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To: jlogajan; AndrewC
Unless you are asserting DNA structures are formed and controlled by magic rather than electron configurations, then it's not clear what your objection is.

DNA sequences are maintained by chemical interactions. The information encoded into the sequences relies on the chemical interactions for maintaining its integrity, but neither the information nor the structures that the cell uses the DNA to generate is determined by them. Though G pairs with C, and A with T, there is nothing in the chemical interactions in a sequence of DNA that determines what the sequence can or must be.

The information in a sequence of DNA is no more determined by the chemical interactions in the DNA than is the content of an AM radio message by the frequency of the carrier wave. While both rely on the nature of their particular medium for their propagation, neither is determined by it. This is wholly unlike crystal formation.
72 posted on 12/20/2002 1:46:29 AM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan
The information encoded into the sequences relies on the chemical interactions for maintaining its integrity, but neither the information nor the structures that the cell uses the DNA to generate is determined by them. Though G pairs with C, and A with T, there is nothing in the chemical interactions in a sequence of DNA that determines what the sequence can or must be.

But information and sequence as not equivalent. The specific sequence of atoms in, say, a salt crystal is not determined by chemical bonds either. (Unless you are like AndrewC and you think that hydrogen bonds have lost all covalent character and all other interactions between atoms are meaningless in biology.)

End ligatation is discerneably favorable for the different bases. Granted, end ligation is not the way sequence is propagated or changed in DNA. But that's not the point.

Always compare apples with apples.

It is quite another subject to say that there is information contained in one sequence of atoms but not in another sequence. You can't make that point with an argument about chemical bonds in the DNA molecule. The uniqueness of snow crystals, for instance, is not determined by chemical bonds, per se, but those differences don't happen to be used for information like the difference in DNA sequences are.

82 posted on 12/20/2002 6:52:56 AM PST by Nebullis
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To: aruanan
The information in a sequence of DNA is no more determined by the chemical interactions in the DNA than is the content of an AM radio message by the frequency of the carrier wave. While both rely on the nature of their particular medium for their propagation, neither is determined by it. This is wholly unlike crystal formation.

Snowflakes vary in shape for the same reason DNA can vary in arrangement. Magic is not needed to explain either one.

Of course DNA is a more complex system -- the point was that DNA itself "evolved" from simpler systems -- and those simpler systems were along the lines of chemical chains -- the same sort of forces that give rise to snowflakes, minerals, and other crystaline structures.

The difference between DNA and snowflakes is not one of "magic" or "design", but rather of evolved system complexity. Both, however, arise straight out of chemistry's ability to influence macrostructure based upon local electron configurations.

88 posted on 12/20/2002 8:55:39 AM PST by jlogajan
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To: aruanan; All
This is wholly unlike crystal formation.

Absolutely. I will be off for a Christmas vacation. God bless and have a blessed and holy Christmas.

96 posted on 12/20/2002 10:07:45 AM PST by AndrewC
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