Entire organisms and genomes are.

      If you are familiar with what “random copying errors” are (I am because I’m a communications engineer) you see a direct linkage between the random mutation theory of DNA and the “Junk DNA” theory. They go hand in hand. If one believes that DNA evolves through data glitches then one cannot help but think half of DNA is full of junk. I have yet to see a digital communication error produce error free code via any known process at all.

      “The human genome is 90-95% apparent junk, useless sequences, many of which resemble functional genes, but are clearly beaten up beyond working order (pseudogenes).” Taken today from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html. They’re still peddling this anti-intellectual tripe and calling it science.

      Of course the word “junk” is not clear cut. It’s a sloppy word created by sloppy thinking that causes people to assume things they do not understand are garbage.

      Nowhere is there a single paper in the entire body of biology literature that empirically demonstrates that random copying errors of DNA ever produce new capabilities in an organism. If you disagree with me then send me a link to one that does.

      DNA evolves through an algorithmic process, not random copying errors. An algorithm leads to testable predictions and a systematic understanding of evolutionary behavior. Evolution through random copying error is anti-scientific speculation that leads nowhere and makes no predictions except vague pronouncements that “DNA has lot of junk.”

      If you have ever observed the origin of an algorithm that was not designed, present the evidence.

      • levgilman says:

        “Nowhere is there a single paper in the entire body of biology literature that empirically demonstrates that random copying errors of DNA ever produce new capabilities in an organism.”
        What is, precisely, “empirical” for you? If it is about reproduction in lab, do you require from astrophysicists to produce a star?
        And, given your ignorance about how the things work in an organism, irrespective of where trhey came from, you are incompetent to judge about “the entire body of biology literature”.
        By the way, do you think that “anti-intelligent” means “denying intelligence of something”?

        • From Wikipedia: The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment.[1] A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.

          There are no observations or experiments showing that random copying errors produce new capabilities in an organism. A star won’t fit in a lab but an organism sure will.

          If you know of any papers in the body of biological literature that make the empirical demonstration I’m asking for, present them. I’ve been challenging people for 5 years online to do so and no one has produced an example yet.

          • levgilman says:

            “A star won’t fit in a lab but an organism sure will.”
            “An organism” is not enough for new capabilities in an organism to be produced by random copying errors. Number of generations needed cannot fit in human lifetime.
            And what could be a proof that mutations were not intelligent?

            Also, if you pretend to have proven your claim “by Shannon”, why don’t you leave the point of empiric evidence? Have you heared of somebody doing so: proving a case mathematically and then judging on same thing on empiric base?

            About Shannon’s theory, I don’t know it, just guessing… how a sender is defined? Can’t it be that DNA in this context is nothing but noise?
            Imagine somebody (a mad professor) that really encoded a message as an entire genome of a viable species and then let it free. With time, the genome mutates randomly, is naturally selected for fitness, that way new capabilities emerge…. (OK, you don’t admit it, but imagine it just for a minute); while creating new features, mutations leave less and less of the mad professor’s message. Now, from the mad professor’s point of view, what is the DNA – code or noise? When we apply Shannon’s theory to such situation, isn’t our point of view the mad professor’s one?

            • Experiments with e. coli were done by Lenski with 40 trillion organisms, where the e coli developed the ability to metabolize citrate. Bacteria experiments can easily simulate evolution in the lab, and they do, and the organisms do evolve. They evolve through transposition, genetic recombination, genome doubling and horizontal gene transfer, not random copying errors.

              Read Shannon’s paper and you’ll see how a sender is defined.

              DNA is not noise because it contains linguistic elements. See
              http://www.scribd.com/doc/3040594/The-Linguistics-of-DNA-Words-Sentences-Grammar-Phonetics-and-Semantics

              To hypothesize that DNA is noise is an anti-scientific hypothesis. It rejects order and systematic behavior in favor of disorder and freak accident. That’s not pro-science, that’s the vandalism of science.

              I have 100% empirical evidence that the origin of codes is always design. No known exceptions.

              • levgilman says:

                “They evolve through transposition, genetic recombination, genome doubling and horizontal gene transfer, not random copying errors.”
                “Random” in the context means “unrelated to funnctionality”, not “pointwise”. In this sence, changes that you listed are random, at least otherwise wasn’t proved.

