Is DNA Designed?

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niceatheist said:
So you can infer the existence of a great great great grandfather, but you have no direct evidence. And in fact, that is how a lot of science works, through inference. You can’t see an electron, but you can infer its existence and its properties through the effects it has on observable objects. We actually have a lot better than even that for the early atmosphere, we can find ancient rocks from the period before there was free oxygen, we have zircon crystals that capture primordial water, in essence we have enough “fossil” atmospheric data to reconstruct the reducing atmosphere that existed. We even know roughly when the cyanobacteria became numerous enough to begin altering the atmosphere because we quite literally have rocks from around 2.4-2.5 billion years ago that have iron oxide deposits. In other words, iron minerals literally began to rust as oxygen levels rose.

Repeatability, prediction and observation don’t mean that unless you directly observe a phenomenon you cannot formulate testable hypotheses. We have no way of observing the core of the Earth, but we can use indirect methods like sound waves to gain density data, and because we know how specific elements and minerals behave under such conditions, we can construct a model of the core of the planet.
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I am curious then, why are you an atheist?
 
PetraG said:
Does that accusation apply to members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?
Does this award give you reason to believe the Vatican is full of atheists?
http://www.pas.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/vari/chuang_piusximedalbooklet.pdf
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Christmas 2008
Dear Friends,
Please accept my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. May it prove not as painful as
economists predict nor as consensual as proponents of political correctness wish.
….At the turn of October and November the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) met in Rome
to discuss: "Scientific-insights into the evolution of the universe and of life.” When I heard about
this session I searched out addresses of all the members of PAS (among them about one-third are
Nobel prize laureates) and sent them my booklet “Teaching on evolution in European schools”,
together with a cover letter explaining who I am and expressing the hope that the enclosed
booklet would prove useful in connection with the session they were about to participate in.
Some of the academicians sent me a short thank-you letter; however the Chancellor of the
Academy, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, wrote a cordial longer letter. I responded, asking
him whether any part of the session would be open to the public and if not, whether it would be
possible to obtain a personal invitation. He agreed that I could come and sit in on the session as
an observer, without the right to speak. And thus I became a participant in the Oct. 31st-Nov. 4th
session of the PAS. I was unable to participate in the official discussions, however I used all the
intermissions for conversations with the participants and I made my booklet available in English
to all who were interested. My observations from this extraordinary experience are quite
disturbing. All the academicians are scientists of the highest level and the papers presented were
truly of top quality. However, unfortunately many of the academicians are atheists. The
remainder are supporters of the theory of evolution but allow for the possibility of God’s
influence on its course. In all the discussions after the papers, the main confrontation was
between atheists and theists on whether God is necessary or redundant in explaining evolutionary
processes. Among the speakers and polemists there was not a single critic of the theory of
evolution.
The media were not very happy that in his speech to the PAS Pope Benedict XVI did not express
support for the theory of evolution. Instead they dwelled on the kind welcome shown by the
Pope to Prof. Stephen W. Hawking and on the latter’s paper. Hawking is an invalid in a
wheelchair who communicates through a speech synthesizer. In his paper he analysed the
development of human thought about the origins of the universe. Hawking considers questions
about origins as absurd as asking about the edge of the earth, assuming it is flat, or about the
southerly direction on the South Pole. He believes that it is possible to answer questions “Why
are we here?” or “Where did we come from?” within the limits of natural sciences. His agnostic
conclusion became the main media message of the whole conference.
 
