 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating whether or not there is code within DNA and we're starting right now. Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here for another epic debate. This is going to be a fun one, folks, and one to let you know if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate. I'm your host, James Coons, and we are a neutral platform, attempting to let everybody have their shot at making their case on a level playing field. And so, if you are sick in the head, like us, and you like juicy, controversial debates, under hitting that subscribe button as we have many more to come. For example, you will see at the bottom right of your screen, Matt Dillahunty and Dr. Josh Bowen will be in a tag team debate coming up this month on the topic of biblical slavery and that will be against the father-son duo of Stuart and Cliff Nettles. So that should be a blast. Hope to see you there, folks. And want to let you know a few things for this channel before we get rolling into the actual debate. First, if you haven't seen, we're on podcast. So if you want to listen to Modern Day Debate on the go, well, hey, what are you waiting for? See if you can find us on your favorite podcast app. If you can't find us, I mean, we're on almost all of them, folks. But if you can't, let me know. We will work to get Modern Day Debate on that podcast app. And last, before we get into the introductions for the speakers, want to let you know, folks, the format's going to be pretty easy going tonight, pretty much our standard, about 15 minutes, and that's flexible. So if they need as much as 20 or as few as two, they can. But we'll have those opening statements starting with John. Then we'll have Tom's opening statement as well. And then conversation for about 60 minutes followed by about 30 minutes of Q&A. So if you haven't had a question, feel free to fire it into the old live chat. If you tag me with Modern Day Debate, it makes it a lot easier for me to see it and get that question into the list. So with that, I'm going to introduce our speakers. We are thrilled to have them, folks. This is going to be a lot of fun. And so if you have not heard of the YouTube channel stated clearly, oh my gosh, you're in for a treat, folks. So let me first introduce John, who is the leader of stated clearly. And so first, John Perry is a science educator and the founder of stated clearly, a website and YouTube channel producing animations about genetics and evolution. Stated clearly, animations have been viewed millions of times and are used in classrooms and museums around the world. He began the project in 2012 with his first animation, quote, what is DNA and how does it work? So thrilled to have you, John. Thanks so much for being with us. Yeah, yeah, it's good to be here. Absolutely. And Tom Jump, back again. Glad to see you as well, Tom Jump. Letting you guys know, folks, Tom Jump has debated professional philosophers ranging from, for example, Dr. Randall Rouser and also has been on the side of speakers such as Matt Dillahunty in the past. And so we're thrilled to have Tom, who's a YouTube regular debater on his own channel as well as oftentimes here. We're glad to have him back and he is linked in the description as well. So you can find all of the links of both speakers in the description, folks. What are you waiting for? They're waiting for you right now. And so with that, we are going to jump into it. So we're going to hand it right over to John for his opening statement. Want to say thank you gentlemen again for being here. And John, thanks so much. The floor is all yours. Cool, great. Let me share my screen with everybody here. So got some slides. The just just to kind of show you what I'm up to, what I do. I do speaking events, but mostly what I do is I create teaching materials for use in the classroom. And so I've got a YouTube channel stated clearly. And I've also got a website stated clearly dot com where those animations can be found. And they're used in high school and sometimes college classrooms for, you know, introductions to genetics, evolution and chemistry. And then I've got a second channel stated casually where I do lectures. And so over there, I've got one on signaling theory, which is how it is that communication systems encoding decoding systems like we're going to learn about today actually evolve naturally. This is a really well studied area of research signaling theory. And I've got a whole lecture over there that talks about that. I'm not sure if we're going to get much into the origin of the genetic code, but we will be talking about, you know, that the genetic code really is an encoding system. I've worked recently with the Center for Chemical Evolution. I've been doing animations with them every year. They are researching the origin of life. They haven't focused a whole lot on the origin of the genetic code. That's kind of like later on in the development of life than what they were researching. But geneticists and people in origin of life chemistry, they all consider the genetic code to be code because it allows us, well, because it really does act like code as we'll see today. But it also allows us to use information theory, all the mathematics from computing to analyze the genetic code. And that's important in biology. So the question today really that I want to be talking about is, does the genetic code work like character or control encoding in machine language? So the zeros and ones in a computer are nucleotides inside of codons. Do they behave in a similar way? And the best way to do this is to just explain briefly how the genetic code works and briefly how computer code works. And really, I mean, I guess the audience will decide whether or not they're similar or not. But in molecular genetics, there are two main types of genes. You've got RNA template genes that do not use the genetic code. They simply are templates for functional chains of RNA. So the ribosome, for example, which is a major important molecule in our bodies, in our cells, it's mostly made of RNA. And so there are genes that are just templates for it. So in DNA, there's a template for an RNA that ends up becoming the ribosome. And then you have protein coding genes. And these genes actually make use of the genetic code, this thing that we call the genetic code, which is right here. Now, when people talk about, when people say that there's code in DNA or that DNA has a language, they're almost always talking about this thing right here, the genetic code. On the left, I have the classic charts that contains the genetic code that you'd see in a textbook. And on the right, I've just drawn the same thing or outlined the same thing vertically so we can easily compare it to multiple different other types of code later on in this presentation. So on the left is what you typically see in a book. On the right is what you'll be seeing a lot in this discussion. Here we have machine code. This is ASCII. Modern computers use, most of them use a variation of this. They don't still use ASCII. But this was used back in the 60s when the genetic code was first decoded. This is what a lot of people were using. And they're computers. And again, it's just a slight variation of this. It's used now. But you have a series of letters. If you've got a typewriter, for example. So A, B, C, D that are encoded into zeros and ones that the machine can understand. And then you also have controls like delete, which are encoded in a way that the machine can understand in ones in this case. So here's the genetic code side by side with ASCII. Now, the functional bits inside of a cell are mostly made of protein. Here I've got a little cartoon of hemoglobin. And each little glob inside the hemoglobin is an amino acid. And the protein is a three-dimensional structure made out of amino acids. And so you've got a bunch of different amino acids. There's 20 of them in humans. And they're stuck together head to tail into chains, which fold up into three-dimensional shapes. And those three-dimensional shapes are the proteins. And according to the different shape that that protein happens to have, it's going to have a different function. Hemoglobin's function is to grab onto oxygen molecules and release those when the blood cell that's carrying the hemoglobin passes nearby oxygen-starved tissue. But there's thousands of types of proteins. And they're all shaped differently because they're made out of different amino acids. Their sequence of amino acids is different. They've folded up into different three-dimensional shapes and those shapes determine their function. The amino acids that I've drawn here is these little colored squiggly balls and stuff. They're actually molecules. So here is aspartic acid. Aspartic acid is one of the 20 amino acids that we use in our bodies. And you can see here that oxygen, atoms are red, carbon is gray, hydrogen is white and so on. So they're just molecules. And in the genetic code, the three-letter, with the lower case, the little abbreviated things, those are just abbreviations for the name of each amino acid. So aspartic acid is ASP in the genetic code. But that's all it's representing. So in your body, amino acids make up proteins, proteins make up cells, cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs and that makes up you. So the DNA does a lot of different things, but one of its most important functions is to tell ribosomes how to build specific proteins inside the cell. And so you've got your DNA in the nucleus of the cell and it's made out of nucleotides. There's four different types of DNA nucleotides, thymine, cytosine, adenine and guanine. And then there are enzymes that, so that's where the genetic information is stored. It's in DNA. They don't actually have little letters on them, obviously, they're just molecules. But inside the nucleus is where the DNA is stored and it can't really do much in there. It's stored in there. And little enzymes run along the DNA and make copies of it. They make messenger RNA strands, strands of single-sided RNA, which is a molecule very similar to DNA. And that has mostly the same bases in it. It's got uracel in there, which is different than DNA. But that goes out into the cytoplasm of the cell where it eventually meets up with a ribosome. But what I wanna drive home here is that these nucleotides, they're also just molecules. So amino acids are molecules, the nucleotides are also molecules. Every three nucleotides makes what we call a codon. And so here we have a GGG codon. And it's a guanine, guanine, guanine. So if I show you the actual 3D molecules here, that's what it would look like. That's what that codon looks like. But the whole chain is split up into chunks of three that the ribosome can read. So a chain of RNA goes out of the nucleus into the mouth of a ribosome, which clamps down on it. And it reads it three nucleotides at a time. So one codon at a time. And it uses that to build the protein chain, which then folds up into its three-dimensional shape. And every three letters, every three nucleotides in the chain of RNA, those act as a symbol for a specific amino acid. So it tells the ribosome, grab this specific amino acid out of solution and add it to the growing chain. And physically what's happening there is transfer RNA is attracted. It's got an anti-codon and it's attracted to the codon and so on. But essentially what's happening is the ribosome is getting instructions from the RNA, telling it how to build a protein. What type of amino acid should it add to the growing chain next? And the RNA tape, it goes through the ribosome. It moves through it. And every time three new nucleotides are hit, the ribosome grabs another amino acid. And that's how this process works. So, you know, I said that the codon is a symbol for an amino acid, you know, Cambridge Dictionary. A symbol is a sine shape or object that is used to represent something else. It's very important to realize here that the nucleotides, the codons are not turned into amino acids. They represent amino acids. The ribosome and the tRNAs that work with the ribosome are structured in such a way that they read the RNA and they treat each codon as a symbol that tells the ribosome which amino acid to grab next. So the codons represent, they do not become, they represent amino acids. And