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It's so much fun being proven right - again! 
During an exchange that I was having with an Atheist just over two decades ago, I made a (not-so-bold) prediction having to do with "degenerate" codons. Basing myself solely on what I knew of Information Theory combined with my Biblical Christian belief that 'God always has a purpose', I predicted that (paraphrasing), "one day we will discover that there is an important purpose for multiple codons specifying the same amino acid". [By the way, during that time I had made another prediction regarding "junk" DNA (then highly exciting "evidence" for Evolutionists) based on the same two reasons that I gave above - but that's another topic].
Well, the 'prediction fulfilled' day has formally arrived.
Here's the article reporting it: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08...fun089301.html
Here's the paper on which the article is based: Front. Genet., 20 May 2014 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2014.00140
Redundancy of the genetic code enables translational pausing
David J. D'Onofrio1,2* and David L. Abel3
1Control Systems Modeling and Simulation, General Dynamics, Sterling Heights, MI, USA
2Department of Humanities and Science, Math Department, College of Humanities and Science, University of Phoenix, Detroit, MI, USA
3Department of ProtoBioCybernetics/ProtoBioSemiotics, The Gene Emergence Project of The Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc., Greenbelt, MD, USA
This is also related to a paper* that I co-authored in the 2011 Symposium "Biological Information: New Perspectives" - that too would be another topic.
*Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutations, Montanez, Marks, Fernandez and Sanford, 2011.
The upshot of D'Onofrio's and Abel's paper is that, "Redundancy of the codon to amino acid mapping, therefore, is anything but superfluous or degenerate." In simple language and using an example, while GGU, GGC, GGA, and GGG all encode the amino acid glycine, we now know that each particular codon for glycine is critical in determining translation rates, protein folding and ultimate function.
Just as predicted - each codon version does have important function.
We live in exciting times. In light of an avalanche of scientific discoveries, retaining the Materialistic Evolutionary Paradigm is becoming harder with each passing day. Of course, as I know all too well, no amount of evidence will ever sway the Materialistic Evo-Faithful. Hey, after all, it's what they believe and live by! They'll go down with the ship before conceding a single point - the Holy Foot must not ever be allowed in the door. As for the Theistic Evolutionists, they have bigger, more serious problems than the Atheists.
Jorge
During an exchange that I was having with an Atheist just over two decades ago, I made a (not-so-bold) prediction having to do with "degenerate" codons. Basing myself solely on what I knew of Information Theory combined with my Biblical Christian belief that 'God always has a purpose', I predicted that (paraphrasing), "one day we will discover that there is an important purpose for multiple codons specifying the same amino acid". [By the way, during that time I had made another prediction regarding "junk" DNA (then highly exciting "evidence" for Evolutionists) based on the same two reasons that I gave above - but that's another topic].
Well, the 'prediction fulfilled' day has formally arrived.
Here's the article reporting it: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08...fun089301.html
Here's the paper on which the article is based: Front. Genet., 20 May 2014 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2014.00140
Redundancy of the genetic code enables translational pausing
David J. D'Onofrio1,2* and David L. Abel3
1Control Systems Modeling and Simulation, General Dynamics, Sterling Heights, MI, USA
2Department of Humanities and Science, Math Department, College of Humanities and Science, University of Phoenix, Detroit, MI, USA
3Department of ProtoBioCybernetics/ProtoBioSemiotics, The Gene Emergence Project of The Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc., Greenbelt, MD, USA
This is also related to a paper* that I co-authored in the 2011 Symposium "Biological Information: New Perspectives" - that too would be another topic.
*Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutations, Montanez, Marks, Fernandez and Sanford, 2011.
The upshot of D'Onofrio's and Abel's paper is that, "Redundancy of the codon to amino acid mapping, therefore, is anything but superfluous or degenerate." In simple language and using an example, while GGU, GGC, GGA, and GGG all encode the amino acid glycine, we now know that each particular codon for glycine is critical in determining translation rates, protein folding and ultimate function.
Just as predicted - each codon version does have important function.
We live in exciting times. In light of an avalanche of scientific discoveries, retaining the Materialistic Evolutionary Paradigm is becoming harder with each passing day. Of course, as I know all too well, no amount of evidence will ever sway the Materialistic Evo-Faithful. Hey, after all, it's what they believe and live by! They'll go down with the ship before conceding a single point - the Holy Foot must not ever be allowed in the door. As for the Theistic Evolutionists, they have bigger, more serious problems than the Atheists.
Jorge
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