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Notice that the claim: "DNA is extremely important, but it makes no sense if [it is] not in a cell, in an organism, in an ecosystem. Other interactions are at
by e_gal 8y ago
Notice that the claim:
"DNA is extremely important, but it makes no sense if [it is] not in a cell, in an organism, in an ecosystem. Other interactions are at play, and this application of algorithmic information cannot capture the extent of that complexity."
Completely mischaracterizes the research (Zenil et al.). They are looking at networks evolving over time of interacting elements. Such elements are genes but networks can also be metabolic or signaling and everything they say still holds.
The subsection about chasing dynamic evolving targets even addresses the question of ever-changing environments that have some raised here. So the approach is way beyond treating life as 'DNA' but even so, I doubt anyone would object about the power of CRISPR-CAS9 only because it targets DNA... DNA is still the most fundamental element of life and other tend to embrace mysticism and are quite cartoonish about life.
Anyway, my recommendation is, do read the paper.
- jfarlow 8y agoYou're right! The paper itself is strongly agnostic to its analysis scale, while the Quanta article focuses entirely on DNA sequence. > Our embedded computational network architecture can be interpreted either at the levels of cells (internal network of molecules such as genes, proteins, metabolites) or alternatively as group or module of cells effective performing input-output transformation of external signals relative to the module. Naturally, this does not exclude a nested architecture ranging from cells encapsulating molecular networks to interacting modules composed of cells And in fact the study actually meshes quite nicely with the paper cited before showing the evolution of signaling networks in multi-cellular systems.