RE: [asa] Biologic Institute

 
On a fluke recently I used up a credit on my audio book club and downloaded
some book on epigenetics by cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton who turned out
to be some New Age quack, but one interesting thing he did say I think is
relevant to this topic.
 
He said by way of many examples of differentiated stem cells being coaxed
back into pluripotent state and then differentiated into other types of
tissue, that the real analogy here of the cell is to think of it as a
computer and the DNA is the hard drive since it stores information, but the
cell membrane is the CPU since it interacts with the external environment
and has the programmed intelligence that knows how to respond to all the
various external events, including changing the information content stored
in the DNA by forcing mutations in response to external events.
 
I hadn't thought about this before but I think it is apt to point out that
more intelligence is given to DNA than seems appropriate sometimes
especially considering how this epigentic evidence is coming out that DNA is
in at least some occasions actually secondary to other cellular and
environmental forces, and how little is given to the cell membrane which
actually interacts with the environment.
 
Thanks
 
John
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:25 PM
To: Randy Isaac
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

David C. said: The information for biological evolution is the environment.
Organisms
succeed if their genetic information adequately matches this existing
information.
 
I respond: if we're using these metaphors, isn't the environment more like
the computing substrate in which the information is processed -- DNA is like
code; environment is like computer. You used information twice above:
"their genetic information adequately matches this existing information."
 
Maybe what you want to say is that genetic information is an emergent
property of the environment? (This is what seems to make most sense to me
as a critical realist).
 
Or maybe you want to say genetic "information" is a misnomer. But that
seems like a difficult claim from my perspective: "information is a
difference that makes a difference" (Gregory Bateson).

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 8:37 PM, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:

David Campbell wrote:

"There are some people on the list with strong backgounds in
cybernetics. As for me, I note that this reflects an incorrect
concept of information as it applies to biological evolution. The
information for biological evolution is the environment. Organisms
succeed if their genetic information adequately matches this existing
information. Mutation, recombination, etc. continually provides new
genetic information to test against the environmental information.
There's no mystery about where information could come from."

Agreed. And as I think I've noted before, the more appropriate technical
term that information theorists use in describing DNA in a cell is
"complexity" rather than "information."

Randy

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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology 
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