they've been assigned specific meanings over the course of evolutionary history. That's, they're not, there's nothing in physics that says that GGG has to code for glycine as is the case here. So here we've got the codon is a symbol for glycine. It is not glycine, it is not transformed into glycine, it is a symbol for glycine that the ribosome uses to, you know, build protein. And there are different, here, this chart here, I'm showing you the standard genetic code. This is the one that our nuclear genes use, but they're actually different versions of the genetic code where different amino acids are used. Assignments have been made, so different codons, the codons will be assigned to a different amino acid or they'll be assigned to a start or a stop function for the ribosome to obey. But there's, you know, so there's multiple different types of genetic code. These symbols had to be assigned and they were assigned by the process of evolution in the ancient, ancient past. So how does computer code work? Now we know how the genetic code works, but first, are there any questions, like technical questions on anything that I showed there with the genetic code that maybe that you would have, Tom? Not yet, no. Okay. So here I have some human-made codes next to the genetic code. So we've got artificial codes next to the natural code here. And we got Morse code, and Morse code was kind of, it was like the grandfather of Bodo code and then ASCII code eventually. Bodo code and ASCII code were both used in computers and now we use slight variations of ASCII code. But the Morse code, you had commands, like start and stop. So the start of a message is the end of a message. And then you had, you know, character codes, like you have dots and dashes to represent A, B and C. And the cool thing about this is you can send it over a wire through electric impulses. So we could transmit messages across the ocean. Bodo code works in a very similar way. You've got zeros and ones or holes and no holes. And then ASCII code is the same, also zeros and ones. And you've got commands that are represented by these coded symbols. And you've got, in this case, letters of the alphabet that are also represented. So these symbols that the machine can read are called character code points or control code points. So these character code points here, they're coding for letters of the alphabet, so characters. But you can also have code points that code for certain controls. So in Bodo code, you've got letter and figure. So if you're currently typing letters and you want to start, or you're currently typing numbers and you want to start typing letters in your message, you have to do the letter shift command, which is 00001. And that will make the machine switch to start typing out letters instead of numbers. And ASCII code has its own controls as well. And in the genetic code, you've got stop and start as different control code points. So these code points are the symbols that the machine can read that represent something that act as symbols. So here in Bodo code, Bodo code was used originally on tape, like what we see here. And so I've got an F encoded. I'm pointing to an F in the code here. The little tiny holes in the middle are not part of the code. Those are just little gears would hold onto those and move the tape along as the machine's reading it. But the F is 01110. Or blank spot, hole, hole, hole, blank spot, and actual tape. And here is how the machine would actually work. So you're feeding it, by the way, this is what back when the genetic code was discovered, people were using these. This was the standard piece of equipment. If you wanted to type out a memo multiple times, you would encode that memo in Bodo code or an ASCII code, which was encoded and physically encoded into little holes in a piece of paper, a string of paper. And you would feed that through the machine and it would command, it would tell the printer how to print out your memo. And so you could print it as many times as you wanted. And you also had computers that did this, you would write your code in holes that are punched in paper and the machine would physically read that code. And this is how the physical machine physically reads that code, just like a ribosome reads a chain of RNA, one code on at a time. Here we have this machine physically reading the code encoded in this piece of paper, one code point at a time. You can see, I've circled there, the little metal pins push up and those cause different switches to be switched inside the machine. And that causes a different key to be pressed with electric magnets and motors and so on. So this, one of the things a lot of people don't get about the genetic code, they think that it doesn't count as code because it's working physically. There's physical molecules that are physically interacting with the physical ribosome. The exact same thing is true in machines. In the computer today, the physical parts, you've got transistors, but it's a little bit less intuitive when you look at a modern computer, but it really is a physical machine that's physically reading the commands. I mean, things are not magically encoded. These are, the zeros and ones are physical switches either switched on and off inside of a computer, these transistors. So this is how the code works. And if we look at the genetic code versus BOTO code here, we've got code points. The code point in the genetic code is a codon and the code point in BOTO code is a series of holes. And they're both code points. It functions the same way in life as it does in our contraptions. It's a really fascinating aspect of biology. But just to end this here, Richard Dawkins pointed this out in the River out of Eden, his book. He says, the machine code of the gene is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal. So that's my opening statement here. I would say that the genetic code really does function in a way that's important, similar in all the important ways to the code that we now use in computers for character encoding and command encoding. Excellent, thank you very much, John, appreciate it. And with that folks, we are excited to jump, we are excited to jump into Tom's opening statement as well. So we'll flip it over to Tom. Thanks so much for being here, Tom. The floor is all yours. Awesome, so when we ask the question is DNA code, we have to clarify what we mean by code because code is polysemus. There's multiple usages of the word code. In the technical academic literature, code is just a simple kind of a pattern that is Shannon information kind of a pattern. So any physical thing can have a code that no problem, but when many people use the term code, they mean there's some kind of arbitrary construction and abstract meaning hidden in the word. So like if you look at the word tree, you can't determine what the word tree means just by looking at the physical parts. Like there's nothing in the shape of the word that determines what it means. It's just, it's completely arbitrary. We've determined that this shape weight means this thing and that's kind of how we got it. So there's an abstract components to the word which makes it a human code. And so there's a distinction between a human code which has these abstract arbitrary properties to it and a physical code, which is purely determined by the physical constants of the shape of the thing. And so when we're talking about is DNA a code? Which one of these is it more like? Is it more like the human code which is abstract and arbitrary and we can make it whatever we want? Or is it more like a physically determined system like a key in a keyhole or magnets attaching in the specific order? And it seems clear to me that from the presentation that DNA is much more like the physical code, like a key in a keyhole or magnets connected in a certain pattern way or patterns in a crystal. It's not like a human abstract code where there's some abstract meaning hidden inside of it and you need some kind of a mind to impart this meaning on it. But no, it's determined by the physical processes as he said. So when I say DNA does not have a code, I'm specifically referring to those abstract arbitrary things that seem to require a mind to get. So I would agree with everything in a statement, absolutely. It does have the technical code as demonstrated in the biological literature, but it doesn't have anything abstract or arbitrary. That's the one claim I want to make in my position. So like in the Stanford Encyclopedia, there's a quote that I like to read from that about this which is the arguments in Godfrey Smith and Griffiths that DNA is like a language is that there is one kind of information or semantic property that genes and only genes have coding for the amino acid sequences of protein molecules. But this relation reaches only so far as the amino acid sequence. It does not vindicate the idea that gene codes for whole organism phenotypes, let alone provide a basis for the wholesale use of information or semantic language in biology. Genes can have a reliable causal role in the production of whole organism phenotypes, of course, but if this causal relation is to be described in an informational terms, then it doesn't matter of ordinary Shannon information which applies to environmental factors. So what that basically means is it's like the key. It's a physical determined system. So it's like a code only so far as the Shannon information sense of just crystals are also have information in it. It's not a code like the arbitrary language that humans make up. We can't just make it anything we want to make it fit however we desire. We can't make a code on 27 length long because ribosomes can't read that. So we can't just arbitrarily determine the start or stop codes in a code on like we could for a language. Like if in Windows, we can change the start code to anything we want. We could say it's a chimichanga. We could say chimichanga is the start code and just rewrite an entire language around that. You can't do that with DNA because it is physically determined. The physical shape determines what it can bond with and what it can't bond with and what it can represent and can't represent. And so in that sense, it is not a code in the more general sense that theists use it to mean whether some abstract or arbitrary concept to it and that would be, and that's where I'll conclude. It's from there. We'll jump right into the open discussion. Quick reminder folks, our guests are linked in the description so you can hear plenty more from our guests after this debate but right now right into the open discussion. Thanks guys. All right, cool. And so you're talking about what do you mean by arbitrary when you say that a code has to be arbitrary? We can make it anything we want and we can replace it with anything we want. So in the genetic code, the codon assignment actually is arbitrary and you have different organisms that have different assignments to the codon to amino acid and we can actually make it artificially as well. We've scientists have artificially made new codons and there's a question as to whether or not the codons that we use because you could have millions of variations of the genetic code but we only have something like 30 that we've discovered so far. So pretty much all organisms are using the same genetic code, mostly the same genetic code. And the question is why? Is that a frozen accident? Is just one was selected and then all organisms have inherited that or is there something about the genetic code that is optimized for some sort of a function? And Morse code E is the smallest symbol and Morse code is just one dot. Dash is just one dot and that's been optimized because it's most common letter. Yeah, it's the most common letter. So, but it was arbitrarily assigned but it's also been optimized for something. So we know that the genetic code is arbitrarily assigned because you could have assigned what a million, nature could have assigned millions of different codes to it. But one of the questions that origin of life chemists have is is it optimized for some sort of a function or not? Is it better at coding for proteins than alternative versions would be? And that's still kind of up in the air but it certainly is arbitrary. I mean, you can, like I said, you can edit it. You can actually change it. You can add new codons. You