Saturday, December 26, 2009

Programmed Cell Death

Cells have built-in error correction and repair mechanisms. Such mechanisms cannot be accounted for by any Darwinian hypothesis since error detection implies knowledge. Knowledge of correct system state and planning of appropriate repair measures.

Here's one problem with the Darwinian "it just evolved" hypothesis :
Q: How can a repair mechanism arise without pre-knowledge of correct system state?
A: It cannot. Not when the damage caused interrupts and when corrective facilities are this specifically complex

The one thing I find myself repeatedly having to explain to Darwinists in topics like this is that error detection/correction absolutely, totally demands pre-knowledge of correct system state.

Darwinists never get this crucial problem with their materialist theory.
This is probably related to their other mental illnesses - specifically acute cognitive dissonance.

Implication? DNA had to be designed by an intelligent agent.

In software development, programmers build what we call "exception trapping" mechanisms.
Such mechanisms 'watch' a given function progress and trap errors (exceptional system events) when detected. The trapping code then directs program flow either to analysis functions and correctional code or if the error is minor simply continue processing after the code block that failed (caused the exception) and may possibly alert the user to a faulty input situation.

DNA has it's own special codes for detecting and 'catching' the exceptions that occur. Triggered by a diverse range of cell signals.

Neo Darwinian evolution (NDE) cannot explain the existence of such built-in functions.

Worse (for NDE) : Not only is there repair of damage available to the cell's system but there is even a last resort "correction" (but not repaired) measure called apoptosis - pre-programmed cell death!
Apoptosis  is "a type of cell death in which the cell uses specialized cellular machinery to kill itself; a cell suicide mechanism that enables metazoans to control cell number and eliminate cells that threaten the animal's survival" (also plays a role in preventing cancer). Its a key process in multicellular organisms.

This too is not explicable under NDE.

So, in a more engineering like term we can look at this process as something like a control-feedback loop. Such 'loops' exist in many places in the cell; like the circadian oscillator (Paely's watch!) - "a clockwork mechanism that controls these global rhythms of transcription, chromosomal topology, and cell division."

Well then, the evolutionary ancestor to that was what?

Darwinism utterly fails to predict sophisticated repair mechanisms like these. Only pre-knowledge of correct system state can foresee and then construct code sequences that operate repairs to or destruction of faulty parts in a complex machine.
DNA is such a machine.

Here's a simple way of testing what I'm saying:
Test: write a coherent sentence in English on a piece of paper.  Make sure to include several glaring grammatical and spelling errors.
Now, find a monolingual Chinese person and ask them to find and correct the mistakes.
See?
No pre-knowledge of English grammar, symbolism, spelling etc. = no ability to either detect or correct.
Same applies to any such error trapping/correcting in any system - including biological ones.
Now try to imagine something that tries to correct your sentence without any goals, plans, brains or purpose.
It will never happen.

Design is the inevitable and scientifically correct explanation. Period