Has Science done away with a need for God?

[Thumpalumpacus]

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DNA is not a code, or a language. It is chemsitry.

If DNA is a code or a language, so is H2O.

This is from a biologist:

DNA is not a language, in any sense, because it does not represent concepts or meanings, a language entails that abstractsrepresent concretes, such as a number 5 written on a piece of paper, which has “meaning” to an entity which can understand what “5” means. Nothing analogous is found in DNA, since it is only a substitution cipher, which represents the order of amino acids in a protein, or RNA nucleotides in an RNA molecule. There is no abstract representation or assigned meaning going on with a direct physical substitution cipher, like DNA. When a stop codon orders a ribosome to stop transcribing, the ribosome does not “understand” that it has to stop transcribing, because it is just a ribosome. Nor does the nascent polypeptide “understand” that it is being hydrolyzed. Nor do tRNA “understand” that they must bind to their respective codons on mRNA. There is no transmission of conscious understanding, no abstract communication that entails one entity interprets symbols because it has the same understanding as the entity which communicated them. In this regard, DNA is not a language by definition. All that is happening is that the stop codon does not contain the binding site for any tRNA, but it does contain the binding site for the release factors which terminates translation because it causes the nascent polypeptide to hydrolyze an ester bond as they catalyze this hydrolysis reaction and release from the subunits of the ribosome.

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I disagree.  IMHO, DNA is a language of algorithms as much as any computer program.  If we completely understood DNA, we could read a strand of DNA just like a book.

The computer is not conscious or aware of the instructions that are performed and yet there is a useful result.  On the other hand, IMHO, we are conscious of the result of the chemical and electrical physiology of our bodies and yet had nothing to do with the process itself.  The only difference (barring the actual process) between us and computers is that we are aware of the result, but probably have no more control over the result than a computer.

The fact that the computer is not aware of the end results of the programming prevents that programming from being a language, because language is a modality of expression which conveys meaning. It is a language to us, because we can look at the instructions and deduce the purpose, but to a computer, BASIC is as Holy Roller jabbering is to us atheists. The cell does not understand that a particular gene means anything at all. That gene simply manufactures proteins in accordance with molecular valences, without regard to their significance. Otherwise, you'd have to define cancer as cellular malevolence, and a viral infection as cellular surrender. We both know that they are mechanistic events, not conscious decisions.

Language relies upon a conscious interchange between two agents. We call program algorithms "language" because we humans understand them, not because they are understood by the subject. The same is true with DNA; the codons do not convey abstract symbology, they only regulate molecular interactions via physical processes.