can change codon assignments and some organisms have already done that just within their own system. Can you make a code on this eight long? You'd have to significantly engineer. You'd have to change the structure of the ribosome but just you'd have to change the structure of a computer to change the, you know, how big a bite is. You just also have to change the structure of a computer. So no one's ever tried that but theoretically it's just as possible as it would be in a computer. Yeah. I don't have to change anything in a computer to make it an 87 letter long start program. It's just to make it 87 letters and say, we see this then start. So there's a physical change required. It's just already there. You're not changing the bite size though. You're just adding more bites. So in the genetic code, you could add more bites but to change the bite size, a bite is three codons. I guess that would be six bites if you were to convert it to binary, I think. But the, yeah, like, you buy hardware that's either like, what is it? I don't know what the bite systems are but that depends on the machine that you're running. And so, yeah, you'd have to edit the machine to change the start code on. So the physical shape of the ribosome prevents you from making anything more than the three letter currently. You'd have to make a completely new ribosome, right? Just like the physical setup of your machine in a computer determines how big a bite is, yes. Yeah, but I didn't say anything about bites. I can make the start code whatever I want. By adding more, by adding more carrot, by adding more, yeah, by adding more bits to it you could but not by changing the bite size. Yeah, I didn't say anything about the bite size. So one of your examples was the start and stop codons. There's a codon that functions as the start or stop. So I can make the start or stop code whatever I want. If any length I want, bite size doesn't really make a difference to the start or stop code. That's just whatever it's reading. Well, there are some organisms that require a longer or shorter series of nucleotides before the start code on, otherwise I won't recognize it. So actually there are variable length start commands in biology, yes. So like in eukaryotes, I believe eukaryotes need a longer starting sequence than bacteria do. So there is variation in that from organism to organism. It's not so much how the ribosome reads it, it's how the ribosome attaches. So the ribosome has to actually attach to the messenger RNA and one way to get around viruses, for example. So let's say that you're being attacked by a lot of viruses, as you could change an organism have done this over evolutionary time, they changed the length of the number of nucleotides that you need at the start of a message. So yeah, you have changes in length of start in biology. That is something that happens. Okay, so how does the ribosome read the codons? You have transfer RNAs, which are bits of RNA that are folded up into three-dimensional structures and they have an anti-codon sticking out of them and that anti-codon, just like we saw that the computer has to physically read the code by sticking little prongs into it. You have the ribosome physically reads the code by opening up in a way that a specific anti-codon can come in and stick to the codon in the chain of RNA. And that tRNA that has the anti-codon also carries a specific amino acid and the ribosome will then rip that amino acid off and add it to the growing chain. So if a different amino acid hits it, it just won't be able to bond because it's just not the right shape. Right, just like when the tape goes through the computer, the triggers that are physically switched because a computer is a physical machine that physically works in the physical world, these physical switches are switched on and off just like in the ribosome, you have these physical connections that are made or not made. It works exactly, I mean, you've got different molecules involved, you've got different specific parts, but in principle it works exactly the same. So it's like a magnet or a key, it's a physical attachment and there's no abstract anything to it at all, right? Yeah, there's no abstract anything in a computer either. It's all mechanical, yes. Right, so it wouldn't be a code in the abstract since like a human code that we just invent out of nothing, it's a physically determined system. So the code for essentially any windows or computer-based code is something we made up purely in our heads and then we make it a physical system to represent that code. But the code itself isn't a physical system, the code itself is something we made up, it's abstract. The code in DNA isn't, there's no abstract parts to it, it's literally just the physical system is the code. And that I think is the difference between a human code and a physical code. So that's why DNA is more akin to a key or a magnet, not a human language-based code. So just comparing it to a computer isn't quite accurate because the code isn't the computer, the code is something we made up independent of the computer and we then built a computer around it. But the code and the computer are separate things. So I think you're confused because if you want to play a game on a Nintendo, for example, we agree that a Nintendo uses code, right? Sure. You take a physical disk or whatever you call those and you physically insert it into a physical machine and then you physically touch physical buttons on a physical joystick, which send physical electric pulses through a physical wire. There's nothing like the fact that like everything is, like code is physically encoded into machines. It's being physically used. Right. But if we got rid of all the machines, we would still have the code because it was invented by a person. Just take simple codes like the... You're saying you'd have it in their head or something? Yeah, it's something we made up. We literally made it up out of nothing before we built the physical system to represent the code. So just like the codes you listed earlier, those weren't like, those aren't instantiated in a physical system. First, we made them up. We just, we completely just made them up. We said, these symbols represent this. All right, cool. Yeah, evolution did the same thing. Evolution said this symbol represents this in this system. It said that? How did it say that? You know that evolution doesn't talk. Exactly. The meaning, the meaning for symbols is an evolved, this evolved over evolutionary time. So these symbols mean nothing. Outside the ribosome, outside the genetic encoding system, these symbols mean nothing. Their meaning only exists within the communication system that evolved between ribosomes and genes. This is a communication system that evolved over a gradual time. And the study of this is in information, or sorry, in signaling theory, is how we study how do you get signals? How do you get the evolution of symbols so that the sender and the receiver are able to use symbols to communicate with one another? And this happened at the origin of life, well, at the origin of protein coding life in the ancient past. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with that, but that means that there's no abstract thing there. It wasn't just an arbitrary abstract code we just made up. There's a- I'm telling you, it's absolutely arbitrary. It is completely arbitrary. We've gone over this different organisms use different codes. It's not, there's nothing in physics that says this codon must represent this amino acid. That only exists in the system once it's physically built, once it physically exists, just like in a computer. A computer is a physical thing. It's an actual machine that physically- Okay, so you're granting that no abstract things there, so my point is still correct. No abstract, nothing abstract in it at all. What do you mean by abstract? Tell me. Abstract versus concrete objects. Abstract mean it doesn't have a physical correlate, it's just a made up category. So do you think that a computer has abstract things inside of it? It's made out of abstract things? No. Do you think that your brain has abstract things in it? No, abstract means non-physical. Yeah, so an idea in your head is also, I mean, we're getting to the point to where we can actually physically read ideas in people's heads. I agree. Yeah, there's no significant difference. I think what's important here is to get to why, what I've noticed is that over probably like the past five years, atheists, which by the way, I am an atheist. I've just to make sure people won't get confused here. I put a little ode to Darwin behind me here. So what I've been noticing every time I post a video about genetics, if it ever says the genetic code in it, I'll get creationists, it'll send me notes that say, the genetic code is a code, all codes have a coder, therefore the genetic code required a coder. And then I see atheists attack them and say, no, the genetic code isn't a code, it's only like a code. And they're attacking the wrong part of that argument. The bad part of their argument is their claim that all codes have a coder. Biology is filled with systems of encoding and decoding. You have the colors of a flower, they are symbols that represent, I have pollen and I have sugar, come get it. And insects that pollinate understand that. And so an insect will see that signal from a long ways away and go to that. There's nothing about that color that that color is a genuine symbol. It represents sugar, it is not sugar, it represents the sugar. This is just one of many coding encoding systems that have evolved naturally. Nature is filled with these and we understand how they evolve. There are lots of aspects of the genetic code that we don't understand. Aspects of the origin of the ribosome, for example, that we don't understand, but we do know how these coding systems evolve. And if you were to try and argue with a creationist and say, no, it's not really code, it's just like a code because of abstract ideas, they're gonna know that you're just trying to evade the actual question, which is, how on earth were these codons assigned their specific amino acids? How did that assignment take place? That assignment is, it's mysterious to people who don't know much about how this process works. And it's actually still in large part mysterious to actual scientists that are studying the origin of the genetic code. We don't know exactly how those assignments were made. We do know in general, how assignments are made because we've studied this in lots of other systems aside from the genetic code. So we know how symbol assignments are made in nature. Do organisms that are to cooperate, a lot of times they'll end up developing a symbol and they'll develop mean symbols, but we haven't worked it out fully the code. Okay, are there codes in non-organic systems? Audio cutting out here again. Yeah, a little bit. Testing, testing, are you better now? Can you hear? Testing, testing, one, two, three, four, testing, testing, can you hear better now? We did have this just before we went live folks and we'll wait for John to reconnect. Do wanna remind you that they're both linked in the description. John and Tom have their links. I am gonna have to. Before we were testing, I'm gonna have to reboot. So I'm gonna have to call back in here. No problem, we'll do a short. It'll take just a minute, but you can get questions while I'm doing that. You got it, thanks John. And as mentioned folks, we are very excited as if you have not heard, cosmic skeptic will be on modern day debate. That's going to be very exciting. So do wanna let you know about that. You don't wanna miss it. That's coming up on the 16th. And so John will be back in just a moment gonna plug just a couple of events coming up as we are really excited about these folks. So that will be on the 16th on whether or not veganism is morally obligatory. In other words, is it the case that you ought to be a vegan otherwise you're, you could say morally behind and also very excited though. We have another show coming up in the future that we're pumped about. This one I don't think I'd shared about yet it shared on air, but now we finally have the thumbnail and look at that thumbnail, isn't it beautiful? It's a terrific, tremendous thumbnail you guys. We are so excited at the bottom right