                “DNA is not noise because…”
                “To hypothesize that DNA is noise…”
                It’s all irrelevant. What I claimed was about context, not about facts. When one listens TV, voices of people talking around are noise. For one who lilistens the talking, they are signal.

                “is an anti-scientific hypothesis. It rejects order and systematic behavior in favor of disorder and freak accident.”
                Science is not about finding order. It’s about finding the truth.

                • The mutations are directly related to functionality. Mutations that drive evolution occur very much in context in response to the environment, to specifically engineer genetic changes for survival advantage. You need to apprise yourself of the relevant literature. Before you continue this thread please read this paper carefully:

                  http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/21st_Cent_View_Evol.html

                  As you read this note everything the author says about randomness and how cells militantly guard against random mutations.

                  • levgilman says:

                    Correcting myself. Instead of “unrelated to functionality”, read “not driven by functionality”.

                    “how cells militantly guard against random mutations”
                    It doesn’t say that they always succeed.

  6. Bob Vanderzee says:

    Perry

    The 15 electron microscope photos of the human body I’m going to try to attach here, make all the arguments proposed by the Darwinists just silly. If they don’t show up here, locate any 15 you can find of the human body. Each alone refutes any argument attempting to suggest natural selection, abiogenesis, etc.

       If you like biology and Science plus photography like I do, this is for you!  Enjoy!
     
    Great micrographs using SEM technology
    VERY INTERESTING PICTURES !!!
    Electron Microscope Photography
     
    15 amazing pictures,
    captured using a scanning electron microscope,
    Incredible details of 1 to 5nm (nanometer) in size can be detected

    1. Red Blood Cells 
    They look like little cinnamon candies here, but they’re actually the most common type of blood cell in the human body – red blood cells (RBCs). These biconcave-shaped cells have the tall task of carrying oxygen to our entire body; in women there are about  4 to 5 million RBCs per micro liter (cubic millimeter) of blood and about 5 to 6 million in men. People who live at higher altitudes have even more RBCs because of the low oxygen levels in their environment. 
      

    2.  Split   End of Human Hair 
    Regular trimmings to your hair and good conditioner should help to prevent this unsightly picture of a split end of a human hair.   

    3. Purkinje Neurons 
    Of the  100 billion neurons t”>in your brain. Purkinje (pronounced purr-kin-jee) neurons are some of the largest. Among other things, these cells are the masters of motor coordination in the cerebellar cortex. Toxic exposure such as alcohol and lithium, autoimmune diseases, genetic mutations including autism and neurodegenerative diseases, can negatively affect human Purkinje cells.   

    4. Hair Cell in the Ear 
    Here’s what it looks like to see a close-up of human hair cell stereo cilia inside the ear. These detect mechanical movement in response to sound vibrations. 

    5. Blood Vessels Emerging from the Optic Nerve 
    In this image, stained retinal blood vessels are shown to emerge from the black-colored optic disc. The optic disc is a blind spot because no light receptor cells are present in this area of the retina where the optic nerve and retinal blood vessels leave the back of the eye. 

    6. Tongue with Taste Bud 
    This color-enhanced image depicts a taste bud on the tongue. The human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds that are involved with detecting salty, sour, bitter, sweet and savory taste perceptions.  Thai people have very few — most killed by eating spicy food. 

    7. Tooth Plaque 
    Brush your teeth often because this is what the surface of a tooth with a form of plaque looks like. 

    8. Blood Clot 
    Remember that picture of the nice, uniform shapes of red blood cells you just looked at? Well, here’s what it looks like when those same cells get caught up in the sticky web of a blood clot. The cell in the middle is a white blood cell. 

    9. Alveoli in the Lung 
    This is what a color-enhanced image of the inner surface of your lung looks like. The hollow cavities are alveoli; this is where gas exchange occurs with the blood. 

    10. Lung Cancer Cells 
    This image of warped lung cancer cells is in stark contrast to the healthy lung in the previous picture. 

    11. Villi of Small Intestine 
    Villi in the small intestine increase the surface area of the gut, which helps in the absorption of food. Look closely and you will see some food stuck in one of the crevices. 

