The Argument from Genetic Code (DNA) DEBUNKED | John Lennox & Ken Ham

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References:

12) Cone with beetles: Xu, Guang, Tang, William, Skelley, Paul, Liu, Nian, Rich, Stephen. 2015.

13) Cycad Cone Close Up. Photo by Dguendel, Jardim Botânico da Ajuda

14) Cycad Plant Photo by JMK, Manie van der Schijff Botanical Garden

15) Beetle pollination of cycads

16) Fossil beetle pollinator

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Timestamps:

00:00 The Language of Life
03:13 Inference to Intellect
11:38 From Cues to Signals
23:36 No Safe Space

[danielkirienko]

As a molecular biologist, I really appreciate you having the confidence in your audience to allow someone else to present information you don't want to garble. Thus is why you're better than a lot of creators.

[ApostateProphet]

Thank you for this! This is one of those arguments that could be so easily debunked if the argument had not been made to appear complicated by its proponents.

[Richard_Nickerson]

"If I just reword the watchmaker analogy, then I'll be the greatest theist ever!"

[Andrew_O]

"In exactly the right order" This alone begs the question, "what makes this order RIGHT?". Just because is stable? Who says that this form was designed rather than just a relatively stable point along natural evolution? If evolution weeds out non-functional variants over time (or they diverge enough to become another stable offshoot) then that would be quite sufficient to explain the basis of "why we are". However this does not mean "right" ... it would simply mean "right for now". It's amazing how well this hole in the ground perfectly contains my puddle shape!

[markcostello]

10:25 Jon Perry; "They were really mean to that guy in the bible"
Satan; "Finally somebody's noticed".

[ChuckFury]

I have heard your name mentioned by other YouTubers many times, but this is the first time I have seen one of your videos. (I guess I was too lazy, err I mean "busy" to do anything but wait for one to appear in my feed.) Anyway, I just want to say this was excellent in every regard. From production values, to entertainment, to the information presented, etc. I was particularly impressed by your intellectual honesty in admitting that the chain of logic with regard to a particular argument was valid, and we must therefore examine the premises that precede the conclusion. While I am an atheist, I find it extremely offputting when valid arguments are dismissed as nonsense out if hand. It happens far too often and your approach is more than refreshing. Thank you for a superb video. I am now a "belled-up" subscriber.

[mcmanustony]

I've heard Lennox bloviating on morality, biology, history of Christianity, philosophy, genetics, evolution, cosmology on all of these he is a pompous bore. His actual area of expertise is the study of infinite soluble groups- algebra. Is there a single video anywhere of him talking about mathematics?

[thinkethiopia]

I am from ETHIOPIA much respect and love for you. big up stephn. thank you so much for making me understand the truth. RATIONALITY WILL RULE no doubt about

[Paradox-dyve]

Here's the thing, even if they're right about DNA being a language (which I'm certainly not convinced they are) it still doesn't mean that Christianity or any other religious claim is true or is even more likely to be true. It could very well be that we have some mysterious Deistic origin that we don't understand and can't really know anything about with today's technology. But that's not at all a similar conclusion to "Yaweah exists". I think it's possible that there was some kind of mysterious origin that we come from, but this new argument from the theists is grasping and desperate as usual...

I should add, I'm not saying that Deism is true or anything. I just think it's the most defensible form of "mystical" speculation about the origin of life. A steel man, you know?

[gregcampwriter]

The spelling of "signalling" vs. "signaling" is apt here, since alterations in the genes are not necessarily harmful. There are different ways to get to a functioning result.

[nunyabizness]

Why do I get "This Video is Unavailable on This Device?" Only time I've ever seen it on youtube. Same Win10 computer I've been using for the last year.

[marcusreading]

The genetic code is a language in the same way that molecules are made up of different coloured balls like those modals you find in science classrooms.

[mrcnub]

Glad to see you finally address John Lennox directly, and I think more skeptics need to do that. His arguments are all abysmally awful, but he's good enough at sounding vaguely intelligent that he has creationists holding him up as someone that skeptics could never refute. All of his terrible arguments have been handily refuted many times over.

[kca_randy]

Jon Perry is quite a guy, very patient & explains scientific concepts really well .
I've listened to the first hour and half of the conversation between Jon and yourself.
Glad the 2 of you taped your conversation.

[Simon.the.Likeable]

Lennox lives for his applause. Where else could an aging overweight mathematician fill auditoriums and be treated like a rock star?

[THasart]

"This video is unavailable on this device." Both on phone and on PC.

Edit: Looks like it's fixed.

[TimothyWhiteheadzm]

Whenever someone says that every letter in DNA is in the correct place, I immediately know they are either lying or don't know the first thing about DNA. The reality is that every strand of DNA is different. Even within your own body, there are probably no two cells with the exact same DNA.

[blueredingreen]

I prefer to just call this an equivocation fallacy, as in using different definitions of "language" across the argument (as I think either you or CosmicSkeptic has reasoned in the past).

"Language is always a product of intelligence" is mostly using "language" as defined to mean (to quote Oxford Languages) "the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture". This is always a "product" of intelligence, because its very definition contains intelligence ("human").

If you want to say "the genetic code is a language", this relies on a different or colloquial definition of language roughly along the lines of something very general like "any structured system to transmit information or instruction".

If you want to extend the first premise to use the definition of "language" from the second, it would just be a faulty generalization (a few examples of languages being the product of intelligence necessitates that all languages must be so). This can quite easily be demonstrated with other faulty generalizations (all swans you've seen are white, therefore all swans are white). I think this part is key, because creationists may continue to claim that whichever other source of language is presented is also a product of (God's) intelligence thanks to this faulty generalization.

If you want the second premise to use the definition of "language" from the first, it would just be false or there would be some other fallacy (we may have created human language to represent the genetic code, but that doesn't mean the genetic code itself is written in human language, just like a duck isn't written in human language, yet the word "duck" which represents it is).

[PaulEmsley]

5:15 "I often suggested to my fellow professors" ... Having been faculty in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford some time ago, I find this recounting of the conversations highly implausible. I'd like to see an affidavit that this actually was how the conversation worked out - just one will do. I bet that his "fellow professors" wouldn't recall the conversations in the same way. Maybe "Oh, for goodness sake, John, <eye-roll> just read the introductory texts we assign for the undergraduates" (and that includes the book on evolution by Jacques Monod).

[timkirsten]

This is instantly one of my favourite RR vids ever. Studying biology at university was what opened my eyes and got me out of religion, and is when I found your channel. So I've always loved the biological and evolutionary vids debunking creationism. Thanks also for introducing me to an awesome new channel!