re concerning god s morality long this kind of argument cries for a comment jbrown batman bmd trw com wrote in article apr leland stanford edu galahad leland stanford edu scott compton writes jim you originally wrote god did not create disease nor is he responsible for the maladies of newborns what god did create was life according to a protein code which is mutable and can evolve without delving into a deep discussion of creationism vs evolutionism god created the original genetic code perfect and without flaw do you have any evidence for this if the code was once perfect and has degraded ever since we should have some evidence in favour of this statement shouldn t we perhaps the biggest imperfection of the code is that it is full of non coding regions introns which are so called because they intervene with the coding regions exons an impressive amount of evidence suggests that introns are of very ancient origin it is likely that early exons represented early protein domains is the number of introns decreasing or increasing it appears that intron loss can occur and species with common ancestry usually have quite similar exon intron structure in their genes on the other hand the possibility that introns have been inserted later presents several logical difficulties introns are removed by a splicing mechanism this would have to be present but unused if introns are inserted moreover intron insertion would have required precise targeting random insertion would not be tolerated since sequences for intron removal self splicing of mrna are conserved besides transposition of a sequence usually leaves a trace long terminal repeats and target site duplications and these are not found in or near intron sequences i seriously recommend reading textbooks on molecular biology and genetics before posting theological arguments like this try watson s molecular biology of the gene or darnell lodish baltimore s molecular biology of the cell for starters remember the question was posed in a theological context why does god cause disease in newborns and my answer is likewise from a theological perspective my own it is no less valid than a purely scientific perspective just different scientific perspective is supported by the evidence whereas theological perspectives often fail to fulfil this criterion i think you misread my meaning i said god made the genetic code perfect but that doesn t mean it s perfect now it has certainly evolved since for the worse would you please cite a few references that support your assertion your assertion is less valid than the scientific perspective unless you support it by some evidence in fact it has been claimed that parasites and diseases are perhaps more important than we ve thought for instance sex might have evolved as defence against parasites this view is supported by computer simulations of evolution eg tierra perhaps i thought it was higher energy rays like x rays gamma rays and cosmic rays that caused most of the damage in fact it is thermal energy that does most of the damage although it is usually mild and easily fixed by enzymatic action actually neither of us knows what the atmosphere was like at the time when god created life according to my recollection most biologists do not claim that life began billion years ago after all that would only be a half billion years or so after the earth was created it would still be too primitive to support life i seem to remember a figure more like to billion years ago for the origination of life on earth anyone with a better estimate i d replace created with formed since there is no need to invoke any creator if the earth can be formed without one most recent estimates of the age of the earth range between billion years and earliest signs of life not true fossils but organic stromatolite like layers date back to billion years this would leave more than billion years for the first cells to evolve i m sorry i can t give any references this is based on the course on evolutionary biochemistry i attended here dominion it was no great feat for satan to genetically engineer diseases both bacterial viral and genetic although the forces of natural selection tend to improve the survivability of species the degeneration of the genetic code tends to more than offset this again do you want this be true or do you have any evidence for this supposed degeneration i can understand scott s reaction excuse me but this is so far fetched that i know you must be jesting do you know what pathogens are do you know what point mutations are do you know that everything can come about spontaneously in response to your last statement no and neither do you you may very well believe that and accept it as fact but you cannot know that i hope you don t forget this we have evidence that suggests everything can come about spontaneously do you have evidence against this conclusion in science one does not have to believe in anything it is a healthy sign to doubt and disbelieve but the right path to walk is to take a look at the evidence if you do so and not to present one s own conclusions prior to this theology does not use this method therefore i seriously doubt it could ever come to right conclusions human dna being more complex tends to accumulate errors adversely affecting our well being and ability to fight off disease while the simpler dna of bacteria and viruses tend to become more efficient in causing infection and disease it is a bad combination hence we have newborns that suffer from genetic viral and bacterial diseases disorders you are supposing a purpose not a valid move bacteria and viruses do not exist to cause disease they are just another manifests of a general principle of evolution only replication saves replicators from degradiation we are just an efficient method for our dna to survive and replicate the less efficient methods didn t make it to the present and for the last time please present some evidence for your claim that human dna is degrading through evolutionary processes some people have claimed that the opposite is true we have suppressed our selection and thus are bound to degrade i haven t seen much evidence for either claim but then i ask so where is this relevant to my discussion in answering john s question of why why are there genetic diseases and why are there so many bacterial and viral diseases which require babies to develop antibodies is it god s fault the original question i say no it is not of course nothing evil is god s fault but your explanation does not work it fails miserably you may be right but the fact is that you don t know that satan is not responsible and neither do i suppose that a powerful evil being like satan exists would it be inconceivable that he might be responsible for many of the ills that affect mankind i don t think so he could have done a much better job pun intended the problem is it seems no satan is necessary to explain any diseases they are just as inevitable as any product of evolution did i say that where seems to me like another bad inference actually what you ve done is to oversimplify what i said to the point that your summary of my words takes on a new context i never said that people are meant presumably by god to be punished by getting diseases why i did say is that free moral choices have attendent consequences if mankind chooses to reject god as people have done since the beginning then they should not expect god to protect them from adverse events in an entropic universe i am not expecting this if god exists i expect him to leave us alone i would also like to hear why do you believe your choices are indeed free this is an interesting philosophical question and the answer is not as clear cut as it seems to be what consequences would you expect from rejecting allah oh i admit it s not perfect yet but i m working on it a good library or a bookstore is a good starting point what does this have to do with the price of tea in china or the question to which i provided an answer biology and genetics are fine subjects and important scientific endeavors but they explain how god created and set up life processes they don t explain the why behind creation life or its subsequent evolution why is there a why behind and your proposition was something that is not supported by the evidence this is why we recommend these books is there any need to invoke any why behind a prime mover evidence for this if the whole universe can come into existence without any intervention as recent cosmological theories hawking et al suggest why do people still insist on this thanks scotty for your fine and sagely advice but i am not highly motivated to learn all the nitty gritty details of biology and genetics although i m sure i d find it a fascinating subject for i realize that the details do not change the big picture that god created life in the beginning with the ability to change and adapt to its environment i m sorry but they do there is no evidence for your big picture and no need to create anything that is capable of adaptation it can come into existence without a supreme being try reading p w atkins creation revisited freeman petri petri pihko kem pmp mathematics is the truth pihatie c finou oulu fi physics is the rule of sf oulu kempmp the game finland phoenix oulu fi chemistry is the game