of your screen. You are seeing a thumbnail for, you guessed it. I don't know if you guys know who Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum is. I was watching a documentary on Amazon and it was a good documentary. You know, it was like a, it was a big photography but it was a good, so it had 4.5 stars. I couldn't help myself. And I listened to Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum and I said, that guy's articulate. I was like, we should try to get him on the show. And so I reached out to him. He's at Idaho State University. He will be on the show. That will be on, if I recall right, it's on a Saturday. It's close to 10 days. Yep, it's the 23rd. So 10 days from today. So if you think that might be a fun one, if you're like me and I can't, I gotta say it folks. That's one of the most fun topics. What's the topic for that one? Huh? What's the topic for that one? Whether or not Bigfoot is real. And Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum will also, by the way, so he's been on like Animal Planet. He's a, he's pretty popular guy. When I mentioned him in the chat before I even made the thumbnail, people, like several people in the chat were like, I know who that is and Erika, Erika Gutsick Gibbon actually said that she had emailed him before with questions about, cause you know, that's her, well not Bigfoot, but Hominids is like one of her specialties that she's a grad student for. So she had contacted him and basically to ask a question about PhD programs in there, you could say shared domain in the academic world. And so yeah, that will be a really fun one folks. And so also though, Tom, can I tell him the news about this huge one coming up with you and Samuel? Sure. Thank you. February 3rd folks, finally, the first time in a long time, we're going to have a debate in person. Now I'm still trying to figure out if there's a way I can like make my schedule work to be able to fly to be there as well as the moderator or at least to kind of like, what day did you say that was? Huh? What day? February 5th, right? Oh okay. Oh, are you, oh, oh you're, yes, February 5th it is. And so you guys, that's gonna be epic. That thumbnail will be up shortly. And so that will be a really fun one. If you remember Samuel Nassan, he was a co-moderator for the debate where we hosted Dr. Bart Ehrman and Jonathan Sheffield. So that's Samuel if you forgot. But he's also been on here. He's debated, he debated, apologia a long time ago. And so glad to have you back, John. Yeah, I'm back. What I miss. Can you hear everything fine? Just audio again now? Yeah, yeah. All right, cool. So picking up where I left off. Are there codes in non-organic systems? And non-organic systems? Yeah. So far as we know, these things can only evolve. So you can have them, you can have coding systems be invented through the process of evolution or through the process of humans coming up with ideas. So is there a code in particle systems like the elementary table? No. Why not? How do you define a code here? Okay, I already showed you what a code is. A code has symbols that represent other, a symbol which represents something that it is not. So in the periodic table, all you have is elements. That's a list of elements. There's no encoding and decoding happening in there. A symbol that represents something it's not? Right, a codon is a symbol that represents an amino acid. It is not an amino acid. It represents an amino acid to the ribosome. The ribosome interprets it as, oh, I need to grab this amino acid and it does. And it does that. It's physical, but again, same within your computer. Everything is physical inside of your computer. So if a triangle could bond with a chevron which then bonded with a star and it could only occur in that order, would that be a code? No. Why not? The triangle represents the chevron or the star because it can only bond if there's the triangle then the chevron and the star. I showed you what the code is. It's very obvious. You have the ribosome. It interprets a specific codon as an amino acid. It interprets it as that. It does not transform it into it. It interprets it as that. Right, that's the same as what I said. So what it said, it reads a thing, it sees it and then because of the shape of the ribosome it then attaches to a different thing. So if you have a triangle and then you have a chevron that reads the triangle by attaching it to it and because of the shape then it can only attach to a star. That's the same thing, right? Okay, so you're saying that it can only attach to the star when it's attached to the triangle? Yes. That would be a signal. So we have in, that's how the signaling system in our hormones work in a similar way. You've got a protein that is only reactive when it's bound to a specific signaling molecule. And that can evolve when you have two entities under selection pressure to cooperate. So yeah, we have a similar system like that. And how is that different from ice crystals? In what way? Well, ice crystals, ice can't form in a perfectly like a perfectly clear water. It has to have a deformity and the deformity comes in and then the deformity represents the ice. So the water transfers to the deformity which then because of the shape can form it into ice. How is that not exactly the same thing? That is not causing, that's not causing a specific repeatable reaction. So you've got in the genetic code, so the ribosome is going to consistently read the GGG codon as the, I think it was a hammer which amino acid was as aspartic acid or whatever it was. It's going to consistently read it that way and consistently build the system or the consistently grab that amino acid out of solution and specifically only grab that amino acid out of solution. Okay, so your original definition of code was a symbol that represents something that's not. I think the water example provides that. So you're saying there's another part to the definition? No, I showed you what the code is. I'm not going to give you a half a sentence definition of a code. I showed you what the code is. I showed you how it physically works. If you don't understand that, then you need to go back and watch the video. Okay, I asked what your definition of code was. I don't care about what you presented about the genetic code. I'm saying what is your definition of a code? Okay, a character in coding system like in the genetic code is a set of symbols which represent another set of either symbols or objects or commands. That's a definition. Okay, and how does my water example not do exactly that? It's not commanding the, there's not a set of symbols that are functioning in your system. You're going to have to explain how those are different because I've not seen the difference. All right, well, you don't. Because there's a physical shape, which is the code on and the physical shape then bonds with something else which has a different shape. And that different shape then bonds with something else which has a different shape. That seems to be the same as the water example. Here we have a whole system where these are set up to do this over and over again. Over and over again, part of your definition. And it constructs, it constructs. Like I'm not interested in you trying to pin me down on weird things with how I defined it on the spot. I showed you how the code works and you can watch that and you can come up with another, you can come up, you can see for yourself how it's different than the water system. Well, no, I can't see it because they're the same based on your definition they both qualify as codes. This isn't about pinning you down. This is about you not understanding the distinction here being in the argument. Like you brought up the thing that creationists always come up in your debates and say, well, all DNA is a code, code requires a code maker, therefore there was a code maker. And then the atheists say, well, it's only like a code. And then you criticize the atheists for being wrong. And they're not because... It functions exactly like a computer code in principle. So the problem here is that what the theist means by code isn't the same as what the technical term of what code actually means. So the kind of code that's in DNA is just a physical system. There's no abstract mind required at all. Same with the computer. There's no brain inside a computer. I agree. There's nothing, no brains in the computer yet. But different topic. So when the atheists are correct when they say the theist is wrong like no DNA is not a code in the way they mean code. Now it is a code in the technical sense. I agree that, I agree that in the beginning, but there's a difference between the definitions there. And that's the thing I'm trying to articulate. How do you define code is kind of important to the conversation. If the creationist is saying that the genetic code works like computer code, they're 100% correct. If they're saying something else, then I don't know. I mean, I don't know what else they would be saying. But if they're saying that it works in principle the same way that a computer code works where you have a set of symbols that have been assigned to represent specific things, then they are correct. I mean, it really works. You have code points, a code on is a code point. All you have to do is change the jargon slightly. And like Dawkins pointed out, you could be reading a computer science book or a biology textbook and you wouldn't know the difference. It really does function the same way. I didn't say it didn't function the same way as a computer. The part I'm saying is that it's not abstract and arbitrary and combining those terms if you don't like. It is arbitrary. So if it's not abstract, then my point is correct. So you got to address the abstract one. The abstract language of a computer code as made up by a human and didn't exist in a computer is the part they're comparing it to. The code part they're comparing it to isn't just the physical functioning of the DNA and the physical parts, the bytes of a computer. They're saying that that system is completely made up by a mind. It's abstract. It's not a physical thing that's determined there by the shape. Whereas for DNA it is, it's completely physical. It's completely determined by the shape and the shapes of the ribosome and the shapes of the code and the shapes of the proteins. It's all the shapes. Just like a computer is all the shapes. So the only creationist I've talked to about this is Perry Marshall. And he knows exactly how code works in a computer. So when he's talking about computer code he's talking about computer code. He's saying that Perry Marshall doesn't understand we actually know how symbols are chosen through evolutionary history. He didn't understand that. So he actually wrote a whole book saying that the genetic code is evidence of God because he didn't understand signaling theory. Like he didn't know that we already have this whole system worked out. We know how symbols form between organisms as they're communicating with each other. And we know that it doesn't require a brain at all. You have organisms without brains that can develop symbols. I totally agree. So the point he was arguing was like the creationist point. He thinks that this code thing that we're seeing it's abstract in some part. It requires a mind to abstract this onto the physical. Yeah, he thinks that you have to have a mind to assign meaning to a symbol. That is not the case. You don't need a mind to assign meaning to a symbol. All you need is two entities under selection pressure to cooperate and they will start assigning meaning to symbols. They don't even need brains. