Could the genetic code be a product of blind chance?

Not a chance!

It's due to Superior Intelligent Design...brought forth by Almighty God Jehovah.

Recent findings of two British scientists confirm that the genetic code is not simply the product of random chance.

And no one with functional brain cells thinks it is random chance, except fundies to support their absurd paradigm.

only one was selected early in the history of life

If there was only one selected then there would be only one type of animal or plant on thsi earth. Obviously there were millions selected.

Because it minimizes errors made during the protein-making process or errors caused by genetic mutations

That is a convenient assumption for your paradigm, it has no basis in reality.

"it is extremely unlikely that such an efficient code arose by chance."

And again, no one with functional brain cells thinks that and it is not surprising that you got that out of Watchtower, it is a con artist magazine.

No. But of course, only a completely uninformed idiot would think that the only two and only two possibilities are "blind chance" and "a deity did it".

Once again, the Jehovah's Witnesses have lied to you, and continue to lie to other people too.

Like many uneducated creationists, you dishonestly set up the false dichotomy of "either this thing came from chance, or a deity [namely, our religion's deity] created it manually". Anybody who's actually bothered to study genetics knows that DNA strands are not due to the random bombardment of random amino acids.

>>Of the roughly 1020 (1 followed by 20 zeros) possible genetic codes

In that case you mean "10^20", not "1,020". You should be careful the next time you blindly copy and paste text from a website that uses superscripts. Regardless, you haven't shown how you got this number. I'll bet anything that if you do show how it was derived, you'll see several embarrassingly false assumptions that were made in its calculation.

Out of the enormous number of possible genetic codes, it could very well be true that our genetic code is near the bottom in terms of efficiency, but still better than a billion billion (10^18) other codes.

That is, our genetic code could be in the bottom 1% (10^18 /10^20) of all genetic codes, but still be better than a billion billion other codes.

This is no different than saying that, in a class of ten thousand students, a particular student could be the best out of a group of 100, but still be in the bottom 1%.

Using watchtower.org as a science reference site loses all the credibility the rest of your question had.

No one claims the genetic code is a product of blind chance.

I'm not a JW but I have taken a multitude of courses related to genetics and evolution. I do not agree that all this came about by chance. Its highly unlikely.... some statisticians have even calculated the chance of many things, related to this, occuring.... some of the numbers are 1: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 chance.......

Many people like to say 'chance' could explain everything. However, chance is recognized nowhere else in the scientific field... if something seems unlikely to have happened, scientists do their best to exaust other posibilities. On average, when something in nature seems to happen by blind chance, we discover that there is more to it..... why doesn't the average scientist do the same with evolution?

For example: There is an 8 and 100 chance of being born with diabetes. Now, if the number rose to 80%..... would you accept that it happened by 'chance'? Or would you exhaust every possibility before even considering it happened by chance? Most people would exhaust every possibility.....

The chance of many things happening, related to this, is equally unlikely. However, so many people are willing to accept 'chance' in these instances... why?

@Hal Roach:

EDIT:

I never said that biologists haven't been able to respond to the challenges of evolution. I never even remotely suggested this.... First off, not all biologists agree with the modern theory of evolution. In fact, Cambridge used to have a lab which worked on things related to this. Many famous biologists, who made contributions to the modern evolution theory, turned their back on their own theories (can list names if requested). The biologist who agree's with chance will usually try to defend the theory with 'its still possible.'

And yes I do know the difference between abiogenesis and evolution. However, you will notice that I am addressing the authors view on 'chance' more than the details. I do not agree with the article he gave, but I agree with the 'chance' arguement.

Evolution through natural selection is a paradigm. Now obviously is has been tweaked here and there, but the overall theory remains the same. And the overall theory is defended to the death by some people....

Lastly I am a science major. I'm earning my B.S. In biology with a concentration in pre-med from the second largest woman's college in the US. My pre-med adivsor is the head of the Science department and I was recently accepted into University of Colorado School of Medicine with an MCAT score of 34 (93 percentile). I also double minored in Chemical Physics and Psychology. Lastly, I am a member of Beta Beta Beta (honor society for students in biology)

its more likely that the genetic code is the result of blind chance than created by a god. A god would have done a bettr job i expect, and not have so much superfluous 'junk' dna.

But nobody is claiming it was blind chance.

But lets say theres a 1 in 1 billion chance of winnign the lottery, and you buy 50 billion tickets....

its a big universe and we are just on one tiny speck, we might have been anywhere in space and time, but here we are, and we will only last a moment.

Here's a hint:

"strong selective pressure" =/= "chance"

How many times do people need to be told this stuff?

Also - since you provide no link to the actual article, I can only assume that your claim about what it says is inaccurate.

It is extremely unlikely but its what happened. That'd explain all the other dead galaxies and our race unable to find life in other planets.

Why would your god create this large of a universe? Is that to test our faith like the dinosaur bones? LOL

Glad I read "watchtower.org" at the bottom first so I could completely dismiss you without having to go through the task of destroying your argument.