DNA is not like human language or code

Swamidass · March 17, 2017, 7:04pm

And I am curious if anyone can answer this final question too…

DNA is certainly not designed to communicate with human scientists. We cannot even process short stretches of it in our brain, and have to rely on computer software at every step to even to begin to think about it.

So, here is the real question, the real task we are faced with. I can give give you two sequences:

a sequence of DNA that is totally random (and I will not tell you how I generated it)
a sequence of DNA the same length encodes a biologically important function.

We can extend this further. I can give you as many pairs of examples as you like (thought not infinite =).

Please tell me how you will determine the amount of information in each of these DNA sequences? Do you expect to be able to easily tell the difference between the two? How would you quantify the the amount of information in them? Can you quantify the amount of order? Would you be able to determine which one was random vs. functional? What mathematical formula or algorithm would you use?

My point is that it trivial for me to give you sequences where:

Neither you nor experts in the field would be able tell the difference between the random and functional sequences.
Neither could anyone write a piece of software that could tell the difference.
Neither could anyone design a biological experiment to discriminate the two sequences.
Neither could anyone even compute the true entropy of these sequences. Because I generated the random sequence, I will be able to tell you the true entropy.
Neither can anyone even compute the true information content of these sequences. Because I know which one encodes the biological function and which one is random, you would have to give me different numbers for each sequence.

If you think I am wrong, you can always take me up on the challenge. We can see how far you get.

This is the core of the problem. If you cannot understand the data entirely, you have absolutely no way to confidently f answer the important questions about it. Applying a formula to it or qualitatively reasoning about it gets you no where of consequence. You might as well just be staring at static on a TV screen. The fact that it looks like static to you tells you absolutely nothing about what it really is.

If this is true, and it is. What exactly is the information theory argument for Intelligent Design?