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's an excellent way to phrase exactly what my point was. So yeah, I totally agree with what you just said there. Could you say it again? You don't need a mind to assign meaning to symbols. Correct. Absolutely, 100% agree. Okay, so the genetic code is a naturally evolved code and the meaning for each codon was assigned by the process of evolution. You have two molecules under selection pressure to cooperate. It's the ribosome and the gene. Both of them are after proteins. They benefit from having proteins. And so eventually you had the evolution of this communication system, this symbol-based communication system between these two structures and you get protein coding. The details of how that happened are not worked out but in principle, we know how this works through signaling theory and we have actually worked out the details of many different communication systems in signaling theory between various insects and so on. So symbols can evolve. They do not have to be there. You don't need a brain. Our brains, all, what our brains are doing really is there, I mean, there's a lot of aspects of the brain that aren't fully understood but what it appears our brains are doing is really rapid trial and error and modeling of what we think is gonna happen. And trial and error is how the process of evolution works. So you'd have- Could you talk more about how you don't need a brain to impose meaning on a symbol? Could you explain some more examples of that in a physical system for us? In a physical system. You've got, so bacteria, if you've got bacteria that both produced different enzymes that can digest different parts of the same type of food and because they both excrete different enzymes, they actually benefit by being near each other because they can both excrete these enzymes and the two enzymes together will digest that food better than one of them trying to just digest the food on its own. You now have selection pressure for these bacteria to be in each other's presence at a food source. And so how this would evolve, how, what would likely happen here is that one of the bacteria would end up picking up just through random evolution of their receptor proteins. They would evolve a receptor that can detect a waste product of one of the other bacteria. And so we call that Q detection. And so it would detect that waste product and it would swim towards that waste product. So it's got the food in front of it, the food item might be huge. And then it has, it's detecting that, oh, my buddy's over there. I should go get next to him so we can excrete enzymes together. So it would be picking up on a Q, it's waste, it's buddy's waste product. And evolution would over time get it to start swimming towards that ally. So just the process of evolution here happening, just descent with modification occurring. And eventually you get this one bacteria that can sense the presence of its ally and swim towards it. And doing that makes it eat better and have more offspring. So you just have natural selection working on this. The sender of that Q that's excreting the waste product is also going to be to, there's gonna be selection pressure now because it's benefiting as well from its buddy swimming up next to it. There's going to be a selection pressure for it to increase its excretion of that waste product. And it actually, there's going to be a point where if it evolves the overproduction of this waste product, even digesting healthy parts of itself to turn into that waste product, there's gonna be a point where natural selection will favor that even though it's slightly damaging to the organism and it's going to actively transmit. It's going to go out of its way to actively transmit what used to be a waste product because it benefits by signaling to its partner that it, hey, I'm over here. And when we have a system that has in signaling theory, when you have both the sender and receiver that have evolved to change their behavior or learned to change their behavior, we say that the Q has been transformed into a signal. So that's when we officially consider it to be a signal is when both entities are actively reacting to these, either sending them or responding to them. That's when we call them symbols. That's when we call them signals instead of just mere cues. Would it still apply as a signal if they started that way? If they were like spontaneous generation came out as already reacting to the signal, would it still count as a code or would that not count as a code because it didn't develop it over time? In signaling theory, we consider it to be a signal only if it's either learned or evolved because of the response that it invokes. So if they just started that way, it wouldn't even count as a code by your definition? I mean, I don't know how you'd say they just started that way or how you determined that they just started that way. Normally when we come into these systems, we come into them already partially functioning and we assume that at one point they didn't exist at all. And you can actually piece together their evolution. Like, I mean, actually almost everybody communicates with waste products. Humans, we communicate with CO2 that we're not using. We make sounds out of it. Dogs communicate with urine. So I mean, that's a really common way. But yeah, when we're looking at how these signals evolve, usually they come from just waste products or parts that happen to be there already. Well, this is just a hypothetical. Like in multiverse theory, universes can pop out of existence or many worlds of hypothesis, they can change and split. And so we have just an entire universe pop into existence that's like a second away from ours essentially. And so these organisms look like they evolve and they just popped into existence quantum mechanical stuff. In that context, would it not be a code by that definition because it didn't technically evolve? I'm not interested in speculating on something that speculative. All I can tell you is that we do have communication systems that evolve where you go from cues to symbols through the process of evolution when you have two entities that are under pressure to cooperate, you can have the evolution of symbol-based communication systems. Okay, well, another example would be I made up a language that could have been made up five seconds ago. That would still be a code, right? If you made it, are you talking to someone with it? Are you teaching it to someone else? Well, it could just be in my head, it could be Klingon. I'm talking to imaginary Klingon friends. I mean, in biology, you wouldn't consider a signal unless it's being transmitted to something that can understand it. That's just a thought in your head. I guess you're transmitting into different parts of your consciousness. Oh, right, right. So that's my point here is that the technical use of code has some very specific conditions to it in the academic sense. It's not the same as the code that theists are kind of describing when they're all DNA is a code, code to make a code message. Perry Marshall, the creationist who uses this argument, he wrote a book on it. He understands how code actually works and he's using it, he's using all the technical jargon correctly. The only thing is he doesn't know or he doesn't accept that codes evolve. So he's just blinded to that or intentionally blinded to that. But as far as computer code, he understands that you've got a machine that can either read this or not read it or misread it. I mean, if you take Bodo code and replace it with ASCII in a machine that's designed or that's built to read ASCII, it's gonna spit out gibberish. So that's... What would Perry Marshall say Klingon that I made up in my head as a code? He's gonna say yes. You can say absolutely yes. Any language is gonna be a code by his definition or any theist definition because they do have these implicit assumptions about what a code is, which is different than the academic users of the code. That's kind of the point. But Perry would also say that bacteria are using code when they communicate with each other. He's got a chapter in his book on signaling in bacteria. He just doesn't... Apparently he doesn't understand that these things can evolve but if you try and make the argument with someone that it's not code, it's just like code, you're being dismissive and they know that you're being dismissive. It's really obvious. It's a really bad argument. Just instead, just talk about how codes evolve. Like we have this whole branch of science that talks about how coding systems evolve. It's signaling theory and it's well worked out. It's, this isn't... I mean, there's entire books on it. And it's not well known. But instead of dismissing them and saying, oh, no, it's not really code. So therefore you're dumb. Just say, okay, yeah, it does function like a computer code functions. It really does. And actually now we even have... We have AIs that can create their own encoding and decoding systems. This is what Google uses for their top, encryption, they're really, really high, like top shelf encryption comes from AIs that are perpetually inventing new coding systems with each other. And so they pass your message through an encoding system that's brand new and then they delete it and then they do another one or they modify it. And so there's no way to crack the code. Well, theoretically there's ways to crack it but there's no legitimate way to actually crack it. So we have, yeah, computer code doesn't have to be invented by a human mind at all. Now we can actually just have computers that invent computer code. So this is the mind, the human mind need not apply. I mean, yeah, I totally agree with you on that part but my argument here is that it's wrong to criticize the atheist by saying it's not a code because when they say it's not a code, the comparison isn't the same. Like obviously, creationists say that yes, it's a code like computer code but they're implicitly including all of these other assumptions they have and what that means. That codes have this abstract meaning that requires a mind. They have that assumption built into their definition of code and if it doesn't have that, it's not a code by definition. And because they're using that definition, it's not a code by their definition because that's not what a code is. There's a difference between what they think of as a code and what a code is in the academic literature. I've never heard someone say that a code requires abstract ideas. All I've heard is that they say that all codes require a coder. And all you have to do is say, no, they don't. Actually, there's lots of codes that don't require coders. There's a bunch of in biology and then now there's some in computer science where there's no mind, there's no brain coding them but you have AIs that can create coding systems. And there's a whole field of biology called signaling theory. So you don't have to, all you have to do is say the genetic code is in natural code. It's naturally evolved. It did not require an inventor because this is what the process of evolution does. It acts as an inventor in place of an inventor. If you have dissent with modification plus natural selection, you get the development of these fantastic, well-adapted contraptions that we call organisms and these even include communication systems. Like we see the flowers communicating with a pollinator. We see that genes are communicating with ribosomes. This is awesome. This is biology. This is the power of the process of evolution. It's fascinating. Sure, another question. Would you see that plants have codes where they don't actually read anything like the shape of the seeds falling into the ground or whatever? Was that the seed reading the dirt? No, that's one way. In all the signaling systems, you have two participants. If it's one way, you call it cue detection. So you can have, the difference between signaling and signaling theory, the difference between a code and just, you do have encoding and decoding but then you also just have cue detection. And we have this with brains too. It's actually kind of easier to think about with brains. So when I was in Cub Scouts, we would go camping all the time in bear territory. And we were told that if you're walking through the forest far away from camp, you should be loud because bears will run away if they hear you. So the bear is an active, it's searching for cues that people might be coming and it will run away before they get there unless it's really hungry, I suppose. But black bears, which were the bears that lived in our area, they were scared of humans. So if we were just loud, then we would scare the bear away because it's listening for cues. But if we're actively, if we put bells on our shoes, because you can actually do this too, just put bear bells on your shoes, now I'm actually actively sending a signal. I went from passively sending out a cue to actively sending out a signal. So now we actually have a signaling system going on. I'm warning the bear that I'm