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Many contributions treated processes leading to race formation as steps in evolution. However,
races are genetically poorer than the populations from which they arose. Evolution requires an
increase in genetic information and not the loss of it. It requires new functions and organs. None
of the papers presented showed any result supporting the evolutionary postulate, yet all of them
treated evolution as an unquestioned paradigm.
From the theistic side the most interesting paper was presented by Cardinal Christoph Schõnbom
(not a member of the academy). He summarised the statements on evolution made so far by
Benedict XVI (and Cardinal Ratzinger). In the discussion that followed Schõnbom forcefully
defended the view of the Pope and his own that God is not to be called in only to fill gaps in the
evolutionary process. He supervises the totality of the development of the World. To a direct
question, whether he believes in evolution, Schõnbom answered that for the theory to be proven,
still much is lacking.
I sat in silence. At intermissions I tried to discuss privately with the participants of the session.
The conference lacked even a single paper that would be critical of the theory of evolution from
the scientific point of view. Those present, primarily retirees, had never heard of scientific
research that contradicted the theory of evolution. Because of the makeup of the group of PAS
speakers selected for the conference, the Church also did not hear about this research.
I understand that the Church wants to know what the world of science is proposing, also what the
atheists propose. However, by setting up a conference in such a way as this recent forum, the
Church will never be informed about the full picture. It will hear only the voices of its critics
(known on a daily basis from a multitude of sources). These critics did not receive a response
against which they would have to defend themselves with scientific arguments. They received
only an assurance that God has something to do with the development of the world, a position
which they can easily reject as an expression of religious fundamentalism that they despise.
(Emphasis added)
Unfortunately, a similar session planned for March by the Pontifical Council for Culture is also
likely to be manned by atheistic and theistic supporters of evolution. In parallel with the PAS
conference on the topic of evolution there was a one day (Nov. 3rd) symposium at the Sapienza
University in Rome entitled “A Scientific Critique of Evolution.” I was one of the speakers at
this session. The aim of the conference was to present scientific results that contradict the
Darwinian theory of evolution. Two Indian bishops attended it. Unfortunately the major media
did not care to notice this session. There was my interview with Vatican Radio, in which I
discussed both of the sessions in which I participated, and a few notes in some niche
publications.
Sincerely,
Maciej Giertych
Prof. dr. hab. Maciej Giertych ● ul. Bialoboka 4 ● 62-035 Kórnik ● Poland
 
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A bit off topic, but to put it simply, it’s because I don’t see the need for such an entity. But I readily admit that that isn’t what I consider a scientific view, but rather a philosophical position.
 
Thank you, Buffalo. The other side of the story is either unknown or unrecognized. I am glad Mr. Giertych was able to say something.
 
On a Catholic forum, the reality of Jesus Christ needs to be presented to all. He is alive, right now. Of course, there are, speaking generally, those who reject this.
 
This is probably a topic best discussed in another thread, but causation is a property of the universe. I see no reason to extrapolate it back “before”, if the concept of “before” even makes sense.
 
IWantGod said:
This is a different question to whether or not evolution is true, because while changes can happen naturally, one could argue that the transformative mechanism of change is designed. In this case we are talking about DNA.

Please present your arguments for or against.
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Each and every snowflake is unique and different

So to each human person is unique and different {due to mind, intellect and FREEWILL}

As DNA is part of the human person; YES it DNA is designed by God

Patrick
 
No. My view (not scientific, I remind you) is that the universe is self-caused. I have to be convinced of the veracity of multiverses.
 
buffalo said:
On Evolution in the European Parliament

EUROPE IS VERY FAR FROM BEING UNANIMOUS ABOUT THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION.

The existence of devolution can be demonstrated experimentally.

http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/book-promotions/evolution-etc/evolution-etc.htm
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Natural selection favoring a less-complex organism violates the theory of evolution…how?

Also, tell me the evidence you use to arrive at the date for the matter in the universe that you actually think is most likely to be true.
 
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A self-caused universe would need purpose and intent to move forward. An unscientific point of view would be a belief. Then, you do believe is that there is a self (god) behind the universe who caused it to be self-caused. Your god is the universe. When everything is part of god, that’s pantheism and you, yourself, would be part of god. Philosophy is necessary. Scientism can’t see the past. It can speculate and presume. Note: not all realities are physical.

Almighty God is the Uncaused Cause who causes everything else to come into existence. All things, visible and invisible, are derived from the Uncaused Cause.
 
There are two kinds of design arguments. Both make inferences from the idea of complexity. One of those arguments is an absolute failure and the other has hardly been considered, and not at all on this thread.

