I’m reminded of Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation, in which he proved that no evolution had happened by showing that fossils were identical to modern organisms. In one case he showed a fossil spider crab next to a modern crab spider. Obviously, they were the same thing as they were both crabs and both spiders.
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If you’re going to redefine ‘symbol’ so that codons qualify, you should also admit that tree rings qualify as well, because they suggest growing season conditions by reason of a relationship.
But you’re not interested in truth or accuracy, only in shoring up your baseless claims no matter how deeply you need to descend into the abyss of dishonesty to do so.
Game still over. You just won’t admit you’ve lost.
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Does that make crayfish both fish and (outdated) supercomputers? Inquiring minds want to know. 
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No, tree rings don’t qualify as symbols. The main reason is that their relationship to seasonal conditions is necessary, so it lacks the arbitrariness that defines symbols.
I also covered this point too. We also know of RNA-modifying Ribozymes. The full length of my original comment was moved to a new topic (Update on the RNA world), but that no longer exist apparently.
I think @Dan_Eastwood moved it to the new topic. Do you know what happened
Viruses aren’t a “solution”. Viruses, particularly non-reverse transcribing RNA viruses, show examples where template-directed synthesis (i.e. coding) of protein is not from DNA. Adding more plausibility to the RNA world thesis; that RNA preceded DNA as the template for making RNA (itself) and making protein.
Again, the fact we live in a “DNA world” does not invalidate the point that these observations provide plausibility (and in some cases strong evidence) for the RNA world thesis.
Also… as I have pointed out in my original comment… one could be argued that we are still living in an RNA world today with DNA being an atrophied version of RNA that is specialized for a subset of functions at the expense of catalytic properties that RNA still possesses.
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OK, you’re almost there. Now, continue that line of reasoning to the DNA transcription/translation system. Go on…
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I did move it, and there were newer comments on it. I has to dig thru the Deleted Topics log to find it and restore it.
Now I’m finding a number of topics “Automatically Deleted by Timer”.which definitely should not be happening! Most of these are correctly deleted, but I restored yours and one other.
I entered this discussion not to convince my opponents here that the genetic code was designed but only to explain the reasons why I think it was designed. Basically, my argument is that a semiotic code requires an intelligent coder. This inference is based on our experience of the cause and effect relationships in this world. Each time it is possible to trace back the cause of a code, an intelligent agent is invariably found. Note also that Crick himself seemed skeptical about the fact that the genetic code could have arisen through the blind forces of nature only, to the point that he offered an ID hypothesis to account for it, namely his panspermia hypothesis.
Last point. My thesis is that a semiotic code requires an intelligent coder and I’ve given you the reasons why I think so. Your thesis it seems is that the genetic code has arisen through the blind forces of nature only and when asked why you believe this, your answer was that we literally know of nothing which has arisen from non-natural causes. Well, first of all, I recognize that your argument has some merit. But the point I wanted to make is that my thesis is falsifiable whereas yours is not, which according to Popper, make my thesis more scientific than yours.
Yes, that’s the non sequitur of which we’ve all spoken. So your opinion on this is based, in effect, upon nothing. You think that because some codes originate from intelligent sources, all codes, including those which predate intelligence itself, also originate from intelligent sources. There’s a time-traveler problem in there, you may have noticed.
I have advanced no thesis. I have only pointed out that there is zero support for yours. The absence of even a single example of a non-natural cause is a problem for you.
It does not seem to me that “the genetic code has arisen through the blind forces of nature only” is a hypothesis in any event – it is much too vague. Any specific hypothesis about the origins of biological systems has to have a good deal more than that. That’s why there is a “god of the gaps” but no such thing as “naturalism of the gaps”: “God” is taken to be an explanation, while “naturalism” is never taken as an explanation, in itself, of anything. The person who expects that a solution may be found in nature does not say, “Naturalism [or, really, Nature] did it, I believe it, that settles it.” Rather, he says, “we do not know the answer to that question yet; I hope that one day we do.”
Experience, of course, teaches that empirical questions which seem nearly inscrutable at one time and place have a way of opening themselves to scrutiny later, and that it therefore is folly to say that natural explanations cannot account for something merely because they have not yet fully explained it. The empirical approach, with all the bounty it has produced, has shown itself to be far, far more useful than mere philosophy – and philosophy well-practiced, in turn, is far superior to the quacky pseudo-philosophy of which you have shown yourself to be so fond.
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Symbols don’t have to be arbitrary to be symbols. ffs LOL. Can you get anything right?
