The code that is DNA

[Mister Agenda]

Just give one other example of nature being able to produce a code at all. Never mind one with a translation mechanism and error correction, I don’t want to burden you with that part. Just one and I’ll become an atheist

Why would that make you become an atheist and why do you imagine that I would want you to be one?

Why should 'nature' have produced more than one 'code' (it's analogous to a code in some ways, but it's not actually a code, so there's that)? I also don't see any fathomable reason why it should make a difference in your reasoning process regarding the existence of any deities. What's the relevance?

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You must denounce dna as being a code or else your foundation is severely shaken

I don't know any atheist whose 'foundation' is 'DNA is not a code'. I was a cryptologist in my youth, I don't think DNA is a code because I have a decent layman's understanding of both codes and DNA, and DNA lacks key features of actual codes.

Here’s some logic for you:

Code is defined as the rules of communication between an encoder (a “writer” or “speaker”) and a decoder (a “reader” or “listener”) using agreed upon symbols.

If DNA is a communication, the encoder is the natural environment, the 'communication' is the expressed phenotype, and there is no decoder, no 'other' at the receiving end who is supposed to understand the code and know from that what the communication means. There are no 'agreed upon' symbols either. DNA isn't composed of symbols. Symbols can be arbitrarily designated to mean whatever you want, they're an abstraction. DNA is biochemistry, no one can decide that henceforth, adenine and thymine will have opposite 'meanings'. There's no way to change the components of DNA without getting a different outcome, because adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine are not symbols at all; except in the sense that they're words, and we could pick different words for those chemicals...we can't pick different chemicals, though.

DNA’s definition as a literal code (and not a figurative one) is nearly universal in the entire body of biological literature since the 1960’s.

DNA is analogous to a code in some ways, but it's not a code. It's analogous to a factory in some ways, but it's not a factory. It's analogous to a ladder in some ways, but it's not actually a ladder. DNA is like a blueprint, like a book, like a necklace, but it's not actually any of those things. When we try to explain something using language, we use analogies and comparisons and metaphors; the target audience is expected to understand that those ways of explaining something are not meant to be taken too literally.

DNA code has much in common with human language and computer languages

DNA has some properties analogous to those things, but it isn't actually either of those things, and in some ways is fundamentally different; particularly in that nothing in DNA is actually symbolic in the context of what DNA does.

DNA transcription is an encoding / decoding mechanism isomorphic with Claude Shannon’s 1948 model: The sequence of base pairs is encoded into messenger RNA which is decoded into proteins.
Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

If you think that mathematics applying to something makes that thing a code, then your vow to become an atheist kicks in. You can apply mathematics to anything in nature; so innumerable example of other codes besides DNA in nature, if that's your standard.