Page 78 - The Origin of Life and the Universe - International Conference 2016

The Origin of Life and the Universe

that it's made up of four compounds represented by the letters U, C, G and
A. I'm not going to go into all the details of that. I'm going to look at it from
a computer-programming standpoint. So these letters come in groups of
three that specify the production of amino acids. The sequence of 3 letters
where each letter has 4 options means that there are 64 different possibilities,
so 4 x 4 x 4. But they are only 20 different amino acids involved in life so this
means that different combinations of three will produce the same amino
acids. You know and so if you look here there are different combinations
and you can have two different ones produce phenylalanine, there's leucine,
and you can see that there is some redundancy there. Different combinations
of letters still produce the same amino acid. To go on further, the amino
acid sequences determine how proteins will fold. And sometimes, different
amino acids will still produce the same protein folding.
And so that's really kind of the big thing, “do we get the right protein
folding?” And so scientists can then ask the question “how well does this
genetic code ensure that proteins fold and function properly even with
mutations of these specific letters?” because we live in an environment
where mutations are going to happen. So given that mutations are going
to happen, how well does this code do what it is supposed to do? All right,
the short answer is this; our genetic code is one in a million. If you ask
how many different ways could you produce a genetic code, that corrects
errors, this is one in a million and its ability to correct errors. Not only
that it's it can carry multiple layers of code as well and I know from a com-
puter-programming standpoint, error correcting in a code is incredibly
important. Especially when you're carrying multiple lines of code that's
very sophisticated programming and that looks like it's designed.
So I am just kind of reminded of Francis Crick statement: “Biologists
must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather
evolved.” I guess I disagree, when scientists look at the universe they see
evidence of fine-tuning and design. We see fine-tuning in the fabric of
space, in the form of the strength of the laws of physics and the size of the
moon, the genetic code and many others that are not mentioned. It seems
to me more reasonable to conclude that where we see a design, a “Designer”
exists. And that a “Designer” created the universe to support humanity.