coming. So that's the difference between a cue and a signal. But you can have rocks can be cues, dirt can be a cue, but you've only got one actor that's actively detecting those cues. So you don't call it a code or a signal, you just call it, there's no symbols involved, it's just you've got one entity that's picking up on a cue in the environment. Does that make sense? Sure. So if God was the only thing that existed and God made up a language, so that wouldn't count as a code because he's only the only one interacting with it, right? I don't know. And I'm talking about when you got two real things, two real things that are really interacting with each other. So a bear and a human, or just a bear and some a cave. So a bear is also a cave detector, but the cave is not sending out actively transmitting signals to the bear, hey, come over here, come stay with me. The bear is a cue detector. It's detecting cues. Like when I see this particular shape, that usually means that the cave should have to go, I should go look at that cave. So, but like you said earlier, if I'm just talking to myself in my head that doesn't technically count as a code because there's no two participants, right? Well, it might, I think you could probably divide your mind to different. A lot of times when we think we divide ourselves into different thing, I mean, and we do this in software too, you divide a program into multiple parts and have them play against each other. And they will develop, yeah, they'll develop signaling systems between each other. So I guess you can, but you're dividing it into two entities to make that argument. Right, and I would say that that's where the distinction, the definitions is going to become obvious is because when you ask theist those questions, they're not gonna be able to come up with those responses. They're gonna say, nope, there is one mind that is a singular thing of one perfect non-divisible parts in our soul or whatever. And so they're gonna have this very fundamental difference in the use of the terms, which is why I think that the atheists are kind of right to say it's not a code in the same sense, because I don't think the theist think a code in the same way you do. Well, okay. The genetic code is technically functions the same way as a computer code does. I mean, it is a set of symbols that have a specific meaning and they're transmitted linearly. I mean, it's even digital. I mean, you actually, you break it up, but you could break up a code on into nucleotides. So you've got specific digits within the code. It's very, very, very similar. I agree. I agree that it is very much like a computer. I totally agree. I've agreed with you the whole time through that part. My only qualm is that with VSU, the code, they have those extra assumptions there. And I think that's the criticism I have of the way the code is used in that argument. Yeah. But again, I would just attack that idea and that idea only that the only idea that they have that's wrong is that all codes require a coder. That's not the case. The process of evolution can generate a code. It does it all the time. And it's well studied. It's well documented. If you look at, what is it? Behavioral, any behavioral ecology textbook, it'll have a whole section on how signaling systems evolved. The signaling system being a symbol-based communication system, how these things evolve. It's very well understood. Well, you can do a test. You can ask any of them, like Harry Mason, would it still be a code if God's mind before any humans were made? Or would it be a code in a person's mind if there were no other parts of their brain or whatever? And they're probably gonna come up with a different answer to show there is actually a difference there you just didn't realize it. I mean, Perry's argument is very, he's showing how code works. He's showing how the genetic code works. And then he just makes the mistake of saying that all codes require a coder. And that's the only mistake he's making. That's the only error he's making. Well, I'd say ask him. I'd say ask him exactly what I just asked you to see if there's a difference because I'm betting there's going to be. Okay. No, he might actually end up watching this, so. Very interesting. This is a great time to jump into the questions. If you guys are ready for that. I'm ready. Yeah. Excellent. And so thank you very much everybody for your questions. We're going to start with the first one that came in, which is from Franks92 said, love this channel, James. Keep it up, bro. Well, thank you, Franks. Seriously means a lot. And it's people like you that make it awesome. And the debaters as well. They're the lifeblood of the channel and we appreciate them. Barry Barry, thanks for your super sticker. Appreciate that dancing pair. Logical, plausible, probable, has entered the building. He says epic after show kicks off five minutes after the debate ends. Open microphone, look out for the link. And that's right, folks. No matter what position you take on any topic on this channel, if you have an after show, we are willing to link it in the description. Though we appreciate it, it'll help us out. We can get that link in the description if you get it to us before the debate starts, which John did, so that's in the description. He also says, don't miss the after show, which starts five minutes after the debate ends. Open mic discussion. And he says, question for John. Signal Theory requires a completed communication system as it's starting assumption, yes or no? No, it does not. Gotcha, thank you very much. And could you explain that a little bit more? Yeah, yeah, so cues evolve into signals. So a signal is an actual, signal and symbol are pretty much the same thing. You can actually have signals that aren't completely symbolic. Like you have the, let me just give tangent here. Like the roar of a red deer is a, it's considered a sign type signal because it's an actual demonstration of how big it is. That the tone that it can hit depends on what size it is. So it's actually, it's a sign rather than a, or I can't remember what they call it. I think they call it a sign rather than a symbol. But you get the evolution of signals from cues. So things start out as cues. And like I talked about with the bacteria, it starts out by one bacteria being able to detect the feces of a different bacteria, the waste product of a different bacteria. And then it responds in a way that actually benefits both the individuals. And then the second individual will eventually evolve a way to magnify what used to be a cue. And once a cue is magnified, actively magnified by the sender, it's considered a symbol and you have a communication system, a true communication system. Whereas before all you had is a cue detection system. So. Got you. Thank you very much. And next question comes in from dearest friend, Mark Reed says, John, what happens when there is an error in DNA quote unquote code versus computer quote unquote code? Can the computer code function with errors? Well, in this case with character encoding errors, you're gonna have, so if you were to change, again, when we're talking about the code, we're not talking about a specific sequence of RNA, we're talking about the way that the ribosome interprets a sequence in the RNA. So if you were to change the code of a computer, if you were to put in the wrong code in a computer, so if you were to put in, if you have a computer that's designed to read ASCII code and you feed it BOTO code instead, it's gonna spit out gibberish. And the same thing with the genetic code, if you take, like so our mitochondria use a slightly different code than our nuclear genes do. And if you put in a nuclear gene into the mitochondria, it actually spits out, it mostly reads it correctly, but it spits out some gibberish, it does some things wrong. So that's what we're talking about if the code is, if there's error in the code, it's gonna spit out an error. But if you're talking about just a mutation, will a mutation in a gene cause a catastrophic error in a protein, that depends. It depends on how big the mutation is, it depends on whether or not that mutation ends up really being beneficial or negative. So there's lots of different, there's lots of different things that can happen there. Thanks so much. And next one just came in, this is a brand new superjet from logical plausible, it says, for John, please come to my after show. I think you're missing the point being made in relation to the interpretation. So don't know what he means, this is over my head outside of my specialty, but you were invited over there if you'd like, John. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in, two seconds loading up. Noah Winslow, appreciate your question, said can we get a definition of code? I think you guys have pretty much hashed that out. No, so that was an early question by the way, that's why they asked, awesome AI 360 says, is any chemical reaction a code? No, you need to have a sender and receiver and for it for there to be a code. You got it? You bet, and thank you very much gentlemen. It's been a true pleasure. Want to give you guys a couple of updates out there. Thanks everybody for your questions. We appreciate them. And remember our guests are linked in the description. So hey, well, check those links out. And also, I don't know if I'd mentioned this, if it's the first time you've been here in a while, we're excited that we are on Twitch and we are at affiliate status, which is cool. So Dave Langer, thanks for helping us do that. And so if you enjoy watching us, if you enjoy Twitch more than YouTube, well then hey, that Twitch link is linked at the top of the chat. So I want to say one last thank you though. John Perry and T-Jump, it's been a true pleasure. Thank you guys so much for being on here with us. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for John for the presentation. It was a really good presentation. I do agree with everything in it. It was really great science. So yeah, thanks again. Thanks. One sec. You guys, so sorry. It's just that Dr. Seigart, this is kind of his wheelhouse. So he's a biologist, John, if you hadn't met him. He said, great job, John. Really important to separate the two arguments and stop denying science. So you got a fan there, John. So thank you very much. Dr. Seigart, we appreciate that. And so with that, folks, we hope you keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. We appreciate you. And I'll be back in just a moment with a post-credits scene to give you updates on new debates coming up. So thanks so much, everybody. Take one. