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One can debate evolutionary theory. As for myself, I agree evolution over the timescales that life has existed on Earth has happened and is real.
However, you cannot debate what follows. That is, the peculiar schema of DNA codon's second letter.
Looking at the standard genetic code shared by all life on Earth, there is something wild about the second base in each codon. A codon is an instruction that consists of sequence of three letters, each of which are one of the four nucleotide base-pairs (C, G, A or T). There are a total of 4x4x4 = 64 codons. The instructions code for either one of the fundamental proteins (essential amino acids) that are building blocks for the rest of our biological chemistry, or as start (methionine) and stop codes. The codon table is in this graphic below:
If you're into fitness and take BCAAs/EAAs in your preworkout, you're probably familiar with some of the names in the table. Now when you reorder the codons by that second base in the sequence from C to T to G to A, as has been done in this particular table, and then look at the nucleon count (basically the total number of protons + neutrons) in the amino acids they code for, you get this super clean, linear progression and symmetry that looks almost engineered.
Main highlights:
Running the numbers and estimates the odds of this level of organization, symmetry, and property grouping happening purely by chance at something like 1 in 3.4x10e27 (that's 3.4 octillion). Running Monte Carlo sims shows random codon assignments almost never get anywhere close to this kind of fit.
This couldn't have evolved step-by-step because the full codon table has to exist before protein-based life and evolution can even kick off. Plus, it showed up super fast geologically speaking (within roughly 60 million years after Earth's oceans formed). This is evidence of some kind of "intent". It doesn't necessarily mean "God" did it, or that it was a "miracle" of some sort, but suggests the code might carry a "crypto-trademark" or branding that locks it in as the one immutable version. There are many other possible codon tables that could have formed, but we got a super-optimized one with a peculiar setup.
So how the heck does a pattern this improbable show up fully formed?
It's not possible for a larger codon table (perhaps with 4 or more letters) to have evolved into the one we currently have. But it could have been engineered by entities who emerged from the chaos of the Multiverse with a more random and less optimized codon table (or were ultimately themselves engineered by an initial species of such entities). Ergo, intelligently directed evolution by a race of Engineers and they seeded life on Earth/Solar System/Galaxy/our corner of he Universe.
I'm summarizing this from another great article by The Ethical Skeptic, where he dives way into it, if you want all of the irrefutable details:
theethicalskeptic.com
So what do you think?
However, you cannot debate what follows. That is, the peculiar schema of DNA codon's second letter.
Looking at the standard genetic code shared by all life on Earth, there is something wild about the second base in each codon. A codon is an instruction that consists of sequence of three letters, each of which are one of the four nucleotide base-pairs (C, G, A or T). There are a total of 4x4x4 = 64 codons. The instructions code for either one of the fundamental proteins (essential amino acids) that are building blocks for the rest of our biological chemistry, or as start (methionine) and stop codes. The codon table is in this graphic below:
If you're into fitness and take BCAAs/EAAs in your preworkout, you're probably familiar with some of the names in the table. Now when you reorder the codons by that second base in the sequence from C to T to G to A, as has been done in this particular table, and then look at the nucleon count (basically the total number of protons + neutrons) in the amino acids they code for, you get this super clean, linear progression and symmetry that looks almost engineered.
Main highlights:
- The amino acids fall into neat contiguous blocks of 16 codons each, with really high linearity in how their complexity ramps up (R² values hitting like 0.97 in big chunks).
- Different second bases line up with specific chemical traits:
- T-second codons mostly code for hydrophobic amino acids with NO₂ groups.
- G-second ones handle more complex NₓOₓ-containing amino acids.
- C-second leans toward 4-codon synonyms and metal-affinity stuff.
- A-second has a lot of 2-codon synonyms plus the stop codons.
Running the numbers and estimates the odds of this level of organization, symmetry, and property grouping happening purely by chance at something like 1 in 3.4x10e27 (that's 3.4 octillion). Running Monte Carlo sims shows random codon assignments almost never get anywhere close to this kind of fit.
This couldn't have evolved step-by-step because the full codon table has to exist before protein-based life and evolution can even kick off. Plus, it showed up super fast geologically speaking (within roughly 60 million years after Earth's oceans formed). This is evidence of some kind of "intent". It doesn't necessarily mean "God" did it, or that it was a "miracle" of some sort, but suggests the code might carry a "crypto-trademark" or branding that locks it in as the one immutable version. There are many other possible codon tables that could have formed, but we got a super-optimized one with a peculiar setup.
So how the heck does a pattern this improbable show up fully formed?
It's not possible for a larger codon table (perhaps with 4 or more letters) to have evolved into the one we currently have. But it could have been engineered by entities who emerged from the chaos of the Multiverse with a more random and less optimized codon table (or were ultimately themselves engineered by an initial species of such entities). Ergo, intelligently directed evolution by a race of Engineers and they seeded life on Earth/Solar System/Galaxy/our corner of he Universe.
I'm summarizing this from another great article by The Ethical Skeptic, where he dives way into it, if you want all of the irrefutable details:
The Peculiar Schema of DNA Codon's Second Letter
The second letter (base) of the three digit DNA codon bears striking schema of such extraordinary improbability, that the question arises, "How did this 1 in 3.4 octillion occurrence happen at all, given that it could not evolve because one needs the XXX DNA codex before one can have evolution...
So what do you think?
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