DNA sequence coding

[Swimmy]

Is 3 billion letters long.


How does something unintelligent from scratch (evolution) form a 3 billion sequence. Is there even enough time to achieve such a number.

[Gabrielman]

Is 3 billion letters long.


How does something unintelligent from scratch (evolution) form a 3 billion sequence. Is there even enough time to achieve such a number.

When one looks at the amount of coding in DNA, and the structure, and the placement in the cell, and what it does, and how complex it is, it really amazes me that it can even work. What really really amazes me though is how someone can come to the conclusion that this just started on its own, and just organized itself perfectly and came to life on it's own. Just one question, does anybody here know how anyone could possibly rationalize that? Talk about a leap of faith!

[Ngakunui]

"DNA" isn't blueprints, though; it's a set of chemical instructions. It's more a shopping list of building components than a detailed set of plans. In other words, let's say that someone is going to make a hut to put all his yard tools and stuff in; to be saying DNA is wholly responsible is like him knowing "Alright, I'm going to make a hut. I need ten three-by-eight sheets of corrugated steel, six two-by-fours, and twenty-five quarter-inch nuts and matching bolts. Now, if only I knew what a hut looked like..."- that doesn't give him the design of the building, but he knows what to build it with. He'll certainly know how to do maintenance on it, but he can't actually build said hut without plans of some sort. Likewise, cancer is what happens if, say, the builder of said hut went crazy and began building the hut out of Legos.

The body of living creatures takes their shape largely through, if I'm not mistaken, mechanical means. Which is to say, the structure. This is one of the more supporting arguments people give for Evolution, as the fetuses of species ranging from fish, to cows, to humans are mistakably similar, if not identical in their earliest stage. DNA certainly does play a role, otherwise we'd all grow up to be gigantic tadpoles, but nonetheless all air-breathing vertebrates, that I know of, that aren't whales or dolphins have the same common characteristics of(naturally) having two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, and two of each limb on each side, as well as a generally similar skeleton. That doesn't mean God isn't responsible for the differences in DNA which develops them differently, but either way, vertebrates start off as living creatures looking like tadpoles.

Now, this doesn't mean you can't argue that humans and other vertebrates have a common ancestor, or that God decided to use the almost exact same reproductive system in thousands of species- that also doesn't cancel out the possibility of God using existing, albeit similar species the create new ones. Strictly speaking it's neither evolution nor classical creationism, but it accounts for the handful of striking similarities between species, as well as the supposed though iffy common ancestry, and still does not deny God creating the species on this planet. It seems feasible to me, but I'm not going to go off in that direction.


Nonetheless, I will wholeheartedly agree that the concept of amoebae ascending into some type of plankton all on their own is a little too far fetched on account of DNA, at least to my sensibilities. The most complicated amoebae have roughly 670,000,000,000(six-hundred-and-seventy-billion:I'm taking about Polychaos Dubia-yes I know it's not EXACTLY an amoeba) units of DNA, while others have about twenty-four million, and humans have roughly 2,900,000,000. Now you can argue that's because of how dynamic amoebae are and they're always changing shape, and I'll agree despite my lack of thorough knowledge in Biology and related sciences- but gelatinous goo on the back of a crystal doesn't just develop into a living creature. Life may naturally seek to survive, but inanimate goo doesn't. And if something isn't alive, it don't just go "I don't like being not alive, because I can't survive when I'm not alive"- if that were true, I'd have been murdered by hordes of angry Lego people when I was like eight. You can still try to justify the lack of sequencing and complexity in the human genome with the lack of bizarre morphing limbs that look like that red thing from The Blob, but it still doesn't make sense that a single celled organism would have the intelligence of its own to decide it wants limbs with opposable thumbs and start changing its everything, and become an Amphipod, which turns into a Horseshoe Crab, which turns into a Turtle, which turns into some sort of species of bipedal crustacean that has laser vision. While I'm pretty sure that's not how the evolutionary tree is mapped out, it still seems kind of silly that an amoeba could adjust its arrangement of nucleic acids so unusually and in such an unnaturally precise manner to intentionally make its offspring progressively become a twelve-foot freak of nature with x-ray vision, or even worse, a Human. I'm not professing to be a doctor of Biology, but in all honestly, it seems a little silly to me.