    12. Human Egg with Coronal Cells 
    This image is of a purple, color-enhanced human egg sitting on a pin. The egg is coated with the zona pellicuda, a glycoprotein that protects the egg, but also helps to trap and bind sperm. Two coronal cells are attached to the zona pellicuda.

    13. Sperm on the Surface of a Human Egg 
    Here’s a close-up of a number of sperm trying to fertilize an egg. 

    14. Human Embryo and Sperm 
    It looks like the world at war, but it is actually five days after the fertilization of an egg, with some remaining sperm cells still sticking around. This fluorescent image was captured using a confocal microscope. The embryo and sperm cell nuclei are stained purple while sperm tails are green. The blue areas are gap junctions, which form connections between the cells.

    15.  Colored Image of a 6 day old Human Embryo Implanting itself onto the wall of the womb
     
     

  7. BingoDingos says:

    Hello everybody. Well, firt off I just want to say IDK what anybody is talking about, but now I’m starting to understand. Well first off, I just want to say that I started off as a rising christian and I still am one today, but I’m also open to evolution and I have been reading about both, and as many can see, the both come up with good arguments. I think that the problem comes in where we both try to FIGHT instead of FIGURING OUT THE TRUTH on some common ground. If we would stop
    fighting eachother and start trying to just figure out the truth then we would get so much further. Now, I do have a question. Creationism does put up a good argument, and so does evolution. But the thing I don’t get about evolution is HOW DID MALE and FEMALE become CREATED? Think about it. Where Creation states that male and female have been created, evolution dosnt say anything about male and female. It’s almost as if evolution skipped females completely. Think about it, if everything started off as one, the universe, , species, everything. That would mean that in the beginning there was only ONE species. That’s single celld organisms rigt? Don’t those multiply? They don’t reproduce. Actually, single celled organisms don’t reproduce at allim sure. I thougt they multiplied. So if beginning species multiplied so wouldn’t animals? And Humans? If evolution is real how did males and femals go from being separatly identical? Think about it, there’s a male and female for each kind, but males and femals are created diferently. And you could say “O well one of tem mutated so they could have reproduction organs”. Well how would nature know which one to give the body parts first. Evolution states that things slowly change. That would mean that slowly single cells started becoming male and female and started growing reproductive organs. That makes no sense. Evolution is no where linked to reproduction. Evolution states that organisms just appeared from something. It dosnt say what it appeared from. And even if organisms did just appear, wouldn’t they be limited? Think about it. If organisms just appeared threw a random accident, they would be limited. A set. And there would be no geneder. Evolution completely removes gender. In evolution it’s stated that everything was one, how could their accidentally be male and female? And if I’m right, reproductive animals could never have a link

  8. Paradise Holding says:

    Origin of species and evolution of species are two different subjects.
    We can reverse engineer a developed product.
    The hominid isn’t a branch from the ape gene pool, we are a separate species?
    http://www.sciencenews.org July 2, 2011
    Evolution’s Wedges is an interesting article; finding the gene that drives one species into two.

  9. edwardtbabinski says:

    Hi Perry, You sent an email to someone on the Greenville Nontheists yahoo group, and so I checked on the contents of your site. I have some links you should read concerning scholarly criticism of the ID movement. There’s even Evangelical Christians at the BIOLOGOS website who critique ID arguments, including two series by Dennis Venema on his move “From ID to BIOLOGOS,” and on “Evolution and the Origin of Biological Information.”

    An Evolutionary Algorithm Beats Intelligent Design–In the summer of 2006, a different kind of war was waged on the Internet—a war between computer programs written by both evolutionary scientists and by intelligent design (ID) advocates. The war came to a climax in a public math competition in which dozens of humans stepped forward to compete against each other and against genetic (“evolutionary”) computer algorithms. The results were stunning: The official representative of the intelligent design community was outperformed by an evolutionary algorithm, thus learning Orgel’s Second Law—”Evolution is smarter than you are”—the hard way. In addition, the same IDer’s attempt to make a genetic algorithm that achieved a specific target without “specification” of that target was publicly exposed as a rudimentary sham. And finally, two pillars of ID theory, “irreducible complexity” and “complex specified information” were shown not to be beyond the capabilities of evolution, contrary to official ID dogma.
    http://www.csicop.org/si/show/war_of_the_weasels
    Further info concerning above article: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_war_of_the_weasels/

