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I don't think the blueprint analogy works here. From what I know, DNA doesn't have any set blueprint for the positions of all of the cells in the body. It encod
by throwaway4aday 4y ago
I don't think the blueprint analogy works here. From what I know, DNA doesn't have any set blueprint for the positions of all of the cells in the body. It encodes for molecules that form cells and then the cells somehow self-organize into structures that eventually form the complete body.
To me, using a blueprint analogy you'd have to say the blueprint describes an airplane that once you construct enough of them interact in such a way as to build their own airports, plan their own routes, fly themselves and produce their own online booking software and that's still nowhere near as complex as what's happening inside a nematode let alone a human.
- sn9 4y agoYeah that's a little more accurate. Analogies are usually limited. But though it's not literally about locations in the sense of physical coordinates, the way cell signalling and the molecular feedback loops that drive development are still reliant on basic physical laws. It would be completely redundant and unnecessary to encode those laws themselves since they're invariant across time and space. Physics and chemistry are fixed. It would never make sense for DNA to literally encode information about physical laws in the same way it wouldn't make sense to do so on an airplane blueprint, because the design of the blueprint was itself constrained by those laws, as would any alternative design.