Atheists: Where does the encoded information contained in the DNA molecule come from? ...?

DNA sequences can be traced through evolution and of the macaque's nearly 3 billion DNA base pairs, 93.5 per cent are identical to those in the human genome. This is not unexpected for a species whose lineage diverged from our own about 25 million years ago. The human and chimp genomes, which diverged just 6 million years ago, are about 98 per cent identical.

One puzzling discovery is that several mutations that cause genetic diseases in humans - such as phenylketonuria and Sanfilippo syndrome, which lead to mental retardation - are the normal form in macaques and, presumably, our own ancestors.

Chimpanzees have actually done better than humans - 233 chimp genes, compared with only 154 human ones, have been changed by selection since chimps and humans split from their common ancestor about 6 million years ago!

While many molecules that bind DNA regulatory regions have been identified as transcription factors mediating gene regulation it has now been shown that they can be functionally mapped and the specific targeted promoters identified.

A copy of the entire genome of a bacterial parasite was found residing inside the genome of its host species.

The building blocks are all around us in space. A cloud of very heavy ions was found 1000km above Titan’s surface.

These ions are complex organic molecules formed from methane and nitrogen when exposed to intense sunlight, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) and similar compounds containing nitrogen. They gradually form more and more complex molecules – reaching masses of 8,000 times that of a single hydrogen atom.

These molecules sink towards the surface, forming a group of compounds named ‘tholins’. Tholins were first observed in a 1953 experiment that demonstrated that organic molecules could be formed from inorganic precursors. As such, they may provide the building blocks from which life forms.

But hey you are not going to beleive scientists are you? You called on atheists to answer, not scientists. Thus you show you are an anti science Christian!!!!

Leave the thinking to the open minded and go back to where you were in the "ignorance is bliss" warmth!!!!!

The encoded information in DNA doesn't "come" from anywhere. The "code" is simply a set of bases that undergo chemical reactions that eventually produce a result. That code didn't need to be "put" there by anybody.

Magma flows are an example of a naturally occurring code. They code for the direction of the Earth's magnetic field.

Can I show you a naturally occurring code?

As a matter of fact I can. Check out the Fibonacci Sequence and Phi and how it occurs in nature over and over again (for example plants, flower petals, pineapples and snowflakes).

To answer your DNA question, DNA is a double helix which is supported by a "backbone" of alternating phosphate and sugar residues (Thymine, Adenine, Guanine and Cytosine). This is also a naturally occurring code when you realize that purines form hydrogen bonds to pyrimidines, with A bonding only to T, and C bonding only to G.

You know, if you look long enough at the clouds, you can see a bunny.

Patterns are recognized by the mind as such, even if they don't really exist. The DNA information only becomes meaningful if someone can examine it, otherwise it's just a "thing" that "happens" just like billions of others in the Universe.

The information is built up slowly, literally bit by bit. Selection "weeds" out code that cannot reinforce reproduction, and the surviviing bits of code continue to reproduce. It's an iterative processs. So information grows, quite literally from small and minimal to large and complex. It does not have a "source."

Evolution.

If by "code" you mean storage of non-random information, and by "non-random" you mean "it must have a selection process on it. That will require multiple re-iterations of the code (as in, it replicates)" and by "something that stores encoded information and replicates" you mean "life", then you'll realise you've just defined yourself out of an answer.

There is order, sure, but when it becomes information, we call it life. :)

you're driven batshit by the word "code". dna involves the ability of tihngs to affect the behavior of other things. and thus is the same as the ability of hormones and neurotransmitters to effect changes in the organism. and is quite similar to the ability of catalysts to affect chemical processes, or the ability of changes of state to lead to other changes of state in systems, such as the carbon cycle or other ecological cycles.

The best way I would know how to explain it is kind of like instinct on a cellular level.

I figure if elephants have he ability to instinctively know where water is, then something like that most likely started on a much smaller level.

Thats my guess.

Why do you ask atheists this question? I am an engineer rather than a scientist and could not possibly answer you.

You should ask in the appropriate science section - if you dare!

Get real!

My question is why do you need an answer?

I don't have an answer for it and i don't need one. Just like i don't have an answer as to how we were created. Just because i we don't have all the answers doesn't make the default God.

Edit, wow you really got us. Find something to feed your ego.