    Information in Biology–In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University Peter Godfrey-Smith provides a useful definition of Shannon Information and biology. Professor Godfrey-Smith is also author of “Information and the Argument from Design” which was part of the collection edited by Robert Pennock title Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics
    http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/01/information-in.html

    Origin of new genes and new information series
    http://pandasthumb.org/archives/origin-of-new-g/

    EvoMath blog entries
    http://pandasthumb.org/archives/evolution/evomath/

    BIOLOGOS
    http://biologos.org/topics/intelligent-design

  10. edwardtbabinski says:

    Perry, Algorithms are only “smarter” metaphorically. They are mere descriptions or models of what nature is doing. And no model absolutely equals what it is attempting to model, just as no word equals the things it describes, and no map completely equals the territory.

    So algorithms are designed, by humans, in an attempt to model nature. Which proves nothing about a “Designer.”

    Concerning such questions I suggest you keep an eye on the latest articles at the links I supplied.

    • DNA is literally and not metaphorically a code. The laws of Mendelian genetics are literally and not metaphorically algorithmic. All codes and algorithms we know the origin of are designed. Therefore we have 100% inference to design in DNA and 0% inference to any other explanation.

      • levgilman says:

        “DNA is literally and not metaphorically a code. The laws of Mendelian genetics are literally and not metaphorically algorithmic. ”
        Wheat grain is literally and not metaphorically a fruit. But when something is said about fuits, it suddenly doesn’t apply to the grain.

      • edwardtbabinski says:

        Perry, All human understanding is a model, not the thing in itself. And the “code” is not absolute but flexible. There are multiple “DNA codes.” The point is that nature itself is flexible, it is trial and error, over and over again. Changes in living things are opportunistic, jury-rigged, trial and error. There is genomic evidence and anatomical evidence and fossil evidence of those types of changes over time. So DNA is not some absolute “code” one can infer “to design.” I assume you won’t or can’t read and understand even what the folks at BIOLOGOS, your fellow Christians, have written concerning the fallacies of the I.D. movement. BIOLOGOS
        http://biologos.org/topics/intelligent-design Check out the other sites as well once you’ve dialogued with your fellow Christians.

        • Ed,

          Why are you telling me that all human understanding is a model? Do you believe that I do not know this?

          What are you really wanting to say? Are you suggesting that scientific knowledge can never reach conclusions, because it is a model of reality and not reality itself? Are you suggesting that words like “code” have no real meaning?

          You will need to go further than give links to sites that make various criticisms of ID, or “hey go check out these other sites…” because these are the facts:

          1. The pattern in DNA is a code.

          2. All codes we know the origin of are designed.

          3. Therefore we have 100% inference that DNA is designed and 0% inference that it is not.

          If you wish to assert that a non-intelligent origin of DNA is scientifically plausible, you will need to show me an example of a code that is not designed. All you need is one.

  11. kenkoskinen says:

    If an alien were here with his microscope and a snowflake landed on his slide he could exclaim, design! Is the alien right or wrong? Well the snow flake has features of design and therefore it is a design. However we know it is a randomly derived design. Imagine he also examined a cell, saw its DNA and watched its operation and determined there was a code. He would again exclaim design and again he would be right.

    The question is not whether design is here, it is what we mean by design and/or what do we infer about it. Life is unique and we have never found another such design including any code; not even by humans! In Shapiro’s videoed talk (viewable on Perry’s blog) he claimed cells have molecular networks and circuitry inside which an ANALOG computation system operates. He says it is far more complicated than anything humans have ever developed. You can see/hear his exact comments around the 25th & 26th minute into the video. However he does not appeal to the supernatural as an explanation.

    Perry makes the supernatural inference and tries to prove it all stemmed from his biblical god. There isn’t any proof of this. He is clearly taking the design observation way beyond its reasonable merit and into the realm of faith. The reality is we do not yet know how life arrived but we do know that all of the other natural designs we observe are bottom up and result from the laws of nature and chance. In the end, the design observation does not necessitate the IT design conclusion.

