Prestigious scientific information site sciencedirect.com reported that two computational biology scientists from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Republic of Kazakhstan have, in a recently peer reviewed paper published in the Journal ICARUS claimed that human DNA contains code which cannot be the product of Darwinian theory of natural or random selection but appears to be designed by a super-intelligent being. Among other things, it contains mathematical symbol of zero and decimal notations. The paper can be read here.

What lends credibility to the theory is that the paper has been peer reviewed.

Since the paper is published in the journal ICARUS, which claims to be devoted to "original contributions in the field of Solar System Studies", there is speculation that the paper hints at the intelligent designers from outside our planet.

However, one PZ Myers thinks that it is good old honest garbage.

Is this credible?

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I will have to take PZ Myers' position on this one.

John

Thanks John.

Dear Captain,

    PZ Myers must be a very discriminating person . this thing does sound like good old honest garbage - in Philosophy it is called intellectual dishonesty through naiivette . Peer review means nothing , Socrates in defence at his  Trial only remarked ithe following  " Since only a better person can judge a worser , he had no issues with the assembly which had voted for his punishment ". Every reviewer is in the position of being in a better position than its authors !!. 

Dear Captain ,

         An after thought - why does man imagine he is intelligent and then surprised when God is shown to be intelligent ? Something like the children who believe that they are quite intelligent and then taken aback when they find that their parents are also intelligent !. These researchers are having the time of their lives , imagine spending time on all this and at somebody elses expense .

This is like the erroneous typo which is said to have appeared in a School magazine " A research Grant by the government is said to be in the offing to investigate these lost marbles of yesteryears " 

It was it seems to have been read as " A research grant by the government is said to be in the offing to investigate  these lost marvels of yesteryears "  

           The item was relating to some ancient copper inscriptions said to contain knowledge on ancient astronomy and mathematics purportedly existing in and around the vicinity of the school .

I keep telling myself I should look at the Math in this thing... which is what analyzes the data to find weird things. I am not competent to give any opinion on the genetics.

The problem I have is that one starts with input that is known to be highly encoded with a very complex language that describes highly complex entities. SETI assumes the opposite. It assumes you start with junk and then looks for patterns.

The other item is that 0 should be in there. I do not know why they find that a special item. The biological symmetries in nature have 0 in the inherent mathematical structure. Base ten... well there are a lot of  items that have a tenfold, and multiple tenfold symmetry that occur in nature and chemistry. Even at a virus level (e.g. fullerenes  here). All of these items are to be expected and expected in a high-level metalanguage or abstract language. What they analyze should speak volumes. When it does, they go gaga.

Darwinian evolution theory has itself evolved. How they eliminate and isolate structure with no possible way of coming from evolution is beyond me. We have not captured the full picture on evolution (MHO). Evolution can move pretty quickly. It also can takes millions of years with any darn sequences it trips on.

so... confused.

How about:

Terms of Product: Life may be revoked at any time. Life guaranteed to terminate. Life guaranteed to have defects, including but not limited to: sensory systems, mobility systems and Brain.
Life is subject to random pain, suffering, natural and unnatural catastrophes (especially lightning bolts). Surroundings are guaranteed to be inhospitable and unjust.

///

now, that would be proof!!

Back to a serious side; I have no idea what it would be.

"nature would have no reason to create and confers no advantage, except to identify itself."

that is a point which begs the question of why anything would want to insert it. God, alien, whatever. What would care?

(who actually funded the work??)

It actually would be a dangerous piece of DNA. Over time it has a good chance of "breaking out" of the structure and pieces could get activated. A game of Russian Roulette. One new virus, prion, one wrong particle of radiation etc.

One would have to guarantee that any and all pieces would be harmless if cracked open.

That tends to ask a different question -- if the whole species goes wrong, how do we shut down the entire species/experiment? Activate the hidden piece ?  ...  that would kinda make sense.

I will have to put that book on my list to look at.

The SETI project is looking more for signs of life than a message. The last 100 years or so our planet is an EM beacon. I think looking for other worlds is not really a waste of time. However - The closer/nearest stars have been examined pretty well. Technology gets better though. So, I doubt we will see any dedicated communication to us.

SETI has nearly zero resources. Most signals they analyze are from the Aerocibo receiver. They have a detector that gets a "free ride" since it doesn't hinder the scientific work on other frequencies. It is a grass roots effort at Berkely (UCalifornia). Some people from "SARA" also help.

I expect any intelligent form will find us in the same way we might find them. A mass of EM flux, then investigate to decide if we should still be quarantined.

The genetic code could make sense it it was more of a "Branding." Like a barcode so they know what lab rat species and where we are from.  we are screwed. A Galactic Prison ID. <g>.

John

p.s. I really think this paper is kinda weird. etc.

The amazing number of factors required to produce and support life ( water in liquid form, atmosphere, elements, sources of energy, natural constants etc.) and the extremely narrow band of their values itself should convince us about Intelligent Design. Not to mention the information coded into DNA and particularly RNA with its ability to fashion an amazing number of proteins based on different inputs. Latest reports indicate that life thrives in Mariana trench as well, at a depth of nearly 11 Kms. below sea, where the only source of energy is the very cold water (1- 4 deg C) and a pressure of 1086 bar (1 bar = roughly the atmospheric pressure on the surface).  So SETI project is a very welcome project.

As Joe has asked what kind of message we would send, there are several. Apart from coded electro-magnetic broadcasts the picture below depicts the plaque which was put on the space probe Pioneer 10 in 1972.

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