Something like that.
In fact, if we consider fundamentally different genetic code systems, there are almost certainly systems that are more-or-less completely resistant to mutation. Say, changing one part of the representation of a protein causes the entire gene to become inactive…
Huh? I don’t follow why a mutation in this system would be more likely to create non-functionality than a mutation in the way life actually is. If such a code existed, the only way that the current genetic code is more resistant to mutation is because of the redundency of some of the bases in the codon. But it is usually only the third base in the codon, and even then not always. A point mutation in our code usually results in an amino acid substitution, but in the above system will always result in an amino acid substitution. On the other hand, the above system would be completely resistant to frame shift mutations, as there is no reading frame to shift. So, insertions and deletions would be far less likely to cause non-functionality.
Perhaps I am missing something. It seems like that if each amino acid had its own base in RNA, then mutations would be more likely to be silent.
FWIW, the phrase “survival of the fittest” is often considered misleading, as it implies a universal “fitness” exists in the universe, that organisms are “working towards” some apogee of evolution. In short, that there is a “goal” to evolution, which is not the case. The only determining factor is how well an organism is suited to its environment, and how able it is to pass its genes on to future generations. Changes in environment can (and do) drastically alter what may be considered “fit” at any one time.
Sorry for the hijack, but I think this may be one of the things that people get hung up on when considering evolution. It’s actually much more basic than many presuppose.
Well enough about all the things an intelligent designer COULD have done.
I still am unclear about how a movement from two nucleotide to three nucleotide codons would be accompanied by an arrangement that minimized errors (within that construct). All this of course is predicated on the genetic code actually being optimal or very near optimal. Maybe I am not understanding it quite right, but it doesn’t seem like any particular coding should be more likely to naturally evolve than another (other than some regularity from the stated adding on of a third nucleotide, which doesn’t IMO resolve the issue).
Oh, and I’m clearly not well-adapted enough to avoid redundancy. Ignore the repetitive usage of “universe” in the opening sentence.
Oh, the reason I find this especially fascinating is because I am in engineering and deal with optimization quite a bit. If I were told, “Here are 64 codons, we want you to associate these with 22 objects. Oh yeah, here are the likelihoods of different codon errors, and we want you to minimize the overall likelihood of something being miscoded,” I would immediately recognize the difficulty of solving this problem. I’d like to think that with a little thought I could do it (heck I may try it over the summer). To find out that nature already exists near the global optimum, and much better than most random arrangements, boggles my mind. Maybe I am thinking about it from the wrong perspective.
You’re quite right about the difficulty of the problem, Tertius01, but you’re underestimating the resources the universe can devote to the problem.
DNA computers can easily (so to speak) solve the Traveling Salesman problem. I presume you’re aware of the difficulty of solving that problem…
I’m not sure exactly how DNA computers work or how it relates exactly to this problem.
My thinking is basically this: Either the genetic code started out optimal or it started out suboptimal and became optimal. If you claim that it started out suboptimal, there should be some force driving it toward optimality, some mechanism for it to change, and enough time for it to do so.
Am I thinking about the “start” of the genetic code in the wrong way? I mean obviously evolution would suggest that it didn’t just pop up. Is there some reason to believe that when it was first forming (if thats even the right way to think about it) that it should do so in an optimal manner, and in a manner that would allow more complex versions to also be optimal?
The same principles apply to the evolution of the “building blocks” of life as to the evolution of the organisms built with those blocks.
Why would the lipids and ions and protein chains that first articulated into the precursors of life be subject to a different set of selective pressures than the unicellular and multicellular organisms that they gave rise to?
The “change over time” that you state as a requirement for evolved codon optimization, is fundamental to the entire theory of evolution. The “driving force” toward optimization is one of the cruxt of the issues between ID and Evolutionary theory.
An overly simplified illustration of this cruxt would be something like this:
An ID proponent looks at the events that spawned life and says, “The odds of all of the variables being in alignment for life to have begun were so slim…something intelligent must have had an influence upon it.”
An Evolutionary Theory proponent looks at the events that spawned life and says, “The odds of all of the variables being in alignment for life to have begun were slim…but even slim odds are expressed…assuming that there was a limited collection of chemicals and substances that could give rise to life, once those criteria were met, at that instant those substances became “optimal” for life and survived. At the very instant that one level of optimal survival is reached, a whole different set of criteria is presented for survival. Therefor, an argument can be presented that the status of being “alive” implies optimization. If something is not optimized, it does not survive.”
Yes, thank you, it was supposed to be “funny” I just didn’t put a 
:wally , I mean what’s so great about opposable thumbs? A prehensile tail would be soo much more fun … 
think of all the bags you’d be able to carry while shoe shopping!!!
And I did say I don’t got no Phd in English lit … :smack: I thought Human Race was the “generic” term and Humanity was the word wot you uses when talking about things like emotional/spiritual stuff. Man’s inhumanity to man suddenly doesn’t make any sense to me n’more … 
I apologise for being of substandard, for this MB, intelligence
turn your head to the left and cough …
Again, there’s a big difference between a theory which is actually trying to explain HOW something happens, and one which is little more beyond a name (it describes no explanatory mechanism at all). Blink and you might miss it, but ID doesn’t tell us how the ID went about solving any of the problems we’re talking about. ID theory has the luxury of simply positing a perfect solver. But of course ANY solvable problem can be solved if we simply posit a perfect solver. If we try to play on a level field, however, then we have to deal with questions like how the ID process worked: how it constructed things, at what level and stage, etc. Indeed, to TRULY explain things in the same WAY that evolution explains, ID MUST explain how the intelligence itself functioned conceptually to come to a solution. It’s part of the process (indeed, the key part), so you have to explain how it got to optimality just as much as evolutionary theory would have to explain how it came upon optimality. You can do hand-waving in EITHER theory, but no one should be satisfied with that.
