The Genetic Code

Claim: The Genetic Code is not anactual code because it is not designed.
It's simply an association of molecules preserved by Natural Selection during Abiogenesis.

Response: Codes ⁸  require a coder. The genetic code demonstrates Intelligent Design.
Undirected chemistry does not produce codes.

Design properties of the genetic code:

1.  it specifies. Specification ⁹  is not a product of happenstance associations in the environment, such as natural chemistry.
     Specification is directed by minds.
2.  it is language which instructs as to which, what, when, where, if, then, start, stop, pause, more, less. ¹ , ² 
     These describe mental processes.
3.  it specifies instructions ¹⁰ , which require consideration, forward-thinking, and decision making, which are mental processes.
     Mental processes are immaterial and take place in minds, not in physical chemistry. ⁷ 
4.  it specifies complex physical arrangements which have mechanical function - machiney  ^{1   3   5   6} 

    a.  complexity is not produced by natural chemistry. Nature experiences chemical entropy instead.
    b.  machinery is designed because it is intentional and purposed.
        Intention and purpose are products of minds. Physical materials, such as natural chemistry, neither intend or purpose ⁷ .

5.  it specifies the design of organisms at both the micro and macro levels:

    a.  the machines of the cell and their intended function
    b.  the anatomical features of the organism and their intended function

6.  it specifies the unfathomably complex regulation of genes, like instruments in an orchaestra, duiring fetal development to produce the anatomy of an organism. This constitutes a level of complexity and design that is truly mind-bending, and is the highest complexity that exists. It is vastly superior to man's highest technology and requires supreme intelligence. To say that a mind of supreme intelligence and technological ability is not the cause of the genetic code and information it produces is to deny the obvious and defy reason and rationale.

Instructions coded in the DNA represent instructions which,

1.  specify cell specialization (which type of cell a cell is to be)
2.  specify the arrangement of cells during fetal development for the production of the body plan and anatomy
3.  direct the machinery of the cell about how to transcribe (read) genetic information (i.e. when or where to start, stop, pause, etc.)
4.  specify the assembly of RNA molecules
5.  specify the assembly of protein molecules

RNA molecules are composed of four nucleotides: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and uracil (U) and represent instructions which,

1.  regulate gene expression (i.e. which gene and/or when to transcribe)
2.  specify the type and order of amino acids to be translated into a protein
3.  specify a catalyst for chemical reations

Proteins are used by cells as,

1.  building blocks for the physical features of cells and organisms
2.  components of molecular machinery
3.  catalysts in chemical reactions

1.  The Genetic Code is a language system using three consecutive nucleotides, called triplets to form "words", called codons. Each codon represents one of the 20 different amino acid molecules which are used by the machinery of the cell as instructions.

2.  "DNA consists of a code language comprising four letters which make up what are known as codons, or words, each three letters long." - The digital code of DNA

3.  "Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like the machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts." - The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists, Bruce Alberts, President, National Academy of Sciences, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California

4.  "We have also come to realize that protein assemblies can be enormously complex. Consider for example the spliceosome. Composed of 5 small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) and more than 50 proteins, this machine is thought to catalyze an ordered sequence of more than 10 RNA rearrangements as it removes an intron from an RNA transcript. As cogently described in this issue of Cell by Staley and Guthrie 1998, these steps involve at least eight RNA-dependent ATPase proteins and one GTPase, each of which is presumed to drive an ordered conformational change in the spliceosome and/or in its bound RNA molecule. As the example of the spliceosome should make clear, the cartoons thus far used to depict protein machines (e.g.Figure 1) vastly underestimate the sophistication of many of these remarkable devices." - The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists, Bruce Alberts, President, National Academy of Sciences, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California

5.  "The case I want to make for you is that proteins are machines. You have 20,000 types of machines in your body, and other living organisms have other kinds of protein machines. There's tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of different machines. And the first case I want to make for you is that these are real machines. That's not a metaphor. They use energy, they spin around, they pump, they act to cause force and motion." - - Ken Dill, Director, Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Professor, Physics and Chemistry, Stony Brook University, The protein folding problem: a major conundrum of science: Ken Dill at TEDxSBU

6.  "I've just shown you a few examples of tens of thousands of protein machines, but the case I want to make for you is just to convince you they are real machines, just at the super microscopic level." - Ken Dill, Director, Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology Professor, Physics and Chemistry, Stony Brook University, The protein folding problem: a major conundrum of science: Ken Dill at TEDxSBU

7.  "The assertion that neuroscience demonstrates the material nature of the mind is an ideological assertion, a misuse of neuroscience to serve a tenuous materialist agenda. In Wolfgang Pauli’s deathless phrase, the materialist explanation of the mind ”isn’t even wrong.” It’s superstitious nonsense. Materialism can’t explain the mind, because the salient characteristics of mental states — intentionality, qualia, persistence of self-identity, restricted access, incorrigibility, and free will — do not admit material explanations. A coherent and meaningful understanding of the mind requires a repudiation of this materialist superstition. Strict materialism offers some insight into behavioral correlations — behavioral arousal is associated with activation of neurons in the brainstem reticular activation system — but materialism offers nothing to explain the subjective properties of mental experience, which constitute the mind as we actually experience it. A genuine understanding of the mind must be open to immaterial causation, because there is nothing in materialist science (or materialist philosophy) that can account for subjective experience." - The Mind and Materialist Superstition, Michael Egnor, award winning neurosurgon, November 26, 2008

8.  Websters Dictionary, Definition of Code:

1     :   a systematic statement of a body of law; especially : one given statutory force
2     :   a system of principles or rules  .  moral code
3     a : a system of signals or symbols for communication
       b : a system of symbols (such as letters or numbers) used to represent assigned and often secret meanings
4     :   GENETIC CODE
5     :   instructions for a computer (as within a piece of software)  .  writing code for a new app

9.  Websters Dictionary, Definition of specification:

1     :   the act or process of specifying
2     :   a detailed precise presentation of something or of a plan or proposal for something —usually used in plural
       b : a statement of legal particulars (as of charges or of contract terms); also : a single item of such statement
       c : a written description of an invention for which a patent is sought

10. Websters Dictionary, Definition of instruction:

1     a : PRECEPT  .  prevailing cultural instructions
       b : a direction calling for compliance : ORDER —usually used in plural  .  had instructions not to admit strangers
       c : instructions plural  :  an outline or manual of technical procedure  :  directions
       b : a code that tells a computer to perform a particular operation
2        : the action, practice, or profession of teaching