Intelligent Design is the most likely to be true hypothesis for the origin of life.

You are saying that code means the same thing as information. This is incorrect. Code is a medium for information. Letters and words are code. The meaning or message that they express is information. I offered the Oxford English Dictionary definition of code in round 1 for which Pro has expressed no objection. I did not say that code and information are the same thing. Code is a subset of information, a symbol of a symbol. Patrick Lockerby writes:"A code is a symbol which stands in place of a symbol. The four letters CAGT most definitely form a code, being symbols for the names of the four major components of DNA. The names guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine are not codes: they are primary symbols. Primary symbols stand for real things and not for symbols. The real physical entities guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine are not codes. If anyone wants to call them codes, let them point to the symbols which might be replaced by these 'codes'. A computer code is a set of numerical values sufficient and necessary to the production of an end state from an initial state. DNA is necessary but not sufficient to the production of an end state from an initial state. To claim that computer code and DNA are both codes is an abuse of the power of words. It is decidedly not scientific. "". http://www.science20.com...DNA and computer programming both belong to a certain grouping that I refer to as "a type of code". Yeah, yeah. Most ID advocates call it "specified information" or "specified complexity. " What it really boils down to is that Pro lays out a few abstract aspects that computer code and genetic code have in common and then slaps an awkward label on it. Pro's argument is that DNA is a type of code because DNA belongs to a set Pro has labeled "a type of code. " Conveniently, Pro has defined the characteristics of this set so that computer code and DNA both belong to a set with the word "code" attached. In response, I have created a set called "a type of amphibian" of animals with four legs which can jump and end with the letters "og", proving that both frogs and dogs are amphibians. Pro can create phony categories all day long, a molecule is not a symbol and DNA is not a code. II. The application of codes to patterns does not denote intelligence within those patternsThe objects in this category have only ever been known to form as a result of intelligent or artificial guidance. Despite many decades of research there is no scientific explanation for how they can form naturally. Well, the scientific explanation for how genes transmit genetic information naturally is called "The Theory of Evolution. " I don't think many scientists are wondering why computer code does not form naturally. III. Abiotic reproduction of DNA There has been some success with random RNA libraries that were able to produce sequences that performed a limited number of relatively simple tasks. However these achievements are analogous to producing a few short words when random sequences of letters are strung out. Creating an isolated word here or there using this method is possible, but to get multiple words to form next to each other in a way that makes sense and creates a greater/more intricate message gets exponentially more and more improbable. This is an extension of the ID "irreducible complexity" argument: that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors. The failure of current science to as yet reproduce that complexity does not prove the impossibility of evolution. This is a classic argument from ignorance and sets up a false dilemma: just because a proposition has not yet been proven true does not make it false; even if functional DNA were not reproduced abiotically, it would not necessarily mean that an intelligent designer is the only other possible explanation. they"re from the textbook you mentioned but even that does not qualify as a reputable sourceLife: The Science of Biology is the most popular biology textbook used in American Colleges and Universities. Seems pretty reputable to me. Pro dismisses 3 of my arguments with a wave of his hand and the word, "conjecture," that is, a conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information. This seems a rather unfair dismissal considering the degree of laxity Pro has been granted in respect to conjecture. Pro's entire argument, after all, is sheer conjecture. Pro has presented no positive proofs, no falsifiable claims, no testable hypotheses to establish the existence of a biological architect. Pro's intelligent designer has no name or nature, no known motive or methodology, no known origin or destination. It is essential that the details are kept as fuzzy as possible, because any statement of fact regarding an intelligent designer has been disproven. ID offers arguments that are designed to be unprovable, and then has the temerity to dismiss science as conjecture because some theories are as yet unproven. what you have said here does not negate my premise "that there is no scientific explanation of how functional DNA can arise abiotically. Yes. Yes it does. There are multiple scientific explanations regarding the origin of organic molecules. Just because no scientist has yet synthesized a protocell using basic components which would have the necessary properties of life does not mean that there are no scientific explanations or that every explanation ha been proven invalid. The natural means by which functional DNA is known to form abiotically is known as life on earth. "Pro said "most likely to be true. "" I said "most likely to be true hypothesis". This is significantly different. "Most likely to be true" means that there is a greater than 50% chance that the statement is correct. "Most likely to be true hypothesis" means that out of our current assortment of hypotheses, this one is the most likely to be true. Another odd semantic excursion. There's nothing inherent in the adjective to suggest a greater than 50% probability. I don"t understand how this equates to a defense of your analogy. Yeah, I'm getting that. Pro's argument in support of Intelligent Design is twofold. 1) DNA "bears the marking of having an intelligent source. " Pro's only proof in this regard has been to suggest that the DNA molecule is a secret code. Codes are a human application, a system of secondary symbols used to represent and replace primary symbols, which are names or labels. In order for the molecule DNA to be a code, it would have to be as a replacement for some other information. But molecules are not symbols or representations, they are groups of atoms held together by chemical bonds. Because the chemical reactions of DNA are particularly elaborate, humans apply long strings of letters, CAGT, to describe the structure of the molecule. The letters themselves are appropriately called "genetic code" because the the letters stand for cytosine, adenine, thymine, guanine. But this description of the structure and function of DNA is no more code than a description of the structure and function of a tree or a river or a flagpole. 2) There are no natural means by which functional DNA is known to form abiotically. This is not surprising. Most scientists support the Common Descent theory, meaning that all life is descended from a single ancestor. This implies that the natural, abiotic happens under extremely rare circumstance. If the event were easily reproduced, we would expect to other iterations of DNA and multiple ancestors with multiple trees of ancestry. Scientists have multiple theories about the conditions under which DNA forms naturally. Just some of those theories in good standing that have yet to be proved or disproved include:Primordial Soup TheoryReducing Atmosphere TheoryMonomer Formation TheoryMonomer Accumulation TheoryEigen's HypothesisHoffmann's HypothesisWachterschauser's HypothesisZinc World HypothesisRadioactive Beach HypothesisUltraviolet Replication ModelDeep Sea Vent HypothesisRNA World HypothesisAutocatalysisClay HypothesisThe burden of proof is on Pro to establish that the Intelligent Design Theory is more likely to be true than any of these hypotheses and many others besides. Simply arguing that none of these theories has yet been proven does not improve the relative likelihood of ID. Pro may bristles at any God of the Gaps argument, but that's precisely how ID Theory works in this argument: all unproven hypotheses are discounted and for some reason a non-specified, non-specifiable intelligence (i. e. GOD) is inserted as the best possible explanation. Why? Pro has failed to prove that DNA is code. Pro has failed to show how Intelligent Design is the best possible theory to explain the evolution of life on Earth.