Every time you pay for something on Amazon it uses a computer generated code so you don't get your credit card stolen. Are you saying modern computers have conscious minds.

 He definitely deserves something for all the hard work cutting and pasting. Maybe we should get him a special pair of scissors and glue.

This is not 'proof'. It's a non-sequitor.

You want an example of a naturally-occurring code or language? Well, how about - I dunno - language. Communication. I mean, unless you're still a YEC, you know that language slowly developed over time as a natural process.

One could also argue that gravity and quantum mechanics are, by and large, just systems of information transfer.

...but it seems fairly obvious to me that this is an analogy, intended to convey the idea that information on "building" a lifeform is inherent in DNA.

But in order to be truly a language, in a literal fashion, DNA would have to be a medium of communication between two persons.  Let's entertain, for the moment, the notion that God designed DNA as just such a language.  We gain no knowledge (which, in this case, would literally be a revelation,) by "reading" DNA, except for the knowledge of the chemical basis for life.

Given:

   1. That this knowledge (the chemical basis for life) is wholly compatible with a

        Godless universe, and

   2. That God, if you will, did not see fit to tell us anything in the "language" of

        DNA,

...it seems logical to me to believe that DNA is not a literal language...

...but...

...the argument as given directly states and relies upon the idea that DNA is a literal language.  Thus, the argument does not prove the existence of God.  (Remember, I only entertained the notion of God's existence, and his creation of the "language" of DNA, purely for argument's sake.)

Now comes the part of this post that I am actually afraid to do...

Hamby...deludedgod...would you be so kind as to take a look at my response and critique it?  There's probably a lot I could stand to learn...

Conor

_________________________________________________________________

"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII

"But it should!"--Me

Why do I get the impression that venom is the understudy for Ray Comfort?

Venom, the argument that you are trying to use is a non-sequitor. This is not just semantics or linguistics; your argument is fallacious.

P1: DNA is analagous to a code

P2: Codes are designed

C: DNA is designed

This does not follow. Some codes being designed does not mean that every code must be designed.

 Venomfangx the top of the post is the subject, the poster's name is to the left. My name is tophermurphy the subject of my previous post is Ugh.

Oh no, he's found us! the destroyer of worlds is here!.... GET TO THE SHIPS! ITS OUR ONLY CHANCE!!

That's clever!  May I use that?

Of course - I have no reputation so I'm safe from it being used against me.

This is very simple.  Others have explained it, but I'll say it again.  I will use superscript to designate two different meanings for the word "code."

Code¹- A means of communication in which symbols are used as abstract signifiers for things.  A code is meaningless without at least two entities capable of understanding it.  That is, there is nothing intrinsic in a language code.  The symbols are arbitrary.

Code²- A bonded series of molecules that replicate with heredity due to the laws of physics and biochemistry.

English is a Code¹.  Its letters, sounds, and rules are arbitrary.  English cannot do anything.  It is only a tool used by humans to do something.

DNA is a Code².  Without the need for sentient beings, it goes about the natural process of doing what it does, which is replicate with heredity.  DNA does not stand for anything.  It is the replicator.  It is the moving force behind natural selection.

Where some people get confused is in thinking that the Code¹ that people use to describe the Code² is the same as the Code².  It is most certainly not.  We use the symbols A, C, G, and T to represent purines and pyrimidines.  These two words are also language, of course.  The actual chemicals, A, C, G, and T (Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine) are bits of matter that have certain natural properties.  Without the need for symbols or Code¹, they do exactly what they naturally do, which is bond in very specific patterns.  T and A form chemical bonds, as do G and C.  In much the same way that carbon molecules form diamonds anytime they encounter the correct set of environmental factors, so to do the chemicals in DNA form replicators with heredity when they encounter the correct set of environmental factors.

The point ought to be obvious.  The physical processes by which DNA replicates itself are just that -- physical processes.  They are not an arbitrary sequence of symbols which represent something else.  They are just what they are.  Humans have invented an arbitrary sequence of symbols which has subsequently been used to communicate concepts about DNA.  We use Code¹ to talk about Code².

It's not that hard, people.

