A Strong Delusion 1.1
Part 1, Genetic Entropy. Post 1, The Genome
The Genome
The genome refers to all of the elements that make up the genetic “instruction manual” that specifies how cells form in structure and function. It is a vast instruction manual, more like an entire library than a single manual, consists of 3 billion individual letters for the human genome. There are only 4 molecular letters that form the genetic code, and in the case of DNA we symbolise those letters as A, T, C, and G. These letters pair together and we read them as a very long string of letters. Clusters of letter sequences make up what we can imagine as words, and these clusters form genes (rather like the chapters of a book). Genes combine to form chromosomes (like volumes of a book) and these combine to form the genome (the library).
Small parts of this genetic code can be responsible for large changes in cellular development and there are large parts of the code that we don’t really know what it does.
This huge string of code is also a bit different to say reading a book, one word following the other until you get the the end - a linear progression. The genome consists of multiple layers of linear code that contain overlaps, loops and branches. And as much as I hate to use machine language to describe biology, it does seem that this genetic code is similar to computer language that has both linear and non-linear characteristics. There are encoded feedback loops - genes regulating genes that further regulate other genes, in real time in response to environmental conditions. It is a code that can rewrite portions of itself depending on various factors. (Others have compared DNA with a hard drive full of code and the RNA and protein molecules, and their interactions, as the active RAM of the cell.)
If it were a computer code we’d call it artificial intelligence of a very complex design rather than a random chance collection of computer characters. This multi-dimensional, dynamic and self-regulating genome is contained in a package smaller than any visible speck of dust. From this very tiny package comes the incredible capacity to direct cells into a multitude of forms and functions. The capacity of young neurons to migrate to just the right spot in the brain is amazing and the complexity of communication between cells is mind blowing. Sorry I realise these statements are not very satisfactory but I don’t have the scope to go into what is amazing and mind blowing just now - but I’d love to look at these things a bit further down the track and amaze you and blow your mind!
The Darwinian perspective on all this complexity is that it must have started from a very simple genome and after a long (a very long) series of mutations (errors in replication) and natural selection (most adaptable mutations survive and reproduce). In other words, errors in the genome add some benefit to the organism (and presumably more complexity) and the organism with such mutations reproduce more than the non-mutated version. I don’t think I need to tease this out too much because this is what we have all been taught in school biology. Remember the tree of life diagram with a single cell organism at the base of the tree and as the tree goes up and branches out the animals become more complex with man somewhere at the top? But is this the truth? As I outlined in the previous post - did a collection of free floating amino acids come together to form a primitive strand of DNA or RNA, and somehow get encapsulated into a membrane and somehow form the ‘machinery’ required to replicate and sustain it’s form?
To get a feel for what ‘machinery’ is required to replicate, check out this short video illustration of the replisome required for replication
And if that isn’t complex enough for you, check out the function of the kinetochore (half way though this video):
These sorts of mechanisms are common to all cellular life, and I don’t know about you, but it seems highly improbably that this could have randomly come together in a ‘primordial soup’ with some zaps from lightening. But I have many highly intelligent colleagues who believe exactly that - even knowing the complexity, better than I, of cellular life (thus the name of this series).
There are many metaphorical illustrations trying to put the Darwinian idea into something we can easily grasp. A variation of such metaphors would be imagining a construction manual for a very simple toy car that is not just showing you what components fit with what components but instructions about sourcing the raw materials needed to create the rubber, plastic and metal parts, how to fabricate them into the required shapes, and then how to assemble. Even for a simple metal bodied, 2-axle/4-wheeled kids toy it would be a lot of words. Now say the manual is reproduced by hand, the scribe has no idea about building a toy car but just copies each letter from the original to the new, one by one - no checking context and no spell checking. Occasionally the scribe makes a mistake, he might add a letter where there was no letter originally, or a word might be misspelled or inadvertently replaced with a few other words (say the scribe had been drinking and it was late at night).
Now most of the errors in the new version wouldn’t cause much of a problem, you could still follow the manual and build the toy car. But somewhere along the line an error was made that actually improved the toy car - a word was inadvertently added that improved the smelting of the metal required to form the car body and wheels. This manual now becomes the new standard from which other manuals are copied. And further down the track there was a copy that contained errors that somehow suggested that a gear on the axle was an improvement and this became the new standard. Somehow more errors over a very long time produced a series of gears and a spring and a primitive mechanism for propelling the toy forwards (remember the scribe knows nothing about such technology and is only looking at one letter at a time and doing his best to replicate it - there’s no intelligence involved here).