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did. Really fun. I was like, this is a fun one. I really, I knew it was going to be fun. It was even more fun than I thought it was going to be. Tremendous. Want to let you know, folks, stuff coming up. We are really excited. I got to tell you, this weekend, in fact, is going to be jam-packed with debates. We have a triple header this coming Saturday. You guys, it's going to be massive. And these aren't just like, oh, you got some decent debates, huh? No, we've got seriously three big epic debates that are going to be this Saturday. So we hope you guys can tune in for at least one of those, maybe two, three. They're that good. Seriously, I think you'd enjoy it. Jordan, so sorry I missed your question. Let's see, we just went off air, I think right when your question came in, sorry, man. But we do appreciate you asking your question and thanks for just hanging out with us. And yeah, you guys, I will tell you, one is we have a newcomer, Mark, who wants to debate a science-related topic in particular, you guessed it, Flat Earth. So that's going to be late Saturday night. But also other ones, we have a pretty, you could say a juggernaut TikTok influencer. He has 659,000 followers. He's a very popular guy on TikTok for his controversial videos. He wears a red hat, a red ball cap and he will be debating another social media influencer from a separate platform. She's on Instagram and that will be on a very controversial topic. I won't even say the word in the stream, but it's going to be a good one, folks. And so we hope you can make it for that. That's our middle debate. And then right before that, though we'll have Cosmic Skeptic on. So he will be debating on veganism against Tioga's favorite Smokey Saint. So that should be a really good one, folks. We hope that you make it for that. And yeah, I'm just seriously like wowed by the fact that we've just got a lot of epic debates coming up. We've got a trifecto debate. It's going to be coming up Monday. So five days away, that will have Christian versus Yogi, Hare Krishna, versus Hare Krishna. I think that's how you say it, very embarrassing. I used to be more up to date. Then it will also have an atheist in the discussion. So you could say it'll be a triple threat debate. That will be a fun one. We also have, if I remember right, Samuel told me, that's the debate between Tom Jump and Samuel, whether or not the problem of evil disproves God. So that should be a juicy one. That'll be in person, folks. That'll be on Saturday, February 5th, streamed live. Live show guys, you better tune in. This one's just open to the public. Sometimes once in a while we get a question on how often are you gonna do those Kickstarter type things to do those big time debates? Quarterly is the answer. So we'll probably do another one in April. Would love, if you guys have ideas on epic debates, you'd just be like, man, that would be awesome to see. I'd be stoked to have a Kickstarter for that. Let us know. We really do want to have your feedback. Your hand on the wheel is important for us. And so, yeah, some announcements though. We have a lot of cool stuff. First, we are on Teespring. See this epic t-shirt? No, this is that direction. See that epic t-shirt, like right over there, just past cosmic skeptic toward the corner? That shirt is on our Teespring as well as others. And mugs, you can't go wrong with a mug, a modern day debate mug. And so just consider that if you love sweet merch. Also, you guys, this is actually really cool too. If you're on Twitch and if you have Amazon Prime, you may not know that you have like a free subscription you can use on virtually any Twitch streamer. And so that is actually basically what you can do is, you can use it on any Twitch streamer and that has affiliate status or partner status. And that helps us a lot because each time a person does that, like let's say we had 100 people who did it out of 39,000. And there's probably at least out of 39,000 subs, there's probably like a hundred Amazon Prime members. I don't know, that's probably a lot more. But if we did just a hundred though, that used their free Twitch Prime sub on modern day debate, that would give us an extra $250 a month, which really does seriously. That helps us a lot in terms of getting new events, live events. So we're flying, for example, Samuel down to Georgia to debate, to jump in person. That's gonna be epic. And so yes, Twitch is linked at the top of the chat. Lily Aja, thanks for your help all the time. You seriously rock. You're always super supportive and we appreciate that. And also, really excited folks. This is another way in addition to your free Twitch sub. By the way, the free Twitch sub, there's like a way in which you've gotta do it. If you just like type into Google, how to use your free Amazon Prime Twitch sub. A link will come up and I can even do that for you and put it in the chat. How to use your, oh, there it is. So I'm gonna put this in the chat. It'll show you how you can actually use that Amazon Prime free Twitch sub. And if you don't use it, here's the trick. I mean, it's not, it makes no difference in terms of your private membership costs. It just, if you don't use it, it's kind of just, you could say goes to waste each month, because you can use it one time each month and you have to sign up or you could say resubscribe each time that you actually use it. And so I would just encourage you, hey, it's like pretty cool. So I would highly encourage you if you go to Amazon Twitch Prime, which hold on, I'm having a little trouble getting this link. We might have to, okay. You have to link your Twitch account to your Amazon Prime account. That's how you do it. And so basically, once you do, I think it maybe takes a day or maybe it might be less for you, but it pretty quickly will show up or it'll show that you have like a free Twitch Prime sub that you can use on whatever speaker or I should say streamer you want. And also though, wanna say, if you didn't know, this is something I'm pumped about. So we have an Amazon affiliate link. If you, let's say you're like, hey, yeah, I don't have a ton of cash, but I'd love to support the channel and or maybe you're like, I've got a ton of cash, but I'm not gonna use it on modern day debate. That's all right. What you could do though is not use any cash. You could either, like I said, use that Amazon Twitch Prime sub. Another thing is at the bottom of your screen, use our Amazon link in the description. Basically, if you use our Amazon portal link, you get into Amazon using the link that we have in the description to get on Amazon and you'll see it. It's like not too far down into the description box. 3% of whatever you buy will go to modern day debate. So like, you know, if you bought something you were like 50 bucks, it's like, yeah, it's not much, like a dollar 50, but that can add up too. So seriously, it's something that we want to use to boost the channel's content, frankly. We're not too worried about channel art, as you can see, I still make the thumbnails myself. So they're not fancy, but we do seriously want to do a lot more in-person debates, especially this summer. And we definitely want to do, like I said, going for new guests, some of them, like, you know, if it's a New York Times bestseller, those usually aren't cheap. And so for example, Bart Ehrman and Michael Schirmer, both of them, New York Times bestsellers, you know, cost a few bucks, but I think it's a great show people enjoy. NET7, thanks for your super chat. You're super sticker with a thumbs up. Appreciate that, friend. And so yeah, AirChurch says, just subbed on Twitch. Come on, folks, who's next? Thanks, I appreciate that AirChurch. Seriously, I really do. That means a lot. I'm just super excited that it's like, yeah, I think it was Dave Langer, yeah, it was Dave Langer. We appreciate that Dave Langer helped. Tokyo Lloyd, you were mentioned in the chat, said, is the debate over? Yes, this is the post-credits scene. This is kind of like at the end of, was it the first Avengers? I don't know, it couldn't have been the first. No, it might have been. Where they showed Thanos at the very end. Was that the first one? Oh, anyway, yes, we are really excited. So thanks so much, AirChurch, for using your Twitch Prime sub for modern day debate. We really do appreciate that. Luis Guido says, cosmic skeptic vegan debate, yes. I agree. I'm pumped. We're excited to have Alex back. Alex is a really pleasant fellow. I really do appreciate, you know, he's just calm. I like that he's calm. He never does any sort of like name calling or anything like that. He's very calm and I would say a rigorous thinker. He's a tough thinker and the last topic I'd want to debate him on is veganism. So that should be a really fun one, folks. But yeah, other ones, I've got to like, let me show you this. I know that it's like obsessive and you're like, James, please stop. You're embarrassing yourself. But bottom right of your screen is BigfootReal. I hope you guys are pumped for this. Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, seriously, this guy's in documentaries. He is, I mean, by the way, I mean, he's not just like an informal researcher. He's got his doctorate in like hominid, basically foot movement or something to the effect of like how hominids became some hominids. I should know this. He became upright or bipedal walking on the two feet. And so like, he's a true expert, like a true scholar. And I'm telling you, when I heard him on the, when I heard him on the actual documentary, I was like, man, he's smart. And I thought, so I was watching, yeah, I can't, oh, it was called Unwanted Bigfoot. I think that's what it was on Amazon, the Amazon Prime Video. And I listened and I thought, this guy's good. Like, this would be really interesting. Yeah, I think it's, Lily Agis says, I can't wait for a Bigfoot debate. I can't wait either. It's seriously, it's gonna be so fun. And I'm just excited that it's like, it's a topic that is genuinely fun where it's like, that's kind of interesting to think about, like, what if? And you might, so before I watched the video, I was kind of like, let's say my probability was I was like, maybe about 40% in terms of my credence of a Bigfoot existing. So in other words, it's like, eh, I think it's not very likely. After I watched this video, I was like, I don't know, maybe like 50%. I'm kind of agnostic on the Bigfoot issue. I'm telling you, you have to listen to this guy. He's gonna be debating a newcomer named Maddie. She's a PhD student. So, you know, so clearly she's intelligent and she is in meteorology. That's her specialty. So she is at a small documentary or a small disadvantage because that's not her specialty and that makes a difference, you know, having it be your specialty and especially Dr. Meldrum, you're seeing in the picture there holding the foot cast or the imprint, the footprint cast in his hands there. He's also probably got a decade or two research on the topic. So he's, she's got her work cut out for her but I'm confident she'll make it an interesting discussion. So she'll give, have some awesome stuff to add and it's just gonna be great. So it's, Lillia just said, where did you see the documentary and what is it called? It's called Unwanted Bigfoot. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. I'll double check right now. Let me see, Amazon Prime Video. And it's spelt unwanted as in it's UNWO N-T-E-D Bigfoot. Basically, oh no, it's unwanted Sasquatch, sorry, that's embarrassing. Yeah, it was so good. It's at Amazon saying, watch again. Like I might, maybe tonight, I don't know. You'd have a watch party, Lilliaja. Yeah, so, but yeah, it's seriously, I was like, that is well done. It's got 173 ratings too. Cause you might be thinking, well, yeah, but did the person who made the documentary, did he or her and their few friends go and just give it like some super positive reviews? Like no, they've got 173. That'd be a long time to make that many fake reviews. Like it's a quality show to watch. I do recommend it. And so, yeah, yeah, yeah. Air church says, is James a Bigfootist? Not yet, but maybe, maybe someday. I don't know, I'm very much on the base. And I gotta be honest, there's a part of me. So yeah, the purple owl, thanks for your input says, and thanks for hanging out with us too, said Bigfoot is a cryptid based on gigantipithecus. And that is one of the theories that Dr. Meldrum says is that gigantipithecus is basically it's something, it's almost like imagine an orangutan, but nine feet tall. That's kind of the idea here is he says, hey, that is a plausible candidate that that's, this is something from the, I think you would say that would be the ape family. Would it be, is orangutan an ape? I don't know, I don't think, I don't know. But, Lillia just says, I don't think I've ever seen a debate on Bigfoot. You're right about that. I thought that was gonna make it fun and new too, because it's like, that's pretty cool. And Lillia just said, where'd you see the doc? Oh, we got that. It's low here. I like hanging out with you guys, just taking it easy in the chat. Sunflower, appreciate your positive support, says Bigfoot debate is going to be absolutely epic, long live modern day debate. Appreciate that, friend. And a good theory says, just tuning in, when will Dr. Meldrum be on? It's this 23rd, let me check just to be sure. Yeah, it's the 23rd, it's 10 days away from now. I'm telling you, it's gonna be good. Oh yeah, I should have just typed it into the chat. Thank you. I'm gonna pin, Mark reads, he spelled it out, with the name of the documentary on Amazon to check out. That Dr. Meldrum is in, is Unwanted Sasquatch. And the unwanted, or I should say unwanted, it's not an A, it's an O there. And then, Master Optics says, Nessie is cooler. We might, if we can find somebody who's, the thing is I want it to be someone in, I'm sure there are intelligent people out there, obviously, that believe in Nessie, I'm not saying there aren't. What I'm saying is, once we find a good defender, because