All Code¹'s are created by conscious minds.  That is inherent in the definition of a Code¹.  Because of the quirks of our particular Code¹, some people have misunderstood the nature of Code².  It is unfortunate that we don't have another word.  In fact, let's choose another word.  From now on, let's call DNA a "pattern."  Now, watch how this argument fails:

P: DNA is a pattern.

P: All codes are created by conscious minds.

Therefore: ????

You see?  This argument is fatally flawed since the terms in the syllogism are not properly distributed.

The notion of information storage can be dealt with easily as well.  Language (Code¹) does not store anything.  It is just squiggles on paper or etchings in stone.  The information language conveys is dependent on the conscious organisms who use it.  No matter how long you allow a textbook about DNA to sit undisturbed, it will not create DNA.  It is just paper and ink.  No actual information exists until a conscious being deciphers the abstract squiggles of ink.

DNA, on the other hand, IS the information.  It need not be aware of its own information.  Obviously, it is not.  Information theory is something humans have invented with language to describe what happens in the natural universe.  If we knew nothing about DNA, it would still work.   This is obvious because it did work for millions of years before humans discovered it.

So... yeah... this has been beaten to death enough times. 

Sexy!

I like this argument very much.  It highlights the special pleading inherent in assuming that life is not a "natural process."  By assuming that life is somehow different than the formation of water or diamonds, it begs the question and creates a circular argument.

Ack... I know you used scare quotes, but... ack...

The whole point here is that DNA and evolution are quite different in kind from languages.  There simply is no analogy to be made.  I don't see the point of throwing in another confusing word.  If anything, it may make a theist think he has a fall back position when he does not.

For the record, languages change over time, but they are not self replicating, and there is no such thing as a unit of language selection.  They don't evolve in the scientific sense.  Only replicators evolve, and only DNA and RNA are replicators on earth at this time.

There you go again Venom, trying to construct an idol. The buddha like story jesus was against doing that, and had some harsh words for all such wrong thinking. He even called peter satan .... and how can we communicate if we don't use liguistics? The tower of babel ... wow, our clever ancient ancestors !!!

The former post wasn't your argument either, it was stolen from another site. 

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/15619

Yeah, babel tower! I read it as early funny entertaining science fiction writing from our scientifically ignorant 'clever' ancestors. What bothers me is how all such writing was turned into religion and church dogma, sucked up by the masses as even this day. Geezz, we might as well say we still live in the dark age.

I often equate the inventors of Gods and such, as early sociologists. Rook has mentioned a distinction of intent between the early writings and the church and their relationship.

Theists must be getting desperate, they are trying to lump atheism in with people like Captain Pinnaple.

Just because someone doesn't buy your old established myth, does not mean that we buy into new age naked assertions.

The universe is not a computer program, it is not a giant brain, it is not a invisable conciousness.

These theists have atheists confused with Star Trec fans who think Rodenberry invented the cell phone.

I did not know that. This god is weird. So, then could someone dig a hole deep enough to reach hell?

Hamby and Nigel have refuted the DNA==Code thing pretty well, but I thought I throw in my take on it to further bury this nonsense.

I've explained this elsewhere recently, but here we go again:

Individual elements of the DNA code can change, or get copied more than once, or deleted  ('point mutations') thru transcription errors.

Same for entire sequences (genes).

Individuals can get extra copies of whole chromosomes.

All these processes have been observed and thoroughly documented.

So the raw material for all possible changes to the 'code' is being generated continually, every time there is a 'hiccup' in the copying of DNA.

Throw in the process of natural selection, the INEVITABLE weeding out of harmful changes, the improved survival of the occasional beneficial ones, and voila!, new code, with potential new functionality.

There is nothing in this process that violates any laws of physics or information theory.

Random or stochastic mutation followed by a non-random selection process is the basic algorithm for generating new information, even in the minds of human designers - think of 'brain-storming sessions'. Then there are genetic algorithms in computers, which do generate novel solutions to framed problems, by exploring the region of all possible combinations of code structure and parameter settings available to the program.