I know that's a really dumb way of putting it that borders with mental retardation in its silliness, but even it makes more sense than most theories of abiogenesis I've read, which I guess is why scientists in that field of biology are trying to devise something that's more scientific and rational and doesn't sound like someone quickly came up with it as an argument in the middle of a debate with a Christian apologetic on the God and Science forums- Oh wait, that's this place.


Just my thoughts; they're probably misinformed every third sentence. Go figure.

P.S.: I made a few corrections to this a while after posting. My apologies if you were writing a response, and quoted something different than what's written down now.

[Kristoffer]

There is enough time, 3.5 billion years is a great amount of time, it would really be interesting to know what caused the transition from microscopic (single celled) into macroscopic (multi-cellular) life. For a long time life was restricted to single cells, then something happened and made the course of evolution accelerate, thats why it is important for scientists to keep on studying the natural world it would be pertinent to our situation that we discover about what kind of mess we are getting ourselves into when we make species go extinct.

I do not know if "God did it that way" will ever increase our understanding of Evolution, we live in a competitive world...even Jesus saw that. His stories of Pearls of great price and 3 different kinds of people being given loans speak very much in favour of a little bit of good competition.

About the "different mechanics", even though human organs like the eye have some design flaws (that "ingeniously" evolution has worked around) you can certainly say that they develop really nicely.

Ask your self this question: Does life look like it was put together by a blueprint or a recipe? (the difference is that it is much harder to recreate the recipe by looking at the finished product. DNA is a recipe not a blueprint. We are "cooked"

it really amazes me that it can even work

Would it amaze you to know that each of your cells use hi-jacked bacteria to create energy? That part of the cell is called a "mitochondria", plants also shanghai some other type of bacteria which is in their chloroplasts.(also related to energy production)

[jlay]

For a long time life was restricted to single cells, then something happened and made the course of evolution accelerate, thats why it is important for scientists to keep on studying the natural world it would be pertinent to our situation that we discover about what kind of mess we are getting ourselves into when we make species go extinct.

Really? Single cells. please share your testable and observable evidence of this.

[Kristoffer]

well...when i have a time machines i can make the observation, or you could just look at phylogenetic trees and come to your own conclusion about weither we have common ancestors for things. If you disagree that all life is in a grand tree of cousionship then I am PERFECTLY fine with that. Either it is in that Tree of cousinship(which makes sense) OR god did it in an extremely DIRECTED way to make it LOOK like it was. Either way why go through all the trouble of making things LOOK evolved when you could actually have it happen? I do know that evolution has its inneffeciencies, but it is from those that we get extravagance like a peacock's tail and a flamingo's plumage and all the other kinds of beuaty u can you see for yourself in the world, if you are curious then look at the world and see what it is like...There are a million different types of leaf! Why Would god not just give all plants the, "Perfect" leaf? I think because Either there is no god, OR evolution is how god Rolls, he doesn't create things like us simple people on earth, he would do it by indirect fire not by point direct direct fire..Not that I can presume to know the mind if the creator, I can just see how the natural world is.

[zoegirl]

WHy do you deny God a sense of creativity and a sense of engineering? DO you think that every plant needs to have the same leaf? Perhaps it did happen through a process by God's hand. Still doesn't mean He has to settle for one type of leaf.

There are many, many different reasons for the different types of leaves, most of which show a suitability for their environment. The fact that they aren't one type of leaf simply does not mean that there is no God. That is rather absurd.

[jlay]

or you could just look at phylogenetic trees

There is more to proving evolution than simply drawing imaginary branches. It is an outright dishonest joke to connect known things to others with branches, and this just say, "oh look, there's the proof." That my friend, is an outright sham. One you've obviously fallen for. You should demand to go back in time. Because the same skepticism you unleash on our faith, you fail to equally apply to your own worldview.

Why Would god not just give all plants the, "Perfect" leaf?

Maybe the diversity God created is the perfection.

[Gman]

Is 3 billion letters long.


How does something unintelligent from scratch (evolution) form a 3 billion sequence. Is there even enough time to achieve such a number.

By magic.. I mean science..

[Kristoffer]

The world isn't perfect do not be silly, evolution is a extravagance. Many leaves are extravagant, so evolution is how it happened with or without a god or gods or garden gnomes.

[zoegirl]

FOr someone who pokes fun at Christianity, you are showing quite a bit of dogmatism yourself there, Kris