Dear Isaac,
"Why" do I think that some intelligent entity predates Man's existence?
Base 4 math.
You've got your A, C, G, and T bases paired up to comprise the instruction sets in the genes that reside inside DNA strands. To me, that's 0,1,2,3 = Base 4 math.
That's an order of magnitude of greater complexity than Binary math (something for which we don't see forming except with Intelligent Intervention). This math is how programming instructions are stored, replicated, and activated. In fact, not only does DNA store and replicate data, but it also interacts with a processing mechanism that handles programming instructions in a manner that is remarkably similar to how we currently have CPU's processing our instruction sets.
Moreover, we see evidence of code re-use in various other species.
If I saw Binary math representing programming subroutines in a piece of computer software, and knew nothing else about it, I would presume that it was an intelligent entity such as Man that created said program, rather than presuming that natural forces managed to eak out the program by pure chance.
Likewise, I make the same presumption about the Life that we see on our planet.
Evidence of God or at least an intelligence that pre-dates Man? Base 4 math in DNA.
Is this conclusive evidence? No.
Is it persuasive evidence? Perhaps to some, maybe even most.
Sadly for you, Isaac, your mind has already concluded that such evidence has no place in science. Your mind was already made up, and heaven help anyone who dares let such tangible facts get in your way...
I'm uncertain I understand your point. Are you suggesting that both our mathematic principles & our genetic biology arise from the laws of physics? If so, you're most certainly correct...
[Base 4, aka quaternary] is an order of magnitude of greater complexity than Binary math (something for which we don't see forming except with Intelligent Intervention). Not really. The inherent mathematical complexity is largely the same, in any base. Humans use base 10 as a notational convenience, no doubt influenced by the specifics of anatomy. Lacking pinkies, we would likely count in octal.
While not mathematically more complex, base 4 does have the advantage that it requires only half the digits as binary (e.g. 255 decimal == 11111111 binary == 3333 quaternary).
Humans are well past the early computational barbarism of programming in straight binary (or assembly for that matter, except where required in performance critical applications). High-level languages and compilers ease the painstakingly precise drudgery of transforming high-level code into machine code. It is straightforward to modify a compiler back-end or assembler to emit low-level machine instructions in quaternary instead of binary. Thus, the mere fact of base 4 as the basis of DNA computation is not conclusive proof of anything, although it is an elegant bit of engineering.
Moreover, the dominance of binary in human machine computing, while a current fact, is not the last word. Advances in quantum computing will inevitably yield architectures with qubits (quantum bits) having bases greater than 2.
You raise some interesting points, however, and in doing so expose the late Asimov's myopia. Asimov laughably failed to deal with the obvious, namely the "big bang" postulated some 15 billion years ago, and from which the full vastness of the universe is theorized to have emanated from an infintesimally small point. The question at the limit, of course, is "Caused by Whom, and Why?"
Try as we might, and with all the hubris for which humans are famous, realize this. We are as two-year olds trying to understand quantum physics. God exists, but it is pure foolishness for us to think we can understand all He knows. In time, if we survive long enough, we may travel to the stars. It bears reminding who made the stars, not to mention the universe that contains them.
I still don't understand why a base4 vs. base2 code must be evidence for something significant. There are several theoretical possibilities for RNA or DNA base codes - some which work better than others. You'd expect that the best codes would get selected for over time. It's a filtering process, as
this article shows:
Mac Dónaill argues that the nucleotides' pairings are a kind of code. Each hydrogen bond has two components: chemical groups called donors and acceptors. If we denote a donor as 1 and an acceptor as 0, then C encodes the pattern 100, and G is 011. In other words, each nucleotide can be represented as a short sequence of binary code, like the 1's and 0's used to record information in computers.
There is one more element in this code. A and G belong to a class of molecule called purines, and T and C are pyrimidines. Each pairing involves a purine and a pyrimidine. We can denote a purine by 0 and a pyrimidine by 1. Then C becomes 100,1 and G is 011,0.
Represented in this way, says Mac Dónaill, the permissible combinations of A,C,T and G correspond to what computer scientists call a parity code. Each nucleotide has an even number of 1's - it is said to have an even parity.
This makes it easier to spot errors such as non-natural nucleotides. If the error changes any one digit in a nucleotide, its parity changes from even to odd. Odd-parity nucleotides are clearly wrong.
When life first emerged from simple molecular constituents, says Mac Dónaill, "selective pressure should have favoured parity-code-structured alphabets".
In other words, genetic information became encoded in A, T, C and G, and not in the several other types of purines and pyrimidines that must have coexisted with them, not just by chance but a result of the parity code that this subset of molecular building blocks forms.
Other combinations of these kinds of molecule could produce other parity codes, but there are chemical reasons why these combinations wouldn't have worked so well.
So you see that they really treat the nucleic acids as
words & not
bits. On the hydrogen-bond level it's binary, as is the combination of a purine & pyrimidine. But each resulting (nucleic acid) base encodes a 4-bit word. This is why they can speak of a parity code. So if you're going to begin to compare the complexities of man-made computers & the genetic code, you have to look at it on the word level.