After a very long time of new standard toy car manuals we arrive at the manual for the construction of the Starship Enterprise (as well as many other offshoot manuals that went onto describe all manner of functional machines), including the sourcing of raw materials, manufacture of parts, assembly, computer coding, all the technology involved.
I don’t believe this is hyperbole - the incredible complexity of the human body is probably more complex than the Starship Enterprise (except maybe the matter/antimatter warp drive, although it could turn out to be a rather simple manipulation of matter). Just look at protein folding for example - we have to employ the latest AI to work out what is happening in this very basic phenomenon of organic life.
To go from a simple metal toy car to even say a modern fighter jet, randomly, without any intelligent design, just a selection of the most capable product as a result of a bunch of mistakes, requires a lot of faith in the primary axiom to which Darwinian evolution rests.
That’s probably enough to ponder for now and to elicit some lively commentary! We will get into more of the detail about mutations in the next installment.
You say, "If it were a computer code we’d call it artificial intelligence of a very complex design rather than a random chance collection of computer characters."
I used to work as a computer programmer, so I know humans cannot create artificial intelligence, but the establishment wants us to think so, to divert any attention or relevance to conscience. Then they can just make up morality, and we get the crazy left brain dominated world we have now, disconnected from right brain heart based feelings connection to Creator. The "elite" can manipulate people better that way, with trauma based fear mind control. You really think Putin and America are randomly threatening nuclear war without getting authorization from their handlers/masters first? Like Morpheus said to Neo, "You think that's air you are breathing?" The matrix deceives everybody at first.
What humans CAN do, is create some robot and deceive ourselves into thinking our complex computer algorithms are somehow sentient. But really what is happening is deceptive consciousnesses traditionally called "demons", are possessing and manipulating the robot to talk like a human. Fiction conditions human perception more than the classroom. Droids in Star Wars, Data in Star Trek, and many other sci-fi examples combined with some fancy real-life tech, like my chess program that seems so intelligent when it mostly beats me, makes us think humans can actually create AI. I KNOW computers do not think and never will. They simply do exactly what the programmer programs them to do. But some people are easily deceived, for a variety of reasons.
I am reminded of the movie Independence Day, about alien invasion. Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum played two characters that docked an alien ship with the mother ship and uploaded a computer virus, which caused the aliens' shields to fail and the humans won the day. This scene probably went by most viewers, but a computer programmer like me can't help from thinking things like this: 1) How can Jeff's character create a computer virus on alien tech that is probably using something other than human base-2 math numbering system called binary? 2) Might they be using base-10 instead, way too complicated to be compatible with human tech? 3) Could not the aliens perhaps even be using organic or genetic code based computer systems, many orders of magnitude beyond human tech to be compatible enough to upload a virus? 3) Even assuming base-2 compatible tech based on similar binary digital systems, would not Jeff's character need to know what operating system and basic architecture the aliens use for their computers? 4) How could Jeff create a virus program so fast and without testing from the Quality assurance department to make sure it worked, as nothing in computer programs work the first time without testing? 5) How did Jeff get past any firewalls so easily and quickly upload the virus the first time and it work immediately, without knowing ANY of these details that he would need? But the impossible (ie evolution) becomes possible in the world of imagination, if you don't think too much, or understand necessary details.
Anyway....people choose to believe genetic code (many orders of magnitude beyond computer code), can randomly assemble itself into humans as easily as Jeff's character created & uploaded his virus program. These believers are not stupid people, rather in a hypnotic trance that causes them to believe what the establishment has brainwashed them to believe since birth. The indoctrination system called the education system, which has been hijacked by the "elite" manipulators, has intentionally deceived people, and it truly is easier to fool young minds than it is to convince those same minds later in life that they have been fooled. That is why these people are under mass psychosis and need to escape, like this substack says......
Well, I know it's all for the progress of mankind and our future convergence in the elonosphere, but I am getting a bit tired of seeing so many mutations in public. I miss the normal human shapes and behaviors of my youth. And I'm not even "get off my lawn" old yet. If only Saint Barry was right when he said, "the science is settled". Instead Sciency stuff seems to be in overdrive trying to kill us now. I guess all those decades of progressive hubris turning Jesus into a magic carpet salesman to paper over all those teeny tiny gaps in the unifying theory of everything wasn't enough so now we must be punished for our tendency to look beyond the myopic microscopes of Scientism.