I’d have to disagree honeydewgrrl. I don’t see anything optimal about a particular arrangement of codons to amino-acids other than the error suppression property. Chance doesn’t drive an initial arrangement to suppress errors. For instance, I don’t think it impossible for evolution to act if we had the worst possible genetic code for substitution error suppression. Sure there would be plenty more amino-acid errors and a lot more dead ends, but evolution could act just as effectively (with more variation which may help it in the early stages).
Would I be incorrect if I said, “If the ‘first’ genetic code had today’s substitution error minimization properties, it is powerful evidence that an intelligent force was behind the formation of that code”?
It seems to me to be possible (and perhaps better) for a “suboptimal” genetic code to drive evolution.
Apos, here are a few falsifiable claims of IDers (as I understand them) about the origin of life.
Evolution has a suggested pathway from “prebiotic soup” to simple bacteria as we know them. It seems like it should be up to evolutionists to provide the biochemical pathway, show that the conditions for formation existed, and that the time necessary was available.
If I am postulating an intelligent designer that created the universe and the laws that govern it, it isn’t a stretch at all to say it also created life originally in a complex form. I admit that I cannot describe the mechanism, primarily because it is by definition supernatural.
Have evolutionary scientists found substantial evidence that the “prebiotic soup” necessary for abiogenesis existed on earth for a sufficient period of time? Do we have any fossil record of biomolecules that form the basis of life?
It is my understanding that fossilized bacteria have been found in rocks 3.5 billion years old. Carbonaceous compounds that are the byproduct of biological activity have been found 3.86 billion years ago. Since the earth existed in molten form around 3.9 billion years ago, that gives (40 million years for abiogenesis). There is growing evidence that the conditions on early earth were inconsistent with the formation of prebiotic molecules (as currently explained by origin of life thoeries).
IDers can work on nailing down the first appearance of complex life and understanding the conditions of early earth. Neither of these explains how an intelligent designer went about creating life, but they would possibly preclude the standard evolutionary explanation.
And no…I don’t know why “40 million years for abiogenesis” is in parentheses.
Your second propsition has already been successfully falsified.
I don’t believe that to be true.
Remember what I said about my believeing in concepts of evolution?
No, it really isn’t.
See, it’s this kind of garbage that kills me. Some people think that life randomally started in the ocean. We know now what is around us today. Some people have drawn the dots from that hypothetical to today, and have made up the worst excuses along the way. On top of all that, they say that with enough time anything is possibel of happening. Even bananas and humans sharing the same common ancestor of bacteria.
Hey that’s pretty cool, where did you learn to read minds? Must be evolutionary forces at work…
Your guess is far from the truth.
Anyone with eyes can see that evolution does happen, to a degree, but at the same time organisms do not follow the path we say they did in the past. The evidence to prove this is out there now.
Maybe no person here is trying to tell me that whales evolved from dog-like animals, but it is being tought in science courses all across the nation.
What do you mean they’re not closly related?? They’re both mammles, and they’re both k-stragists. They’re practically the same.
No really, they are.
No person is telling me that creatures evolved from “entirely unrelated organisms” on the account that they believe all organisms are related. Again, call me crazy, but I think that a tree is wildly different from a pig, as a human is widly differnet from a sea urchent, and as lions are different from e.coli. To think that such organisms have common ancestory is just ignorant and only accepted for a lack of a better explination.
Sure, I’m not the most educated person when it comes to biology. Are you? Even if you were, does that somehow nullify my opinion?
They have found evidence of a “prebiotic soup” and suitable additional conditions (proper atmosphere, lack of inhibiting agents)?
This isn’t addressed to me, but allow me to give something of an answer.
In most of the above post, you continually say things to the effect of “I don’t believe that.” Nobody is negating your right to have an opnion. But if the facts of biology contradict your position, which they do, it indicates your position might be wrong. That’s what this is supposed to be a discussion of. In your post above, for example, you reiterate what you believe a couple of times and say that what others post is not true. But nowhere do you provide any evidence or examples. You just say that certain things, i.e. a common ancestor for animals that (in your opinion) are extremely different, cannot possibly be true for reasons you don’t explain.
I’m knowledgeable about evolution, not as much biology- but whales have ‘finger’ bones in their fins, do they not? Unless I misremember, there are bones in the fins of cetaceans that resemble finger-type structures, which raises the possibility they had ancestors with digits at some point. Dogs do have digits as well, which would raise the possibility of whales and canines having some sort of common ancestor, logically absurd as that may seem to you, Dostromin. Can anybody confirm this? Why would something like this be true if not for evolution? (I NEVER hear anyone answer that question…)
Pigs and bananas are indeed very different, but nobody has (and nobody sensible ever WILL) argue that one just grew out of the other one night.
What is false is the assertion that conditions were incompatible with abiogenesis. Laboratory experiments under simulated pre-biotic earth conditions have successfully produced amino acids and all of the chemical bases of RNA, ergo, pre-biotic earth conditions were adequate to allow biogenesis.