    On this Perry says there is zero chance for any other explanation but this is not the case. Our universe and thereby everything in it could be the result of IT even though the supernatural variety is not a scientific explanation. There are many theoretical options and even one where the creator god is aloof and set up the system and just walked away. It could also be a multiverse outcome where chance among a large ensemble of other universe’s produced a life supportive one like ours. Everything could have also resulted from the initial conditions at the genesis of our universe. We are still unclear of these factors but they most certainly have unfolded and played out during the course of time. In this case cellular life with all of its components is still a bottom up result based on the laws of physics and chance. It might look like an anthropomorphic design but is really a more complex, built up, and many layered “snow flake.”
    Some of talk about DNA and codes is pertinent but it can and does become a distraction. You look at the direction the discussion is attempted to be aimed. The supernatural anthropomorphic IT design argument is not rationally conclusive; but Perry and others are entitled to argue for reasons for their faith. That in the end, is what he is doing but he does not want to admit it.

    • You said, “The supernatural variety is not a scientific explanation.”

      I agree. At some point you will inevitably have to invoke something that is outside of science, because science is a system and all systems refer to something outside of themselves.

      I did not say there’s zero chance for any other explanation. I said there’s zero inference to any other explanation.

      Yes, everything could have also resulted from the initial conditions at the genesis of our universe. This indicates fine-tuning of the most extraordinary kind, because for example just the acceleration rate of the big bang had to be fine tuned to 120 decimal places of precision, just for stars to form.

      • kenkoskinen says:

        Well, when you realize we live within all that is i.e. ATI the agrument breaksdown. ATI is everything and is infinite and there is not anything “outside.”

        The 120 decimal places of precision applies to the comsological constant problem and not to the fine tuning of the big bang. There might not have even been a big bang. However physicists realized that space/time is not empty and is teeming with virtual particle activity. These pop in and out of existence so rapidly they cannot be detected. In any case this amounts to a lot of vacuum energy, and it has a negative pressure. The universe should have blown apart but here we are. Something must be canceling almost all of this energy out. In fact the first 119 decimal places are cancelled but we do not understand what is doing it all. It still amounts to a tiny non zero energy in the vacuum of space/time. This is called the cosmological constant. Whatever is cancelling all of that energy is amongst the greatest mysteries in physics.

        When I publish my new theory it will explain this mystery and others. I do not appeal to an anthropomorphic god who engineered, coded or fine tuned anything. the secrets could be found in intial conditions. There are inferences for other explanations other than to your god.

  12. edwardtbabinski says:

    Perry, I am an agnostic with flashes at times of theistic and non-theistic understanding. But until there is some firm evidence I honestly cannot decide what type of “God” may or may not exist. And it appears to me that the word “code” means something absolute and connected with “God” in your mind, but it does not make such a necessary connection in my mind.

    I don’t think you understand what I mean by “model,” and why it leaves open just as many questions as “code.” Let’s picture nature as consisting of squiggly lines. We want to understand those lines better. A scientist can not concentrate on all of reality with all its squiggly lines at once. So he tries to isolation and concentrate on one squiggly line at a time, tying to isolate that squiggle (as best he can hope to isolate it) and then tries to devise a mathematical model that approximates the movement of that line, hoping that such an equation continues to prove useful when he widens the picture in both time and space and reintroduces more of nature’s other squiggly lines back into the picture, some of which may influence the movement of the original line in ways he can’t predict. In other words, mathematics is like building models that mimic things we see. But models are not reality in themselves, nor are words equal to things. Nor are maps equal to the territory. Models, words, maps are approximations, the best we have to work with but they leave questions behind.

    You are convinced there is an “argument from design,” from “codes.” Be we don’t know the limits of the changeability of nature over time, space, and evolution. Is each “code” some immortal and unchangeable trope that touches God’s mind directly? And nature could be vaster and older than the cosmos we know. No cosmologist knows what “else” may exist before the Big Bang, simultaneously with the Big Bang in some other realm, or after the expansion of our cosmos accelerates so much it ends in a hypothetical Big Rip. Labeling the “answer” to all such questions as a “Designer” or “God” is just a way to avoid admitting to yourself and others that you do not have any firmer knowledge about such matters than I do.