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Wrong. If we identify a non-natural cause and observe it creating something, then Puck’s
“thesis”, as you call it, is falsified.
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Each time it is possible to trace back the cause of a code[1], a human is invariably found.
So either the genetic code was caused by humans, or there’s a flaw in your logic.
Using any one of your incompatible definitions. ↩︎
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As far as symbols are concerned, arbitrariness, at its core, is about a lack of inherent necessity in the connection between the symbol and what it represents.
Now, can you give at least one exemple of a symbol that isn’t arbitrary in the sense defined above?
(5-character minimum satisfied by parenthetical)
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Well, there goes the genetic code as being arbitrary symbols.
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Rather than dance around, and around, and around, over various definitions of “arbitrary,” “symbol,” or “code,” could you maybe take a moment to explain how the claim that the genetic code must have been created by an intelligent agent (or, as Roy points out, the logically equivalent claim that it must have been created by a human) makes any sense at all? This – not some argument over definitions and linguistic conventions – is the crux of the thing.
I think this is the closest you’ve come, but it’s very far from an explanation:
This explanation, far from satisfactory in any sense, fails utterly. It presents what I call the Panda Problem.
A European naturalist who is an expert in bears, in the days before pandas are known, arrives at an observation: “All ursids are carnivores.” Pretty good observation. It accounts for all of the ursids of which he knows.
Then, one day, he’s out exploring an Asian rainforest, and what should appear but a panda, chowing down on bamboo shoots.
Having observed the panda, and realized that it is an ursid, he has two choices. He can claim that the panda must be a carnivore, because he knows the rule: all ursids are carnivores. Or, he can realize that the rule is wrong.
You’ve been shown evidence that the genetic code is the product of evolution. Even if everything else about your argument were sound, which it plainly is not, the problem is that all this does is put you in the position of that naturalist: you didn’t know that codes could evolve, but you not knowing it doesn’t control reality at all. But here you are, pretending that “I know that beady-eyed weird two-toned bear is a carnivore, I just KNOW it. This inference is based on our experience of the world. Each time it is possible to ascertain the diet of an ursid, it is a carnivore!”
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Many times over the years, I have asked my ID-promoting creationist friends, “Is God sufficiently omniscient and omnipotent to create the laws of physics and chemistry in such a way that powerful evolutionary processes could bring about the genetic code we observe in an amazingly diverse variety of living things?”
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If it’s longer than it’s wide, it’s a phallic symbol:
Not arbitrary for obvious reasons, but easily recognizable why it is considered a symbol nonetheless.
Consider also the symbols for male and female, and that they clearly aren’t arbitrary.
I clould think of a million examples, but making you uncomfortable too was too tempting (heh).
But I can do even better. Consider this one:
Doesn’t seem like an arbitrarily picked shape to me to symbolize explosive.
Corrosive:
High voltage:
Toxic:
Wait it gets better still.
Flammable:
Bike lane:
And perhaps the most ironic of all, the symbol of Christianity:
In light of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, does the cross seem like an arbitrarily picked symbol to represent Christianity?
I rest my case.
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No, it isn’t at all. You just made that up. There is nothing that says a symbol must be something that has a lack of “inherent necessity” in the connection between the symbol and what it represents. I can think symbols that are both completely arbitrary, and not in the slightest.
But in the end this entire exercise in mental gymnastics you’re engaging in is a complete waste of time. You don’t have any case for the claim that the genetic code can only have come about through an act of magic, and you have no arguments against the evidence that the genetic code evolved, which I have already explained.
You continue to ignore the post where I detailed this evidence. You’re apparently afraid of even exposing yourself certain ideas.
Here’s a set of non-arbitrary symbols that represent your behavior quite well. 
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I pondered on the double negative, "lack of inherent necessity”, and I think this fails for multiple reasons. Here’s one not already mentioned:
From Wiki on Morse Code:
To increase the efficiency of transmission, Morse code was originally designed so that the duration of each symbol is approximately inverse to the frequency of occurrence of the character that it represents in text of the English language.
This is a feature of all useful codes: the encoded message easier/faster/cheaper to communicate than the original message. This is an inherent property of codes (see Entropy Encoding), and it is necessary to account for this if you want the code to be useful. This is not arbitrary either.
A counter argument might be that codes do not need to be useful; you might deliberately create a useless code. But that is also non-arbitrary.
This goes to points I made much earlier in this thread:
- A created code requires intent.
- Natural codes exist without intent.
- Humans tend to attach meaning to natural patterns, and in doing so create a new code (with intent) to match that pattern.
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