IOW this algorithm is the only known source of 'new information', as the idea is used here. The only difference when it happens in the mind of a conscious designer, is that both the random generation and the selection process are weighted towards desired outcomes, ie the selection process is based on what serves our purposes and desires, rather than just what will survive best under particular environmental conditions.

The rate at which errors occur has also evolved - perfectly accurate copying mechanisms would never evolve beyond their initial state, very error-prone ones would lead to too many mutations, which are mostly harmful. The need for some inaccuracy in replication to allow evolution to actually occur is one of the reasons we have things like cancer, which is a particularly harmful form of mutation. It's a trade-off.

EDIT:

To relate this more specifically to the OP, those assertions about 'codes', and 'language' are trying to turn the analogies between the patterns in DNA, which define a sequence of peptides making up a particular protein, and the sequence of letters in written text which we use to define a sequence of spoken syllables we understand as language, into 'proof' that the correspondence goes much deeper, without anything more than bare-faced assertion.

Describing it as a 'language' is way over-stretching the analogy.

It is a 'code' only in the sense that particular triplet sequences of bases on the DNA bind preferentially to particular amino acids, but this correspondence is not arbitrary in the sense of human designed codes, it follows NATURALLY from the nature of the forces of attraction and repulsion between sub-atomic particles, and how these combine to affect the nett attraction between different molecular structures. So it is not all that good an analogy when you dig deeper.

In a very real sense, every strand of DNA is "an empirical example of a code that occurs naturally", in the restricted metaphorical sense of 'code' as a natural correspondence between two different series of molecular structures.

In many cases we can provide evidence to how it has developed naturally by showing how the DNA sequences in related organisms show differences which make most sense as a series of changes in an evolutionary process. IOW we see strong evidence of naturally occurring changes, further reinforced by the recently described E Coli experiment showing evolutionary style changes in DNA. So we see new, functional, coded sequences arising NATURALLY.

You didn't know about the Tower of Babel? Aw, this is religion at its finest. You should have heard of this story from Genesis.

My Bible, New International Version. (wish I had king james)

"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the earth."

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel - because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:1-9

Let's play Spot the Fallacy! 

1) What points contradict science? One point each.

2) What points contradict history? One point each.

2) What points contradict an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God? Two points each.   

I hope so butter, this babel domga stink needs be defeated for the kids. Come back all idol worshipers .... so we atheists can eradicate your stench.

Finally something concrete to comment on.

So is a rock. What's your point? 

Pure bullshit. Every process that we use is natural, by definition. Therefore it is natural, and known.

Obviously not.

First you have to prove that DNA is more of a code or language than water. Good luck.

There's no basis in your argument. It is nonsensical. It requires no response from the scientific community, who completely ignores ignorant savages who still believe the earth is flat, such as yourself.
 

I'm afraid that you couldn't be more wrong. How about you explain why even the pope acknowledges evolution? Why YE Creationists number less than Wiccans and Scientologists?

I'm not even going to bother. Editorials in a newspaper are the standard tactic of the ignorant.

All these things are true.

Meh.

Hey, fuckstick, did you already forget what happened when you tried this shit at the richarddawkins.net board a few months ago? Are you both a blithering moron AND a masochist?

This makes me chuckle

A computer program's output is determined by it's initial state, but you can't work back from the output state to a unique input state.

The space of possibilities explored by things like genetic algorithms of reasonable sophistication can easily be so vast that the outputs are as close to unpredictable in any practical sense that their output is in no way consciously determined by the programmer.

As the number and complexity of interactions, and the numerical precision of the parameters involved, increases, the distinction between a purely deterministic system and one with a fuzziness at the lowest level ( as seems to be the case in our universe thanks to quantum phenomena and the Planck limit ) becomes moot, at least at the top level, and for the vast bulk of interactions. Even that fuzziness can be simulated to any desired ( although finite ) degree of precision desired, thus approaching ever closer to matching the behaviour of the 'real' universe. Or we could include a 'true randomness' generator, based on something like the amplified thermal noise across a semiconductor junction, into the machine, and we have a genuinely non-deterministic, unpredictable system.

So don't put too much weight on making a distinction between computer simulations and the real Universe...