Thursday, October 20, 2005

God Doesn't Make Junk!



Junk DNA? If God put it in there, it isn't junk!!

Language in Junk DNA

You've probably heard of a molecule called DNA, otherwise known as "The Blueprint Of Life". Molecular biologists have been examining and mapping the DNA for a few decades now.

But as they've looked more closely at the DNA, they've been getting increasingly bothered by one inconvenient little fact - the fact that 97% of the DNA is junk, and it has no known use or function!

But, an usual collaboration between molecular biologists, cryptoanalysists (people who break secret codes), linguists (people who study languages) and physicists, has found strange hints of a hidden language in this so-called "junk DNA".

Only about 3% of the DNA actually codes for amino acids, which in turn make proteins, and eventually, little babies. The remaining 97% of the DNA is, according to conventional wisdom, not gems, but junk.

The molecular biologists call this junk DNA, introns. Introns are like enormous commercial breaks or advertisements that interrupt the real program - except in the DNA, they take up 97% of the broadcast time. Introns are so important, that Richard Roberts and Phillip Sharp, who did much of the early work on introns back in 1977, won a Nobel Prize for their work in 1993. But even today, we still don't know what introns are really for.

Simon Shepherd, who lectures in cryptography and computer security at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, took an approach, that was based on his line of work. He looked on the junk DNA, as just another secret code to be broken.

He analysed it, and he now reckons that one probable function of introns, is that they are some sort of error correction code - to fix up the occasional mistakes that happen as the DNA replicates itself. But even if he's right, introns could have lots of other uses.

The next big breakthrough came from a really unusual collaboration between medical doctors, physicists and linguists. They found even more evidence that there was a sort-of language buried in the introns.

According to the linguists, all human languages obey Zipf's Law. It's a really weird law, but it's not that hard to understand. Start off by getting a big fat book. Then, count the number of times each word appears in that book.

You might find that the number one most popular word is "the" (which appears 2,000 times), followed by the second most popular word "a" (which appears 1,800 times), and so on. Right down at the bottom of the list, you have the least popular word, which might be "elephant", and which appears just once.

Set up two columns of numbers. One column is the order of popularity of the words, running from "1" for "the", and "2" for "a", right down "1,000" for "elephant". The other column counts how many times each word appeared, starting off with 2,000 appearances of "the", then 1,800 appearances of "a", down to one appearance of "elephant".

If you then plot on the right kind of graph paper, the order of popularity of the words, against the number of times each word appears you get a straight line! Even more amazingly, this straight line appears for every human language - whether it's English or Egyptian, Eskimo or Chinese! Now the DNA is just one continuous ladder of squillions of rungs, and is not neatly broken up into individual words (like a book).

So the scientists looked at a very long bit of DNA, and made artificial words by breaking up the DNA into "words" each 3 rungs long. And then they tried it again for "words" 4 rungs long, 5 rungs long, and so on up to 8 rungs long.

They then analysed all these words, and to their surprise, they got the same sort of Zipf Law/straight-line-graph for the human DNA (which is mostly introns), as they did for the human languages!

There seems to be some sort of language buried in the so-called junk DNA! Certainly, the next few years will be a very good time to make a career change into the field of genetics.

So now, around the edge of the new millennium, we have a reasonable understanding of the 3% of the DNA that makes amino acids, proteins and babies. And the remaining 97% - well, we're pretty sure that there is some language buried there, even if we don't yet know what it says.

It might say "It's all a joke", or it might say "Don't worry, be happy", or it might say "Have a nice day, lots of love, from your friendly local DNA".

I'll hazard an "educated guess" as to what it says: "Jesus Christ Is LORD!"

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 19:2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 19:3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice (the voice of the heavens) is not heard.

Luke 19:37 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; 19:38 Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. 19:39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. 19:40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 2:9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 2:11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

II Peter 3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.


DNA is a Language, Complete with an Alphabet! Molecular biology has now uncovered an analogy between DNA and written human languages. It is more than an analogy, in fact: in terms of structure, the two are "mathematically identical." (In other words, its not analogous to a language--it is a language)

"At that moment, when the DNA/RNA system became understood, the debate between Evolutionists and Creationists should have come to a screeching halt"....... I.L. Cohen, Researcher and Mathematician; Member NY Academy of Sciences; Officer of the Archaeological Inst. of America; "Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities"; New Research Publications, 1984, p. 4

The truth is, once the nature of DNA became known, all naturalistic explanations for the universe and for life on earth were dead--except for those whose "thinking had become futile and whose foolish hearts were darkened"--(Romans 1 paraphrase). --Those who would rather be "intellectually fulfilled as Atheists".

