Jon, you are mistaken in two ways. First, you are talking about translation of RNA, not transcription of DNA.
Second, and more importantly, there are not “twenty different flavours” of tRNAs. There are 64 codons, some pairs work with a single tRNA because of third-base wobble. There are multiple tRNAs for some amino acids. On top of that, there are >100 amino acid residues in proteins because of multiple posttranslational modification systems.
By your criteria intelligent design should have one start codon, one stop codon, and codons for 62 amino acids without wobble.
I think you have inadvertently offered a scientific ID hypothesis that distinguishes a flavor of ID from evolutionary theory–with an empirical prediction that turns out to be false.[quote=“Jon_Garvey, post:153, topic:5673”]
…there is a chicken-egg problem there which rather invites such a description.
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Well, any thorough description of the chicken-egg problem would need to explain why the enzymatic center of the ribosome, peptidyl transferase, is a ribozyme. That makes perfect sense in the RNA World without ID (evolution can only modify something so important and non-redundant around the edges) but makes zero sense in terms of ID, since RNA is an inferior catalyst.
Meyer simply makes the false claim that peptidyl transferase is a protein. So despite an entire chapter devoted to the RNA World hypothesis, he just happens to characterize the single strongest evidence for the hypothesis in a completely false way. Ignorance cannot be an excuse, as Meyer even cited Wally Gilbert’s single-page News&Views paper in which this prediction was clearly stated (Nature 319:618, 1986)!
“But a few RNA enzymic activities still exist, the two described recently, and possibly others in the role of ribosomal RNA or in the splicing of eukaryotic messenger RNA.”
Meyer has neither acknowledged nor corrected the false claim.