Ah, but then it uses this 4-bit code to encode only four letters! So it's using a 4 bit code to encode 2 bits worth of data. Is this terribly wasteful, or is the wasteful redundancy necessary to achieve good enough fidelity in copying? Designers (whether persons or processes) have so many tradeoffs to juggle, don't they?
Interestingly, there has been some work on finding whether a 2-base system is chemically feasible. See this Nature Science Update article, and the original press release.
From the NSU article: Chemists in the United States have constructed the simplest possible genetic language. Like Morse or binary code, it has only two letters - but it can orchestrate some of the basic molecular reactions needed for life to evolve.
This stripped-down genetic scheme might provide clues about how life began in the chemical soup of the early Earth, say its developers John Reader and Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
Today, the recipes for life - RNA and DNA - are normally written in a four-letter molecular alphabet: the bases adenine (A), guanine (G) and cytosine (C), together with thymine (T) in DNA or uracil (U) in RNA. Each gene in DNA is a sequence of A's, G's, C's and T's.
But these bases aren't easy to make from the chemical constituents of the early Earth, point out Reader and Joyce. So they may not have been available to build molecules capable of carrying out the basic chemical processes of life, such as replication and catalysis.
A simpler two-base molecule might have stood a better chance, argue the duo. They have made a two-letter ribozyme - a molecule that helps another to stick to it. These catalysed link-ups are necessary to construct the molecular chains of the genetic molecules DNA and RNA.
And from the original press release:
One of the great advances in the last few decades has been the notion that at one time life was ruled by RNA-based life--an "RNA world" in which RNA enzymes were the chief catalytic molecules and RNA nucleotides were the building blocks that stored genetic information.
"It's pretty clear that there was a time when life was based on RNA," says Joyce, "not just because it's feasible that RNA can be a gene and an enzyme and can evolve, but because we really think it happened historically."
However, RNA is probably not the initial molecule of life, because one of the four RNA bases--"C"--is chemically unstable. It readily degrades into U, and may not have been abundant enough on early Earth for a four-base genetic system to have been feasible.
Odd Base Out
To address this, Nobel Laureate Francis Crick suggested almost 40 years ago that life may have started with two bases instead of four. Now Reader and Joyce have demonstrated that a two-base system is chemically feasible.
Several years ago, Joyce showed that RNA enzymes could be made using only three bases (A, U, and G, but lacking C). The "C minus" enzyme was still able to catalyze reactions, and this work paved the way for creating a two-base enzyme.
Anyway, back to evolution & design: I recall (from my readings, not my experience :-) that the earliest experiments with digital computers used a decimal system. Heck, the earliest computers were totally analog! But they found that electrical circuits were much easier to control if they were kept at either ground or B+. So the analog computers went extinct & the digital systems flourished.
However, like with the genetic code, it's not really base2 at the level where it counts - the word level. Originally computers were 4-bit machines: They processed information using 4-bit words. There was much competition in the early days between several different 4-bit coding systems. As my trusty 1955 Introduction to Automatic Computers explains:
Two ways readily suggest themselves. One way involves a train of pulses through time, and the other does not. A train of pulses through time is merely a succession of 1's going down the same wire. It is like a group of men walking in single file down a path, the men in this case being pulses ("1's") of electric current. Thus, no pulse on the wire would represent zero, one pulse would be one, two pulses would be two, [...] and so on. For more than nine pulses, two wires could be used. [...]
This way of representing numbers sounds simple, but actually it is not. In modified form, it has been used in some computers - for example, the ENIAC. Doing arithmetic with numbers represented in a computer in this way requires, however, rather complicated electric circuits. And it makes arithmetic a slow process. For these reasons, representing numbers by a train of pulses through time is no longer widely used in automatic computers.
The other method of representing numbers in automatic computers makes use of combinations of two-state devices. With this row of vacuum tubes, many combinations of patterns of 0's and 1's can be formed. For example, current through the first three tubes from the right-hand end of the row and nothing through the other tubes could represent seven. As a matter of fact, one could build any regular, self-consistent pattern to represent various numbers. And various patterns are actually used in computer work.
[...]
CODED DECIMAL SYSTEMS
With a basic understanding of number systems in general and the binary system in particular, it is appropriate to survey the most popular types of symbol representation used in automatic computers. In rough order of their popularity, these symbol systems are: the 8421, the excess 3, the binary, the biquinary, the 2*421, and the 7421.
The omission of the decimal system from the list does not mean that it is not important - far from it. [...] People want to give the information to the computer in the decimal system; people want to get decimal results out of the automatic computer. For this reason alone the decimal system is important. And in a few of the older automatic computers, such as the ENIAC, it was used in modified form within the computer as well. But the trend is away from the uncoded decimal system for use within a computer.
