Amino Acid Frequency Correlates With the Number of Codons

An Optimal Code

One of the powerful evidences for evolution is the DNA code, at least according to evolutionists. The DNA code is essentially the same across all of life and, evolutionists explain, there is no reason for such universality. The code is ubiquitous across all life, but it is not special or unique. It is a mundane code, like any other, which just happened to evolve early in evolutionary history. But once in place it could not evolve, so it has been preserved ever since. In other words, the DNA code is the result of contingency, not law. As usual the evolutionary reasoning makes no sense. There is no credible, scientific, explanation for how a code could arise spontaneously in some primitive cell. And if it could not evolve once it was in place, then how could it evolve in the first place? Beyond all this, it certainly is not just another code. For instance, consider Morse code shown below:

The Morse code encodes letters and numbers using short and long signals called �dots� and �dashes.� It was used with telegraph systems in the nineteenth century. The letter codes are shorter for those letters that are used more frequently, such as A, E, I, N and T. This serves to minimize the length of the transmitted message and maximize the information conveyed by the telegraph.

Similarly the DNA code is an optimized code. Unlike the Morse code which is a variable word length code, the DNA code uses a constant word length. Each word consists of three chemical �letters� and the code has four different letters in all. This means there are 4^3 or 64 different words that are possible in this code. Each word codes for an amino acid, but only 20 different amino acids are coded for.

So an amino acid can have more than one code word assigned to it. One way that the DNA code is optimized is by assigning more code words to those amino acids that appear more frequently. This serves to maximize the additional information that can be overlaid on the genetic message.

For instance, if you need to code for an alanine amino acid, then you have four different code words available to you. This choice might encode for some other type of information, such as an overlapping gene. Many DNA segments code for more than one gene, for instance, by reading backwards. Not very mundane. Below is a chart of the DNA code (Lewin, Genes VII). On the right is a graph showing the number of code words for each amino acid plotted against the typical amino acid frequency. You can see that the higher frequency amino acids have more code words assigned to them.

Like the Morse code, the DNA code is optimized to maximize the information conveyed. When evolutionists say the DNA code is powerful evidence for evolution they are manipulating science to support their preconceived truth.