that's the thing, it's like, yeah, I mean, we could bring on, you know, like Nephilim freeze uncle or something to defend Nessie. But it's like, I don't know, like, are they gonna do like a strong, are they gonna put a strong case forward? I don't know, maybe. But yes, as you have heard, Nephilim Free and I had a fight over the weekend, I got nothing against him, but I don't know, hey, that's all right. We hope he's doing well. We don't hold grudges here, folks. And you know, that's the thing. I always say, if we can do my philosophy is I wanna treat other people kindly, but I wanna have such thick skin that people can just talk, smack, and you know, whatever, you know, like, we got some haters, you know. People sometimes, you know, say, oh, James, you think there's, you think there's a hater under every rock? I say, I don't think there's a hater under every rock. I think there's two haters under every rock. We've got some haters, you know, folks, it's funny that, but yeah, so it's like, but I always say, hey, we got way more lovers, by the way, and I love you guys. I appreciate you guys always being positive. You guys make it absolutely worth it. But yeah, my philosophy is I wanna be as kind as I can to others, and I'm not good at that. I'm not perfect at that. I have room to grow, but I want to be thick skinned to where it's like, I don't care. You know, do me a favor. Don't harass the guests. You wanna harass me, hey, knock yourself out. I kinda like it. And Nikolai Bibic said, what, like, nest monster? Yeah, that would be cool, but like I said, I'm not gonna bring, like I said, I'm not gonna have like Nephilim-freeze uncle come on and like debate the existence of, you know, Nessie. It's gotta be somebody that, you know, like, would be like, you know, like Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum is a perfect example. If it's something like that in the, like in the different context of Nessie, if there's a Dr. Meldrum for that domain, then sure, I would actually, for real, host it. But frankly, I don't know if there, I mean, there's gotta be somebody out there. I'll see if I can find somebody. CRISPRCA S9 says, in zero possibility, there is a species of large hominid ape with metropolitan distribution with stable populations and no concrete evidence. Absolutely impossible. Ooh, juicy, very strong opinion there. Appreciate you sharing that, friend. Nikolai Bivick says, James, do you need more hands available for work in Colorado? I appreciate that, friend. I'm all right. Oh, you mean like, like the doctor at work? I mean, if you do, it's very kind of you because sometimes it's exhausting. So I seriously appreciate that, that's kind of you. And Liliajah says, when I was in high school, I had a t-shirt that said Loch Ness Lives. That's what makes you a cool, Liliajah. You know that? Appreciate that. But yeah, really exciting. SJ is in the house, glad to see SJ. Hope you're doing well. And so yes, you guys, I am seriously pumped. Oh, and then you'll see on the screen right now as well. We're excited about this. Sometimes people are like, hey, I don't really want to give through Patreon. Is there a way, I think it was, her name was Ms. Dollface in the chat debate or two ago. She said, can I give another way, like PayPal? And I, at the time, PayPal was not working. So I want to let you know our PayPal link, which is in the description box below, is linking or working. If you don't want to give to Patreon, like let's say you're like, ah man, I just don't want to do like a monthly pledge where it keeps, if it's like, let's say an auto-pay kind of thing. And you're like, I don't want to do that. I just prefer to like no commitment, just a one-time gift. I'm like, hey, PayPal's a great way to do it. Or maybe you're like, hey, you know, I don't like Patreon because they've kind of like been hard on some of my favorite speakers in the past and they kicked them off the platform, whatever it might be. You might say, I don't want to give money to Patreon. Well, hey, PayPal is linked in the description if you want to support us and we appreciate that. As we, you guys, I told, I was in an interview yesterday on a Smoky had me on his channel. And so basically, I want to give a huge thanks, by the way. So Smoky signed up for the Kickstarter reward of doing like an interview. And so I want to say, thank you so much Smoky for doing that. He helped fund the last Kickstarter by doing that. So we do appreciate that. And it came with like the reward, you could say, was that I would do an hour interview. It was a blast. And I was telling him though, 2021, we're going to try to take some big risks, positive risks, calculated risks. So not silly risks. I know the difference. Trust me, I've taken too many. But this one, I'm telling you folks, I am excited for this year. It's going to be epic. And so with that, I don't want to stay here too long. One thing I've like realized is that a challenging thing is that if I'm doing these streams after, if I'm doing the post-credits scene, love hanging out with you guys, love giving you updates, we have, honestly, there's so many debates that are coming up that are going to be epic. We're trying to get David Benatar, who is an anti-natalist. That would be epic if we can get him. He's in, he's at Cape Town down in South Africa. He's a professor. So what we want to do though, is have a lot of debates like that. And I realized though, I was like, oh, if I do these, impressive, glad to see you. Thanks for your smile and wave. Is if I do these post-credits scenes, it might overlap with other people's aftershows. So I'm like, ooh, I don't want to do them too long. I don't know if I should do them too often. I don't know, but I do like hanging out with you guys and it's fun to like catch up and just say hi. And so I will say this before I go, if there's something I can do to make your day better, and I'm serious about this, my email is, I'm open about it. It's just modern day to beta Gmail. If there's something I can do to make your day better, I really do want to be here for you. We appreciate you. This is like a community for me. And seriously, this is like, maybe it's certainly one of the best, if not the best part of my day. I just love it. It's seriously so fun. And it just puts me in such a great mood to be with you guys. So I really appreciate you guys. Thanks so much just for hanging out. You know, the more the merrier, you guys make it great. And you guys are like the devoted, like super positive, you know, encouraging, positive, awesome people that are just really, I love you guys, seriously. You guys that hang out at the aftershows are like the most supportive. I appreciate you. And there's a lot of other super supportive people that aren't able to be here right now, but I just do appreciate you guys are super, super supportive. And so yeah, I'm excited though, you guys. I don't know if I ever told you this story. Okay, this is like the third goodbye, but one of the reasons that I wanted to do this channel was because in some places, sometimes in academia, not all, but some, some professors or people in academia don't wanna have debates on controversial topics. They don't want certain controversial speakers. And for me, I said, eh, that's not what we want. We wanna have a truly open platform, controversial topics included. And one professor even in my own department, she tried to get the channel in trouble. No joke. She reported it to the chair of the department. I don't know if I ever told you guys that. But when that happened, I was like, wow. Geez, like, these people really not have that much time on their hands or like looking at their, like the grad students' hobbies. But yeah, the point is, and that's like a very small amount of people. So, but yeah, like I said, you know, I don't think there's a hater under every rock. I think there's two haters under every rock, okay? But nonetheless, we're going to try it, folks. We have huge plans. And that's the trick. If you wanna do something special, I mean, you've gotta do something to, you know, you gotta stir the pot a little bit. Anything where you're trying to do something big or exciting or you're trying to just speak your own truth into existence even, you're gonna get haters that show up. That's just the way it is. So they don't scare us. We are excited about the future. We're gonna do big things, folks. Believe me. S.J. Thomason says, that's disgusting. I agree, S.J. And I've heard of like weird stuff that people have done. I heard of like a person who tried to like email your workplace, S.J., and try to get you in trouble. It was like some sort of a person who wasn't even part of the university. And I was like, geez, you guys. Like who, yeah, it's so creepy and weird. It's like seriously, who even has that much time? To where you're like, don't you have other, like don't you have things to do in your life than to try to email someone's work and try to dox them about, you know, would they say this or they're this, they're radical, is that fun. You know, the funny thing is some people say I'm like a radical about like free speech or something. And I was like, I'm like actually, I would say I do believe it's valuable. At the same time, there are a lot of topics we've never done that are like way more naughty according to YouTube. And so I was like, we're still pretty tame. I think we're still pretty family friendly. And mostly the reason to be honest, we don't want to saw off the branch we're sitting on as a channel. And so anyway, I'm babbling. But tell me you guys, are you doing well? Jordan, stripper, liquor, Mark Reed, S.J., perfect one. Moshi M, James W. Are you guys doing well? I hope you're doing well. And so really do appreciate the feedback on the podcast and the YouTube channel. But yes, we're on podcast. So if you enjoy podcast folks, you can always watch us on podcast. And yeah, AirChurch is absolutely right. I appreciate you saying that, said awesome. Or kudos to the awesome moderator team. That's so true. It's so true, you guys. Mods, you do a great job. We really appreciate you guys always trying to sniff out and get rid of any of the hate speech. Like we don't want any of that. And so we appreciate you guys doing a great job of that. And yeah, but yeah, CRISPR, CAS9 says, you're asking 138 people watching you at 9.50 PM if people have enough every time to send an email. Yeah, but trust me, you wouldn't do that. CRISPR, were you the one that emailed S.J.'s job? I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I was like, but yeah. No, you guys are doing well. The thing is what we're all doing right now is unwinding. I personally wouldn't see it as unwinding to send people's employer's email, but yeah. The point is this. I want to say thank you guys, appreciate you. JG said, did we answer the question, is DNA code? Well, JG, you'll have to ask the rest of the chat. I cannot say, but we really do appreciate you. So thank you very much for supporting the podcast. Thank you so much for always tuning in. And yeah, we appreciate you guys. We hope you have a great rest of your day or night, depending on where you are. Keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable, folks. Take care. Yeah, look at that big foot. Is that, I mean, sorry, this thumbnail, I just, I'm in love with it. It's fun. It's so, it's just big foot. It's a fun, it's a fun topic. All right, but seriously. Now I'm really gonna go this time. It's like, was it Toss the other day or somebody in the live chat was like, no, you say goodbye. It's true. It's hard to say goodbye to you guys because I do appreciate you. I do love you guys. Thank you guys so much. And so with that, keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. We'll be back on Friday night. Can't remember it. I know what it's gonna be good. Let me think about this. You guys can't hear it where you are, but I hear the weirdest sound. And I even feel a tremble in the building, but I can't tell what it is. No idea. I'll be all right. But yeah, so yes. Thank you guys. It's always fun. I hate saying goodbye. I hate saying goodbye. You guys are great. I have a tremendous night. Thank you so much. It's honestly, it's gonna be amazing. You guys, I'm excited about 2021. So thanks for all your support. Keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. Take care.