    Right now it looks like the cosmos is in equiligrium with life and death. It evolves life and then allows it to perish in a thousand different ways. If anything, this cosmos is evidence of a Tinkerer, not a “Designer.” And I’m uncertain whether nature itself is the tinkerer.

    I suggested you continue to keep up with the topic of information theory as applied to evolution since biologists are discussing it all the time on BIOLOGOS and other sites.
    Shannon information theory appears to have been misused and misunderstood by I.D.ists. At the very least there is a debate going on that you appear to be completely unaware of since you simplistically assume that “codes” prove “design.”

    All that a “code” is in nature is “what works,” evolutionarily speaking, and so the organism either sticks with that particular way that makes it “work,” or it mutates and continues to discover other ways that also “work,” or it dies (or a host of mutations die on the way to discovering a way to makes it work).

    The famous discovery of a type of bacteria that digests nylon proved that a simple frame shift mutation that merely changed where to start and stop reading the same line of DNA allowed that bacteria to digest a recently manufactured man-made fiber that had only been around for a few decades. That mutation allowed that bacteria to obtain a small amount of energy from digesting the nylon leaving behind goo. The mutation was not perfect, the “code” if you will, was not perfect. It did not allow for the nylon to be fully digested and the bacteria to gain more than 2-4% of the potential energy from such digestion. But I bet if you put those two together and kept feeding that bacteria nothing but nylon, eventually more mutations would show up improving the efficiency of its nylon digestion. That’s evolution. It’s what works, over time, trial and error, opportunism, jury-rigging, mutations, natural selection.

    As I said the evidence of jury-rigging, and opportunism in evolution is vast. Speaking of which, there appear to be a higher percentage of parasites than any other forms of species (including those that eat a high percentage of the young of all species). Life lives on life, it’s opportunistic (some organisms even live on other organisms that have died, another type of parasitism on life–or on what was once life).

    For a recent book that delves into the modeling question far more see, Why Beliefs Matter: Reflections on the Nature of Science by E. Brian Davies.

    Philosophical world views are models as well, not reality. There’s always some way for a philosopher to add qualifications and hypothetical explanations and maintain their world view in the face of questions. And we each have our own estimates of the worth of others’ ideas and experiences, based on our own, along with whatever world view we’ve relied most heavily on in the past that made the most sense to us and which our brain-mind stubbornly maintains rather than switching world views every week.

    Me? I think the physicists are correct who admit they don’t have answers to every question or solutions to every problem, what they have are hypotheses, multiple ones, and multiple mathematical models, and unless more is known for sure they simply live with multiple views, multiple hypotheses. Even in the world of philosophy there are multiple “theories of truth,” and multiple “theories of ethics,” and each one raises its own questions.

    • Ed,

      I’m a communications engineer, I wrote an Ethernet book and I spent six years of my career selling industrial networking gear for all kinds of obscure network protocols. I’ve had this website for eight years, I’ve debated thousands of people here and on Infidels, I’ve seen Shannon misused and abused by all kinds of people but not me. To my knowledge my analysis here is entirely correct. Nobody has shown me wrong on any point. If I have made any errors in my definitions of codes or my references to Claude Shannon please point them out – chapter and verse.

      I would suggest to you that to go down the road of “words are only our vague human attempts to understand squiggly lines,” all it will buy you is mushy thinking and the inability to ever reach conclusions.

      Now…. for all I know you may not desire to reach a conclusion. I guess you will have to decide what you want.

      What do you want?

      In philosophy and science (and in bank statements), the only epistemology that will ever get you anywhere is to assume that it is in fact possible for symbols to correspond to reality. In fact every argument you make from science already makes this assumption – including your discussion of nylon. You cannot make your argument about nylon / bacteria evolution without accepting Shannon’s model of communication.

      You asked:

      Is each “code” some immortal and unchangeable trope that touches God’s mind directly?

      No. Wherever did you get that idea? I simply said all codes we know the origin of are designed.

      And nature could be vaster and older than the cosmos we know.