H.P. Yockey notes in the Journal of Theoretical Biology: "It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The sequence hypothesis [that the exact order of symbols records the information] applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical." (DNA IS A LANGUAGE)

How is it that the death of naturalistic explanations for cells, life, DNA etc. has gone unnoticed by much of the "scientific community"?. One reason is the fear of looking silly before colleagues by appearing to accept the notion of a God who created the universe--despite the evidence. Another is that vaunted need to be fulfilled atheists. Atheists got to believe too!

Another important reason is that scientists know only that tiny bit of the puzzle that makes up their specialties. If one points out to the biologist advocating evolution, that life has not been shown ever to come from non-life, or that matter can neither be created or destroyed (1st law), he may well tell you that the way in which matter came to be or how life came to be is not his/her field---he/she is only studying the "process" of evolution itself.

Is this science? Anything can be proven logically, once the premise has been accepted. Are scientific fields supposed to exist like this in a vacuum so that biology can contradict physics, laws of probability can be trumped by biology, Cosmology supercedes the 1st and second laws of physics without anyone really noticing? Incredible!

The book of Romans, the first chapter, says that God essentially showed Himself and His "Divine Nature" by all the things He had made, by providing the necessities of life and for life; food, water heat, light etc. etc..The very laws of the universe itself have been tailored for our life and comfort. For those who have eyes and ears to see, this is exactly what is happening (the creator showing Himself) as science learns more and more about DeoxyRibonucleic Acid.

When Darwin began advocating his infant idea that the world could be explained by naturalistic means, the prevailing view of the cell was that it was as simple as a Hostess Ho Ho; chocolate icing on the outside, chocolate cake on the inside and a creamy filling. It was the kind of thing those predisposed to do so could imagine could arise by accident... either the single cell or the HO HO.

It was this belief in naturalistic explanations for ourselves and the universe that the famous Atheist, Dawkins said permitted him to be an "intellectually fulfilled Atheist." Atheists needed a story, or an explanation, no matter how improbable, that they could believe that did not include God. What Darwin didn't know about the cell and what scientists didn't know about DNA but are learning, is decimating the idea that the world was created through naturalistic means.

The cell is not a simple lifeform containing merely a little protoplasm and a nucleus; it's as complicated as a modern factory--and it can replicate and repair itself.

If Darwin had known what we now know about the cell he might have gone in another direction. Unfortunately, materialists, having gone this far with naturalistic explanations are loathe to give up the idea of random chance, impossibly high improbabilities and billions and billions of years as the inventor of the cell.They still want to be "intellectually fulfilled" in the way Dawkins has suggested.

The truth is, man with all his science and technological ability has not yet created anything as complex as the single living cell. It appears as though God has reserved for Himself the ability to create or destroy matter (1st law) or to create life (biogenesis).

An entity is considered to be alive if it contains DNA. DNA is the SINE QUA NON of life. Is it alive? That's the same as asking the question; "does it contain DNA"? Information theory and molecular science have made it possible to make some amazing new discoveries about DNA.

Among the more incredible things about DNA, is the amount of information that can be imparted in the tiniest single cell. Hundreds and even thousands of these single cells could fit on the head of a pin and yet the amount of information in every one of these cells is nothing short of astounding; in fact, in the simplest single cell of bacteria, there is as much information as there is in every book in each of three metropolitan libraries combined.

"How Did Noah Fit All the "Species" Into The Ark?