1. The first argument, tries to be a scientific argument. It is where somebody comes across a complex thing in nature, and they assume that such an object could not arise in nature according to natural laws. In other-words they argue that an intelligent being must have constructed it from scratch and placed it in the natural world. This argument fails because it is evident that complex objects do occur in nature and they occur according to natural processes. The design argument fails to demonstrate that any natural thing is too complex that it couldn’t have become that way through the power of physical reality alone. In principle it could have been the nature of atoms to form into any complex thing that we can imagine. One could still argue that such an event is occuring according to the nature of physical things and thus is happening “naturally”; if by naturally one means that an intelligent mind is not directly interfering or manipulating physical processes in the same way that a man would build a house. Thus design by intervention is a flawed insofar as accounting for complexity in nature is concerned. Therefore, this kind of design argument fails, especially if one intends it to replace an already established scientific theory, since there is no way of testing it.

A variation of this argument is the idea that something extremely complex is naturally possible but is so unlikely that an intelligent being would have to interfere in order to produce the desired effect. on the surface this may seem a plausibly defensible argument. but as soon as you take in to consideration billions of years and also a potentially infinite number of universes it becomes obvious that the odds are not against the possibility of some complex thing in some universe becoming actual at some point. In other-words the argument fails to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that an intelligent designer is required; And even if there were only one universe, and one said that one universe is not enough, the atheist is quite happy to accept that we are just a very unlikely but lucky outcome. So, such an argument is not going to convince an atheist.

To be continued…
 
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Continued…

2. The second Argument is a teleological argument. It is my own personal argument. It does not try to refute any scientific theory and neither does it argue for an intervention in the natural world as an explanation of complexity. What it does do is point out that whenever physical nature arranges itself into complex processes and self-replicates this process to variably produce the same thing with determined outcomes (whether this favors survival, sustenance, or the continuation of a species) this is evidence of goal direction in nature because it implies that there is information or a blueprint that becomes actual in conjunction with physical processes. It is on this bases that one can make an inference, not to an intelligent intervention, but to an intelligent cause of physical reality. Goal direction is most obvious in human-beings. Even if an atheist does not believe in a non-physical mind, it is still evident that our mind acts for the goal of survival, sustenance, and procreation. These are not just arbitrary ends, they are clearly meaningful ends. Even for animals, the very idea of having instincts would not be possible without goal direction. There is goal direction in our nature and it’s existence is simply not intelligible unless there is an intelligent cause. DNA, is not designed, but the effects of DNA gives us insight into information that produces intelligent goal directed systems.

Now this information or blueprint for life must have existed as a potentiality in physical nature since the Birth of physical existence. The Atheist could argue that the intelligibility of such a thing existing is unimportant and that if one can show that in principle it’s possible that physical existence has always existed, then my argument has failed. Firstly, I disagree that the intelligibility of what a thing is doing is unimportant since reality appears to me as such that i think that it is intelligible and is doing intelligible things and that only makes sense if there is an intelligence behind it. The simple fact of the matter is, physical existence isn’t just existing, it is actually doing something and producing things in an intelligible way.

But lets assume i need further evidence or reason to think that physical nature was produced by an intelligence. All i have to do is show that physical reality does not exist of it’s own nature and is in fact dependent upon the existence of that which is not physical reality which exists necessarily without change. Once i have established that, all that needs to be said is that the physical laws of nature are not necessary, and since they are not necessary, they would have to be caused into existence; and since there is goal direction in nature, one has no choice but to think that such a cause is intelligent.

The only way out of the argument is to deny that Goal direction exists, which would would render the existence of organisms, or life in general, unintelligible. But this conflicts with our experience which suggests that these things are intelligible. It is that very intelligibility that forms the foundation of both philosophy and science.
 
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oldnskeptical said:
What you call goal direction is nothing more than survival of the fittest. A mindless, self-reinforcing mechanism that favors certain characteristics over other less viable characteristics. Survival of the fittest doesn’t require intelligence or intent, it simply requires that one thing be better adapted to a given set of conditions than something else. That which can reproduce is more likely to dominate a given environment than that which can’t, it’s as simple as that. So for every single life-form on this planet, or on any other planet for that matter, the goal is exactly the same…survive. Form, function and purpose are all dictated by one mindless process…survival of the fittest.
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That a thing survives or not, is not what is being questioned here, but rather it is the fact that a thing has goal direction in it’s nature at all, a self moving, self-sustaining system that tries to survive and acts to that end and is compelled by instinct or desire to replicate.

What you have said here is irrelevant to my argument.
 
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