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@masak
Created March 31, 2012 12:31
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to lichtkind, about evolution and DNA
<lichtkind> i tend to think there is a sort of evolution just recent science
            clearly shows that dna is not the reliable information [carrier they] want
            to believe, but as the so often mistranslates

I was educated in the field of biology, or more precisely, bioinformatics. I have taken 4.5 years worth of courses within this field. Hearing something like the above leaves me wondering whether I should feel affronted (that a statement like that can go unchallenged in a channel full of intelligent people) or sad (that even a basic level of biological know-how cannot be assumed in the general public, such that statements like the above can be made to seem plausible).

This I know: DNA is copied in enormous amounts in your cells each second. It is a relatively high-fidelity process: among DNA and RNA (two fairly similar molecules), RNA is the more volatile, error-prone kind, used for tasks which happen in shorter cycles. DNA is the long-term storage molecule. That said, even in DNA sometimes copying errors occur. Rarely. Most often, they are found and corrected. Sometimes, even more rarely, the corrections introduce errors. The rate by which they happen is low enough for DNA to be a "reliable information carrier" for our genetic material.

That is not to say that DNA contains all aspects of our genetic information, or that they alone determine our physical and mental traits, etc. But those are separate discussions.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you can formulate a testable hypothesis about how DNA isn't the reliable information carrier the biological sciences have come to believe it is during the past 60 years, I'm willing to test it for you, or point you to prior experiments that have tested it for you.

If you can't, please accept my suggestion that you are not only wrong, but wrong by the collected weight of the entire field of science on which my education rests.

(By the way, do not use the word "mistranslates" about DNA. Translation is the process of creating protein sequences out of mRNA.)

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