      Ah yes, the “we may never know” evasion. And the “There are so many kinds of philosophy, we may never know which one is right” slink-away. It comes up as soon as there’s a theistic argument that nobody can refute.

      My question for you Ed:

      Are you willing to simply follow the evidence where it leads?

      Perry

      P.S.: Perhaps you’d be interested in knowing what I want: I want to come to the most logical conclusion that can be reached, from as much as I can learn, from what we actually know right now. Science is always provisional and worldviews are always being revised. But at the end of the day I choose to follow the evidence where it leads.

      • edwardtbabinski says:

        Perry,

        It is not logical to assume that because nature functions in a regular manner (“laws” and “codes”) that a supernatural law-giver and code-giver must exist. The connection is not firm enough to constitute a proof, logically speaking.

        You may understand engineering but you appear weak concerning philosophy and philosophical distinctions. You erroneously attribute “mushiness” to my pointing out the most obvious logical distinctions of all, namely that words are not things. Maps do not equal the territories they attempt to map. And mathematics is a modeling process not unlike map making. Neither does mathematics necessarily provide evidence of a Great Mathematician, only of human mathematicians. Algorithms can be used to model nature because nature and algorithms both involve regularity. Neither need one assume that nature is “regular” due to some extra-added “supernatural” element.

        The algorithms are in our heads just as the words are in our mouths and the lines we draw to construct a map come out of our own hands.

        You talk about codes and algorithms as if they have to come from a supernatural super human mind. But they are models we create to describe natural interactions that occur with regularity.

        When a natural organism reproduces that’s great, you can write an algorithm to model what happens when that organism reproduces, when one part of a DNA molecules moves and interacts with other molecules, or when other molecules inside a cell nudge a portion of a DNA molecule and it responds. Just keep in mind that the actions of nature come prior to descriptions (including algorithmic descriptions) of those activities which remain secondary, philosophically speaking.

        Furthermore, why only construct algorithms of organisms that successfully reproduce, when organisms also fail to reproduce, and are wiped out in vast numbers and in a wide variety of ways (judging by the number of eggs and sperm that animals eject and the few offsrping that ever survive to continue the reproductive cycle). So you can produce algorithms that model mortality rates, statistically regular death sequences, as well as successful reproduction sequences. And the death rates exceed the successful reproduction rates by far.

        Even among humans half of all fertilization sequences end in the death of the zygote or early embryo during the first month. And in the 1700s Buffon noted that half of all children that were born died before reaching the age of nine-years-old.

        So let’s be logical and at least come to agree concerning what a philosopher and logician can say we know about the cosmos. We know we live in an evolving cosmos in which life may arise, live and die for generations, each new generation devouring other living things for over a billion years–until some upright ape comes along and realizes that the cosmos is in equilibrium with life and death.

        That’s what we know about the cosmos. It’s in equilibrium: life and death. And all things that come to life also die, but new ones are born. Even our star and planet will die one day.

        Life is also restricted to one planet or a limited number of planets (and or moons) in limited habitable zones. The rest of the cosmos, the vast majority of it, is full of energy that easily destroys the organisms living in habitable zones. Even a star going nova near enough our own will project enough deadly radiation to kill living organisms on our planet. And stars passing too near one another will upset the earth’s orbit, killing living organisms. Whole galaxies also collide in this cosmos. And the earth remains a sitting duck in a shooting gallery of comets and asteroids. Not to mention that we live on shifting plates that quake, and that we’d all die if we travelled but five miles above or beneath the earth’s quaking surface.

        Second, our hominid ancestors had to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to get to the point where they could gain enough food, clean water, knowledge of health, and knowledge about the cosmos, which took centuries to acquire, and also gain enough leisure time for some of us to finally be lucky enough to discuss the things we’re lucky enough to have knowledge about and be able to discuss today. To judge by primitive cultures and ancient writing it even took humanity a long time to learn how to count above ten or so. Many primitive cultures simply say “many” after the first five or so numbers. Knowledge is hard won. So is mathematical knowledge. So was the knowledge of how to chip rocks to produce pointier spear heads, or the knowledge of how to start fires. Think of how many of our ancestors were at the mercy of the elements, freezing to death, or dying of hunger, or living in darkness and fear of the sounds of wild animals howling in the night? The wind howls today outside our nice solid windows and walls whose invention did not happen overnight.

