Posted on 01/12/2025 6:50:59 AM PST by daniel1212
In the growing movement known as intelligent design, Stephen Meyer is an emerging figurehead. A young, Cambridge-educated philosopher of science, Meyer is director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute — intelligent design’s primary intellectual and scientific headquarters. He’s also author of Signature in the Cell, a provocative new book that offers the first comprehensive DNA-based argument for intelligent design.[...]
What would be your main argument for the evidence of intelligent design in the cell?
Well, the main argument is fairly straightforward. We now know that what runs the show in biology is what we call digital information or digital code. This was first discovered by [James] Watson and [Francis] Crick. In 1957, Crick had an insight which he called “The Sequence Hypothesis,” and it was the idea that along the spine of the DNA molecule there were four chemicals that functioned just like alphabetic characters in a written language or digital characters in a machine code. The DNA molecule is literally encoding information into alphabetic or digital form. And that’s a hugely significant discovery, because what we know from experience is that information always comes from an intelligence, whether we’re talking about hieroglyphic inscription or a paragraph in a book or a headline in a newspaper. If we trace information back to its source, we always come to a mind, not a material process. So the discovery that DNA codes information in a digital form points decisively back to a prior intelligence. That’s the main argument of the book.[...]
I think the digital revolution in computing has made it much easier to understand what’s happening in biology. We know from experience that not only software but the information processing system and design strategies that software engineers use to process and store and utilize information are not only being used in digital computing but they’re being used in the cell. It’s the same basic design logic, but it’s executed with an 8.0, 9.0, 10.0 efficiency. It’s an elegance that far surpasses our own. It’s a new day in biology. It’s a digital revolution. We have digital nanotechnology running the show inside cells. It’s exquisitely executed and suggests a preeminent mind.
‘Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?’
Yes.
This question is too modest. The conclusion has been self evident long before the discovery of DNA.
And that is the truth. So often here, in our increasingly declining IQ culture, "not responding" when one is the OP is characterized as "running and hiding".
The answer to this question, to me, has always been an absolute yes.
If there is programming behind biology, then there’s the possibility of programming behind every system in the universe. Obviously the universe’s (macro) programming is beyond our comprehension, the same way we didn’t know about DNA, or understand it, until relatively recently. It may even be beyond our ability to ever observe it. But, if we can find it in other, more “localized” systems, inductive reasoning would point to its existence everywhere.
And if there is programming behind every system in the universe, whether the universe is physical or virtual (doesn’t matter which, to be honest), then the universe is an open, sandbox simulation.
as a life-long computer scientist, systems designer and programmer, as well as a lifelong student of the molecular life sciences, it’s crystal clear that life on earth did NOT arise by flipping an atomic coin an astronomical gazillions of times ...
the intra-cellular nano-machinery and mechanisms are mind-blowingly similar to computing machinery, programmatic data, and principles of data coding, such as modular coding and reuse of code ... it’s simply undeniable that cellular functioning consists of an unimaginably intricate set of very clever machines constructed from organic molecule parts ... and anyone who pretends like that all happened by accident is either an ignorant fool or a liar or both ...
Some “scientists” claim to believe that lightning and cosmic rays struck a primordial soup in ammonia-rich oceans, producing the complex molecules that formed the precursors to life. Others believe that chemical reactions at deep-sea hydrothermal vents gave rise to cell membranes and simple cellular pumps.
In other words, the massively sophisticated molecular machinery of single-cell organisms simply arose spontaneously as fully functional units after bombarding mud puddles with lightening and cosmic rays for a few hundred million years.
And, btw, the current THEORY of evolution is no different than the previous “discredited” 19th century “spontaneous generation” theory that life arose spontaneously from mud puddles. The ONLY difference is the amounts of time involved in the two theories ... plus some extra mumbo-jumbo about lightening, cosmic rays and sea water ...
If you believe that, then you should have no problem at all with believing that a Panasonic CF-54 laptop computer with Windows 7 operating system could arise spontaneously if we simply ground such a bunch of laptop into powder along with a bunch of powered DVD of the Windows Operating system and filled a bunch of beakers with those powders, put some sea water in, and then bombarded the laptop soup in the beakers with lightening for a few billion years while shaking the beakers.
Eventually, we might obtain some resisters and capacitors, but then they would evolve into integrated circuit chips, which would eventually EVOLVE all by themselves into laptops (with operating systems) after being bombarded by cosmic rays for a very long time after the first resisters and capacitors appeared.
If organic life formed by accident in a similar scenario, then certainly there should be no problem with obtaining the laptop and operating system in a like fashion, because after all, the laptop and OS are a few thousand trillion times simpler than, say, a single cell of the Homo Sapiens species. In fact, we should obtain the laptop and OS much much faster because they are so much simpler.
I believe DNA does show an intelligent design. I believe there is FAR more evidence in the universe of intelligent design. One of the factors is how well the laws of the universe respond to mathematics.
That pretty much sums it up. Brilliant observation!
catnipman, many thanks for your post. Most interesting. :-)
Yes, but some people do not even believe the moon landings were real.
Yep. Romans 1:20
That the universe is ID should be beyond dispute, but whether the Democrat platform is should find dispute.
The thief claimed that he just could not the police station.
Read later.
“Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?”
Only if you understand the epigenetic effect of consciousness upon the physical body manifestation and the specialization of stem cells.
Right on.
Romans 1:19
“...since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”
Regardless of age-of-the-universe and religious views, the basic distinction between Intelligent Design and Naturalism is this:
An intelligence behind the miracle, or no intelligence behind the miracle.
Naturalism presents a “just so” view, where everything is seemingly internally coherent post-miracle. The claim is essentially “Just give us this one miracle and the rest will make sense.”
They simultaneously argue for a non-intelligent, self-existent matter being acted upon by self-existent laws to produce the miracle of the universe and all therein, while mocking the idea of an intelligent, self-existent being to do the same.
Romans 1:23
“Claiming to be wise, they became fools...”
Excellent comment.
Only thing is that it's pre-chrstian and doesn't prove chrstianity, so everyone ignores it for philosophical speculation.
Oh, please. There is too little info.
Interesting SF article years ago. Premise was the value of pi. Math dingbat (I went to school with some, they are crazier than electrical engineers) runs big computer out to millions and millions of digits. Then, a message appears. Message is along the lines of: “Took you long enough to get here. How do you like what I did?”
Intelligence is only one ingredient. Benevolence vs. Malevolence is another. (As well as the existence of committees.)
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