The most popular number system at present for automatic computers for commercial use is the 8421 system, or as it is also known, the binary coded decimal system. This system merely uses the first four places in the binary system and the first ten binary numbers. There are several advantages to this system. First, it is fairly easy to understand. A person can look at the numbers and understand fairly well their values with a knowledge of only the binary equivalents for the first ten decimal numbers. Second, this system has room for additional symbols because although it uses four places, it represents only ten decimial numbers. This leaves six combinations unused and available (what would have been binary ten through fifteen). Third, even decimal numbers end in a 0; odd end in a 1. This can be used as part of a code check.
There are several disadvantages to the 8421 system. First, for the automatic computer, arithmetic is not as simple as in the binary system. There are difficulties in the carry operation, for example. Second, the system is inefficient because it only represents ten decimal numbers; yet enough equipment is being used to represent 16 decimal numbers. This is more equipment than is necessary to do the job. Nevertheless, the system is widely used in computers, such as the IBM-705.
The second most popular system is the excess 3 system. Note that the numbers of this system are made by adding binary three to the 8421 system. There are several advantages to this system. First, it is fairly easy for the computer to do arithmetic in this system - in fact, much easier than in the 8421 system. Second, the numbers from five through nine are complements of the numbers four to zero. This is an important computational aid. Third, even decimal numbers end in a 1; odd end in a 0. This can be used as part of a code check.
There are, however, several disadvantages to this system. First, it is more difficult for human beings to understand than the 8421 system. Second, it is just as inefficient a utilizer of computer hardware (components) as the 8421 system. The system is used in such computers as the UNIVAC-II.
The third most popular number system is the binary system. The binary system agrees perfectly with the two-state nature of computers because there are only two admissible marks in the binary system. This is the basic reason why the binary system is so widely used in automatic computers designed for technical and scientific work. The ERA-1103, for example, uses the binary system.
The major advantages of using the binary number system in automatic computer work are several. First, it is a comparatively efficient system in terms of utilization of computer components. In other words, it takes only 37 two-state devices to represent a quantity greater than one hundred billion. Second, the binary system is an efficient system from the standpoint of computer arithmetic. It enables the computer to do arithmetic operations in a fairly straightforward and simple way. However, there is one major disadvantage to the binary number system. It is difficult for human beings to understand, without training. This involves either memory work or conversion tricks or both, but even so, it is not as "comfortable" as the decimal system.
The fourth most popular system is the biquinary system. The biquinary system uses seven binary places to represent the ten decimal numbers. The values of the places are, reading from left to right, 5, 0, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0. The most important advantage of this system is the ease of making a code check. Every decimal number is represented by only two 1's and five 0's. Another advantage is that the system is fairly easy for human beings to understand. Disadvantages are the difficulty for a computer in doing arithmetic and the very inefficient utilization of computer hardware. This system uses seven places to represent only ten decimal numbers, but with seven binary places, a number over 100 can be represented. The biquinary system is used in the IBM-650.
The fifth most popular system, although it is not used in commercially available computers, is the 2*421 system. Just as the 8421 system is named by the decimal values of the binary places, so is this system named. In the 2*421 system the value of the zero place is one, of the one place is two, of the two place is four, but the three place is again two. The * is to remind the reader that the initial 2 is deliberate and not a clerical error in writing 8421.
This system, too, has advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is that it is easy for the computer to do arithmetic in this system. Second, note that the numbers from five to nine are complements of the numbers from four to zero, a feature which further facilitates computation. A third advantage is that the even decimal numbers end in 0 and the odd numbers end in 1, a feature which can be used as part of a code check. The major disadvantage of the system is that it is even harder for human beings to understand than is the excess 3 system. A second disadvantage is the same inefficiency of hardware utilization as in the excess 2 and 8421 system. The system is used in such computers as the MARK-III.
A rarely used system is the 7421 system. It sometimes is found in key-sort work, as well as in computers. The advantage of this system is that there are never more than two 1's in any 7421 system number, a feature which can be adapted into a code check. On the disadvantage side, this system is as hard to understand as the binary system. The only difference is in the far left-hand place which has a decimal value of seven instead of eight. Another disadvantage of this system is that it is relatively difficult for a computer to do arithmetic. The system is used in such computers as the MARK-IV.
There are many other number systems, some of which are used only in parts of an automatic computer. For example, the symbol representation in the IBM-650 magnetic drum storage unit is a 63210 code. Other systems are occasionally found in some computers.
Sorry for the length, but you get an idea of just how very
evolutionary it all was in the early days, even on the fundamental level of bases & counting systems. I'd be very surprised to find a computer today that used anything other than binary - which wasn't even the most popular system in 1955!
I believe that God made the heavens and the earth. I can ALSO accept that it was done over a period of time that could WELL have been in the billions of years. Why not? What does He have but TIME? Nothing wrong at all with Creationism. Except for overly rigid timetables. And dogmatic "preachers" who spread misinformation without thought.
Your argument is nonsense. By the same reasoning, who created your intelligent entity? And who created the intelligent entity who created your intelligent entity? Etc. into an infinite regression.