The irreducibly complex ribosome is a unique creation in the three domains of life

The evolution of the genetic code and the ribosome are intimately connected as the code is expressed through ribosomal activity. Models of genetic code evolution are analyzed. The error-minimization theory is faulty in that it supposes that highly error-prone genetic codes could produce more precise codes over time. The stereochemical theory posits complementarity between nucleotides and amino acids, but cannot demonstrate this for the whole code. The co-evolution theory states that the genetic code developed from an ancestral through an ancient to a modern state. There is no evidence for ancestral code protein generation. The big question remains why the code solidified in its present state. Finally, the accretion theory of ribosomal evolution is shown incapable of answering key questions.

All very imoressive and wordy - but that complex and critical coding that had to be in the first viable organism came about - how?

Please don’t tell me that random chance did it unless you’re willing to admit that you’ve never written computer code.

In summary, the supposedly “flawed” work of Yarus (as claimed by Meyer and Nelson) is not only being used successfully by other researchers, those other researchers are adding to the evidence that the genetic code (a) has a chemical basis, and (b) has evolved over time. Both of these lines of evidence undermine the ID claim that the genetic code is an arbitrary code directly produced by a designer apart from a natural process.

We know DNA has the following

1. Functional Information
2. Encoder
3. Error Correction
4. Decoder

These 4 items are basic and necessary. It is a closed system dependent on all operations to be functioning. You have information in a symbolic representation and a reading frame code. But beyond this, a formalization of semantic closure would need to be in place prior to the first cell. Put simply, a message assumes a protocol (agreement, set of rules) between the sender and the receiver, to help correctly encode and interpret the contents of the message. A simple example would be codons; they only represent amino acids if you have the system in place to interpret the functional relationship of the medium (aaRS). To state the obvious, this cannot just happen by accident.

Furthermore, the code and the functional information do not depend, in any way, from the chemistry which allows protein synthesis. Proof-reading, error-correction, editing and splicing, are not reducible to chemistry. Carrying out the genetic code is not reducible to chemistry. (Of course, they need that chemistry to work, but that is all another concept.)

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