Of Codes and RNA — August 26th, 2011 by Ann Gauger
Origin of life research has problems, and here’s why. DNA carries the information necessary to build proteins. It performs no chemistry and builds no cellular structures by itself. Rather, the information in DNA must be translated into proteins. But there is no direct way to convert a given DNA sequence into a protein sequence—no direct chemical association between DNA nucleotides and amino acids. Some sort of decoding mechanism is needed to translate the information encoded in DNA into protein.
That decoding mechanism involves a whole host of enzymes, RNAs and regulatory molecules, all functioning as an elegant, efficient, accurate and complicated system for copying and translating the information in DNA into a usable form. (For a comprehensive and engaging description of how information is processed in the cell, and how this process has been discovered, see Stephen C. Meyer’s Signature in the Cell [1].)
The problem is, this decoding system is self-referential and causally circular. Explaining its origin becomes a chicken and egg problem. Building the machinery that translates DNA into protein requires the prior existence of DNA, RNA and protein, all three. This should give us pause, because we have no naturalistic explanation for problems involving causal circularity. more…