DNA, Where did the code come from?

If the operative is "intelligent" I do not know.

DNA probably evolved from RNA....RNA, in turn, very likely evolved from simpler replicators still.

Joyce and Orgel further argued that nucleotides cannot link unless there is some activation of the phosphate group, whereas the only effective activating groups for this are "totally implausible in any prebiotic scenario", particularly adenosine triphosphate...Joyce and Orgel proposed to reject "the myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides"[56] and hypothesised a scenario where the prebiotic processes furnish pools of enantiopure beta-D-ribonucleosides.

Well, no one "knows," but that wasn't the question.

"Molecular biologist's dream" is a phrase coined by Gerald Joyce and Leslie Orgel to refer to the problem of emergence of self-replicating RNA molecules, as any movement towards an RNA world on a properly modeled prebiotic early Earth would have been continuously suppressed by destructive reactions.

Joyce and Orgel specifically referred the molecular biologist's dream to "a magic catalyst" that could "convert the activated nucleotides to a random ensemble of polynucleotide sequences, a subset of which had the ability to replicate".

DNA arose by natural means, and science presuming that it was initiated under totally natural laws that govern chemical reactions, is diligantly experimenting in order to understand the various reactions, linkages, and bondings involved

OR

2GOD DIDIT.

You may pick one from column A or one from column 2.

Q: It seems like the idea or inference of anything supernatural scares scientists away. Do you agree?

A: Well, all we are inferring is intelligence. Whether it is supernatural or natural is a matter for further deliberation. I don’t even like the term “supernatural.” I think the better philosophical distinction is between transcendent and immanent. Are we talking about an intelligence within the cosmos or an intelligence that is in some way beyond it? And that’s a theological distinction. I think it is possible to reason about that, and whether you call it a philosophical deliberation or not, it doesn’t really matter. All the theory of intelligent design is doing is establishing that intelligence was responsible for certain features of life. We recognize intelligence all the time, and we have scientific methods for it. If you’re an archaeologist and you’re looking at the Rosetta Stone, are you duty-bound to continue looking for naturalistic explanations even though you know full well that wind and erosion and everything else you can imagine is not capable of making those inscriptions? No, you’re not. You really ought to conclude the obvious, which is that a scribe was involved. There was an intelligence behind it.

I have to admit that Im unaware of the mountains of research thats going on in ID. Can you fill me in?

In the back of Signature in the Cell I lay out the research program of ID and an appendix that develops 10 key predictions that the theory makes. There’s a new journal called BIO-Complexity that is investigating the heuristic fruitfulness of intelligent design. It’s testing the theory, looking at papers that generate predictions based on the theory, publishing papers that are developing new lines of research based on the theory.

To the point that it’s mainly a negative enterprise — that is completely incorrect. ID is proposing an alternative explanation of life. It’s not just criticizing Darwin or criticizing chemical evolution; it’s proposing a contrary explanation and in light of that explanation, developing a number of important hypotheses that can be tested in a laboratory.

Even if there was an intelligent designer (which I highly doubt, but ID is still valid as a theory), there is no reason to believe the designer (or designers) were anything like any of the "gods" conjured up by man -- the Christian version or otherwise...even if intelligent design could somehow be proven, it still doesn't guarantee that a "god" did the deed.

And yes, I will read his book. I'm ready to be convinced if his argument is sound, but this interview doesn't give me much hope. Again, I don't dismiss the idea of intelligent design as a remote possibility for how life came to be, but I am disappointed in people who employ its scientific branding towards justifying their own shoddy entrenched belief systems.

Why Physicists Are Saying Consciousness Is A State Of Matter, Like a Solid, A Liquid Or A Gas

There’s a quiet revolution underway in theoretical physics. For as long as the discipline has existed, physicists have been reluctant to discuss consciousness, considering it a topic for quacks and charlatans. Indeed, the mere mention of the ‘c’ word could ruin careers.

That’s finally beginning to change thanks to a fundamentally new way of thinking about consciousness that is spreading like wildfire through the theoretical physics community. And while the problem of consciousness is far from being solved, it is finally being formulated mathematically as a set of problems that researchers can understand, explore and discuss.

Today, Max Tegmark, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, sets out the fundamental problems that this new way of thinking raises....Tegmark’s approach is to think of consciousness as a state of matter, like a solid, a liquid or a gas. “I conjecture that consciousness can be understood as yet another state of matter. Just as there are many types of liquids, there are many types of consciousness,” he says.

Interestingly, the new approach to consciousness has come from outside the physics community, principally from neuroscientists such as Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

In 2008, Tononi proposed that a system demonstrating consciousness must have two specific traits. First, the system must be able to store and process large amounts of information. In other words consciousness is essentially a phenomenon of information.

And second, this information must be integrated in a unified whole so that it is impossible to divide into independent parts. Both of these traits can be specified mathematically allowing physicists like Tegmark to reason about them for the first time. He begins by outlining the basic properties that a conscious system must have...

So, if ya wanna know....

Why is there this incessant interpretation of the word "intelligence" as meaning God?

SCience , has for years, recognized that specific chains of physical and physical-chemistry reactions seem follow exclusive and fixed sequences, all over the world . These are chemical and physical imperatives. They are well unerstood.

". It was the original "MISSION STATEMENT" of the Discovery Institute when it began as a Fundamental Christian Organizatiion after the Edwards v Aguillard.

I aint talkin about ideology

Is gravity intelligence? how about magnetism? or chirality?

Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which has become quite a hot topic in contemporary neuroscience, claims to provide a precise way to measure consciousness and express the phenomenon in purely mathematical terms.

The theory was put forth by psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi, and has attracted some highly regarded names in the science community. One such name is Christof Koch, Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, who now champions the idea along with Tononi. Koch may be best-known for bringing consciousness research into the mainstream of neuroscience through his long-term collaboration with the late DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick.

Christof Koch's answer: Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. Wherever there is integrated information, there is experience.

Koch writes: "Even simple matter has a modicum of Φ [integrated information]. Protons and neutrons consist of a triad of quarks that are never observed in isolation. They constitute an infinitesimal integrated system."

Koch goes on: "The entire cosmos is suffused with sentience. We are surrounded and immersed in consciousness; it is in the air we breathe, the soil we tread on, the bacteria that colonize our intestines, and the brain that enables us to think."

IIT turns out to be a modern twist on an ancient philosophical view known as "panpsychism". But before you go dismissing the concept because of its name, you should know that intellectual heavy hitters such as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and William James are all considered panpsychists. Its central tenant is that all matter has a mental aspect, which makes consciousness universal.

Quote:

I aint talkin about ideology

then quit clipping crap thats sideways produced by the Discovery Institute minions and then try to claim some degree of "scientific objectivity"> Youre kind of being a fraud there sir.

BTW, when you start mindlessly quoting various authors and "Scientists" you should know of whom you speak. It wasnt PZ Myers of whom you were speaking (even though that's who , by misspelling, was the authority youve tried to invoke).

The "other guy" is STEVEN C. MEYERS (totally different) who has been a long time IDer who lived through the "degodding" of the Discovery Institute, and probably had a hand in that gag. In fact, SC MEYERS helped set up the Center for SCience and Culture and was a prime author of the Discovery Institutes "Wedge Strategy" .

BTW, he was hozking for a new ID magazine (thats so DI could probably claim more "peer review")
hen it quacks like a duck...

Quoting the notorious ID'er, Stephen Myers here:

It wasnt PZ Myers of whom you were speaking (even though that's who , by misspelling, was the authority youve tried to invoke).