You can find more information here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB180.html
Claim CB180:
The genetic code is a language in the normal sense of the term, since it assigns meaning to arbitrary symbols. Language is obviously a non-material category of reality; the symbolic information is distinct from matter and energy. Therefore, life is a manifestation of non-material reality.
Source:
Baumgardner, John, 1995. Six problems with evolution: a response to Graham Mark. The Los Alamos Monitor, 31 Mar. http://globalflood.org/letters/baumgardner310395.html
Baumgardner, John, 2001. Highlights of the Los Alamos origins debate. http://globalflood.org/papers/insixdays.html
Response:
The genetic code is not a true code; it is more of a cypher. DNA is a sequence of four different bases (denoted A, C, G, and T) along a backbone. When DNA gets translated to protein, triplets of bases (codons) get converted sequentially to the amino acids that make up the protein, with some codons acting as a "stop" marker. The mapping from codon to amino acid is arbitrary (not completely arbitrary, but close enough for purposes of argument). However, that one mapping step -- from 64 possible codons to 20 amino acids and a stop signal -- is the only arbitrariness in the genetic code. The protein itself is a physical object whose function is determined by its physical properties.

Furthermore, DNA gets used for more than making proteins. Much DNA is transcribed directly to functional RNA. Other DNA acts to regulate genetic processes. The physical properties of the DNA and RNA, not any arbitrary meanings, determine how they act.

An essential property of language is that any word can refer to any object. That is not true in genetics. The genetic code which maps codons to proteins could be changed, but doing so would change the meaning of all sequences that code for proteins, and it could not create arbitrary new meanings for all DNA sequences. Genetics is not true language.


The word frequencies of all natural languages follow a power law (Zipf's Law). DNA does not follow this pattern (Tsonis et al. 1997).


Language, although symbolic, is still material. For a word to have meaning, the link between the word and its meaning has to be recorded somewhere, usually in people's brains, books, and/or computer memories. Without this material manifestation, language cannot work.
References:
Tsonis, A. A., J. B. Elsner and P. A. Tsonis, 1997. Is DNA a language? Journal of Theoretical Biology 184: 25-29.

Craig Lowery said...

You're not very good at parsing sentences, following a train of thought, or analyzing methods of reasoning, are you? If you spent a little time checking the links I have provided instead of running back to the Plywood Skinhead Shack of Howler Monkeys at talk.origins, you might have a prayer of escaping from the vicious circle of your assumptions. Try this page http://www.bearfabrique.org/evorants/evologic.html and then the links I've already posted, especially this one: http://www.s8int.com/boneyard3.html Note the photo of a fossilized tree penetrating "millions of years" of rock strata. There are gazillions of these in the fossil record. I have a picture of a fish whose head and tail are separated by "millions of years" of evo-time. HOW MUCH PROOF DOES IT TAKE? The dating system is bogus. The sediments were deposited RAPIDLY in a short time period. The evidence is OVERWHELMING. The mud in the Mississippi Delta is 40 feet deep. According to evo-time, it SHOULD be 40,000 feet deep. Hello?

Craig Lowery said...

If you're still having trouble with polystrate trees, try this: http://www.exchangedlife.com/Creation/polystrate.shtml It should debunk the vacuous inane scribbling you get at talk.origins when the topic is addressed.

Anonymous said...

You really need to see someone about your delusions.

de·lu·sion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-lzhn)
The act or process of deluding.
The state of being deluded.
A false belief or opinion: labored under the delusion that success was at hand.
Psychiatry. A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness: delusions of persecution.

I'd say that's the perfect word to describe your mental state. Do you hear voices as well?

Craig Lowery said...

Be SURE to read the howler monkeys' "rebuttal" at the link at the top of the page, or here: http://www.exchangedlife.com/Creation/rebut/poly_rebut.shtml It's a hoot. Either the tree that didn't rot is millions of years old, or the fossils are NOT millions of years old. You can't have it both ways, and it is obvious that YOU CANNOT FACE REALITY. You just confirmed everything the site says about the methods of "argument" used by evolutionists. Nobody is whining about persecution except YOU, because you need to divert attention away from the question that you cannot answer in a way that agrees with your atheistic world view. You are a neurotic child.

Anonymous said...

You win. Where do I sign up. Holy crap! I just saw a Dinosaur run past the window! No wait. It was just a big leaf. I guess I'm just getting delusional reading from the wacko sites. Ha ha. Or maybe it's my neurosis.
Thanks for the good laugh even if you didn't intend it to be funny I was ROFLMAO.

Craig Lowery said...

Blog this http://web.archive.org/web/20010816173706/www.creationism.org/sthelens/wonders.htm , Butthead.