These two statements seem true enough — as far as they go (which isn't very far).
Looking more deeply into the matter, however, we are confronted with Francis Crick's Central Dogma of biology, which states (in the words of Hubert Yockey) that "information can be transferred from DNA to DNA, DNA to mRNA, and mRNA to protein. Three transfers that the Central Dogma states never occur are protein to protein, protein to DNA, protein to mRNA."
...no code exists to send information from protein sequences to mRNA or DNA.... Therefore, it is impossible that the origin of life was "proteins first" from the Urschleim [i.e., some sort of undifferentiated yet material chemical "soup"]. Nevertheless, "proteins first" is widely taught in university classrooms and perhaps at the Grand Academy of Lagado as well....So it seems to me that Darwinian Tree of Life has a lot of 'splaining to do, in the matter of how "simple" systems "evolved" into more complex ones, when the differentiator between them is the ability to process/communicate information — which is, of course, wholly immaterial.The restrictions of the Central Dogma ... are mathematical. Scientists cannot get around them by clever chemistry. Likewise, Nature's proscription against the building of perpetual motion machines is also mathematical. The Second Law of Thermodynamics places a severe limit on the ability of a clever engineer to build machines that derive work from heat. Regardless of the choice of materials or design it is impossible to build a perpetual motion machine. These restrictions apply however socially, politically, and environmentally desirable it may be to make perpetual motion machines.
Plus the idea of "function" is something that makes many Darwinians (and other scientists as well) nervous. For any function denotes a purpose or goal — in Aristotelian language, a "final cause" — which is the very thing that Darwinism denies in Nature. Darwinian Nature always moves ("evolves") from the "bottom-up" — from comparatively simple systems to more complex ones — according to random chance, as reinforced by natural selection.
Thus it is dogmatic in Darwinism to regard Nature as having no purposes at all. But this supposition tells us nothing about how information actually flows in the natural world. DNA is more "informative" than proteins, We need to remember, as Yockey points out, that "life is guided by information, and inorganic processes are not."
Darwinist evolutionary theory — which sees life as something emergent from inorganic, i.e., non-living processes — by and large seems wholly oblivious to such considerations.
Actually, Darwinism has no theory of life qua life. It can tell you nothing about what life "is" or "where it came from"; it is merely a description of what already-existent life "looks like."
To those of reductionist persuasion!
Just some thoughts for your consideration, JimSEA.
Thank you so much for writing.
I was merely commenting on the complexity of an individual cell. I didn’t say a word about information transfer. As for your other trips afield to Darwin bash, I can only suggest you study a bit of biology. I’m not about to go on another game of creationist wack-a-mole.
"...the differentiator between them is the ability to process/communicate information — which is, of course, wholly immaterial."
If I know you as I believe I do, you most certainly did not use "immaterial" in the legalistic sense of "irrelevant" -- did you? '-)
BTW, my presence on this thread will be almost "immaterial", as I have seventeen (17) presentations scheduled in the next month -- so my visitations to FR will be, of necessity, "fleeting"...