coded information in DNA

WordBeLogos,Basically, your point can be summarized in the following syllogism:Premise 1: DNA is a code;
Premise 2: All codes come from conscious minds;
Conclusion: DNA comes from a conscious mind.Seems watertight, doesn't it? Well, not to me. If the premises of a syllogism are not true, then neither is its conclusion. In this case both premises leave something to be desired.First of all, DNA may look like a code but that might be an illusion. You could also view DNA as just the beginning of a very complex physico-chemical chain of causes and effects that ends in the formation of proteins. Certain triplets of bases in a piece of tRNA happen to bond with just one or a few different amino acids. Amino acids happen to be able to form polypeptides. Certain polypeptide chains happen to fold in a certain way during their formation. The resulting three-dimensional structure of certain proteins happens to catalyse certain chemical reactions. Just like it is unnecessary to assume a flow of information in the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to form water, there is no need for such an assumption in the more complex chemistry of DNA and proteins.Second, it's a bit parochial to think that since we humans have never observed a code other than those originating from conscious minds, such codes from non-conscious origin cannot exist at all. We have hardly looked everywhere, have we? Let's say I tell you that in all cases of my observation of mammals, 100% of them, they can always fly. (Say I live on a small island in the Pacific where the only mammals are bats.) Does that mean that flightless mammals cannot exist?To me, your logic is akin to this:Premise 1: An alligator is a mammal;
Premise 2: All mammals can fly;
Conclusion: Alligators can fly.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Indeed, to some it looks like a code, and to some it looks like a complex Rube Goldberg machine. (A naturally occurring one at that, not to get you started on the origin of Rube Goldberg machines.) And to some, including myself, it looks like both. I think it started as an increasingly complex chain of causes and effects; I think the code-like character is an emergent property of the process, which I think came about as a result of feedback loops.So, to set something straight, I was not suggesting that DNA is not a code, I was merely pointing out that there are more ways to look at things.Your "DNA is a consciously designed code" argument is just another incarnation of the intelligent design argument, and the rebuttal is as easy as it was before: what looks like design by a conscious mind is in fact design by evolution. No, I'm afraid one is not enough, because the one that has been staring you in the face all along apparently can't convince you. Besides, if we came up with something else, you'd probably dismiss that out of hand as well, because you have defined the concept of a code to be of intelligent origin by necessity. What can we do? No, because it's an impossible task. And I don't mean it's impossible because there are no such codes (there are, DNA is the prime example, but you won't accept that, we've been there), but because there are no codes that a mind could not think of. Any code we encounter and are able to identify as such, like we have done with DNA, we could also have invented, had it not existed, and so could any intelligence. There are no characteristics of a code that tell us that this code could not have been designed by intelligence.I'm reminded of Christopher Hitchens' famous challenge to religious people to "name one moral statement or action made by a theist, that couldn't have been made by a non-believer". I'd paraphrase it thus: name one natural code that couldn't have been thought of by an intelligence. To date, Hithens hasn't had any takers, and I have no high hopes for myself either.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Don't know, you'd have to ask Hitchens. However, you forfeit any reward for going off-topic.