The Origin of the DNA Code: Did Evolution Occur Between Neighbors?

The DNA code is both nearly universal and nearly optimal. With the exception of minor deviations occasionally discovered, the same DNA code is found in all species. And that code is so efficient it is sometimes labeled as “optimal.” This is yet another simple example revealing the absurdity of evolutionary theory. Let’s see why.

The near universality of the code means it was present in evolution’s purported universal common ancestor. It would be too unlikely (even for evolutionists) for the identical unique code to have evolved independently in the different evolutionary branches, so it must have been present from the very beginning. In other words, evolutionists must explain the universality of the code as arising from a common ancestor, not from the repeated evolution of the code.

If that is true, then evolutionists must say that evolution somehow created such an efficient code very early in the history of life. But evolutionists typically refer to these early stages of life as elementary, inefficient, crude and so forth. For instance, in their abiogenesis narrative evolutionists often appeal to “crude” chemical processes to account for the variation in replication they need. But if life was elementary and crude, how did such an optimal code arise—a code that is remarkably suited for the more advanced cells that had not even yet arisen?

Furthermore, the fact that the DNA code is so efficient means that evolution performed a tremendous search operation. Only by creating an abundance of such codes could such a good one be found. Remember, evolution is a blind process.

But while evolution must be very adept at creating new codes, it must paradoxically also be unable to create new codes. The code must be frozen, otherwise it would not be universally shared amongst the species. So evolutionists must say that at one time evolution was adept at evolving the code, but later it became inept at evolving the code.

When did such a dramatic transition occur, and why? If the code is so difficult to evolve these days, why was it so easy to evolve back then? Again, evolutionists often appeal to the mythical chaos of early life to explain why the code was once so malleable. This brings us back to the tension between chaotic life forms and near optimal codes.

One leading team of evolutionists recently concluded that:

an explanation of code universality based on vertical evolution is likely to be problematic.

Their idea is that a different sort of evolution occurred in the early days of life. Rather than the familiar Darwinian idea of evolution occurring across many generations, their idea is that evolution occurred much faster, between neighboring organisms as they traded genetic information. They summarize the idea this way:

The central concept is that a variety of collective, but non-Darwinian, mechanisms likely to be present in early communal life generically lead to refinement and selection of innovation-sharing protocols, such as the genetic code.

Likely to be present? Generically lead to refinement and selection of innovation-sharing protocols? These fact-free assertions are what evolution is all about. In evolutionary thought, science has become a mechanism for story-telling.