        Third, none of us has a very long life that we can spend in study and research and acquiring new experiences. Our time for such things is limited. Most humans have had to spend most of their time involved in sleep, working, eating, cleaning, sewing, raising children. Furthermore, people grow up in different cultures, have different sorts of information input into them early one, have different experiences, read different books, etc. And we are limited in our ability to communicate with one another. Our thougths inside our brain-minds are three dimensional, comparable to the physical neural nets of the brain, linking ideas and experiences in ways one can comprehend easily if they are your own, but not so easily for everyone else to comprehend yours. We are limited in having to use thin two-dimensional streams of words to communicate with each another. So our communication is like a flat thin tricle of water running off a table top rather than a fire hose of three-dimensional intertwined experiences and neural-netted knowledge. So there’s limitations besides shortness of life and study time, and besides only being able to have a limited number of experiences, and besides cultural upbringing. There’s limitations of communication as well.

        Therefore I find it difficult to believe that there’s a “God” that expects us all to agree in our beliefs as to what lay behind the metaphysical curtain. For the same reason I doubt your beliefs are more “logical” than mine. See also my questions concerning agnosticism: http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/religion/leave_christianity.html
        http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/leaving_the_fold/babinski_agnosticism.html

        May I add that I’m 55. When the internet was still in its infancy I already had a self-published newsletter on Theistic Evolution in which I contacted and interacted with creationist and theistic evolutionist authors (this was around the time of the famous Supreme Court case that tried to introduce flood geology and creationism into public schools, that later evolved into the Intelligent Design movement). I was also debating on the internet before color monitors were invented, on the Prodigy network, and getting kudos back then. I was a member of the exclusive Tero Sands group that used to discuss evolutionary science and philosophy (as well as information theory) before some members of that group formed The Panda’s Thumb blog. I’ve spoken with the folks from The Origins & Design network before it was the Origins & Design network–when it was just Origins Research newsletter, and when Michael Denton had his evolution-denying book published on the topic of design even before Behe’s book. By the way, Denton was a senior member of the Discovery Institute but quit, disgusted at the way they pandered to young-earthers. Denton’s second book featured his acceptance of the evidence for common descent. I’ve exchanged a few emails with Dembski as well http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/dembski.html I rec’d many kudos for editing a book of testimonies of people including biblical scholars who left behind conservative Evangelical Christianity. And I rec’d kudos for my chapter on “The Cosmology of the Bible” in a book that was published in 2010. I’ve been studying biology and evolution (and reading biblical scholarship as well) since college.

  13. kenkoskinen says:

    Perry here is a slim summary of what you have stated: DNA has a code, humans have designed all known codes therefore god created the DNA code.

    It certainly seems DNA has a code function. Humans most certainly have created codes. But there is no proof your god exists and/or has done anything. This is your leap of faith or you have found reason for your beliefs and not anything more.

    Your theology is clearly provisional as you altered Genesis 1 with made-up connections to scientifically discovered past histories. You also imagine other biblical texts say we are still living in the seventh day.

    Isn’t it more accurate to say at the end of the day you stay true to your faith while trying to bolster it with reasons? At the same time you also ignore criticism that proves you have not proven your conclusion.

  14. kenkoskinen says:

    Perry, It is as I have mentioned in other posts; the rest imagery in Hebrews 4 was taken from Psalms 95. This is poetic source and you are taking the metaphor literally. There are not any literal OT or NT statements that support your notion. How can you come up with this kind of stuff without researching the clear disconnects?

  15. max says:

    Hi Perry
    I like to know your opinion about the ” Evolution is a blind watchmaker “. on http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=evolution+is+a+blind+

    Thanks

  16. Dara says:

    Thanks for this article, Perry. When scientists started calling the unmapped DNA “junk”, it really perturbed and frustrated me. I could not understand how any intelligent person, let alone a scientist, could take that position and I proceeded to make my opinion known in every way I could. It has been bringing consolation to me to see that this ridiculous attitude is slowly changing and scientists are again looking into the 97% and seeking answers. It takes so little to see the omniscient hand behind creation.

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