Dear Howard, lists - But still you seem to presuppose a "genes first" approach to early evolution. But it seems highly unlikely that the complicated, static DNA molecule should spontaneously assemble first, and only later it should gather the dynamic, complicated biochemical machinery of a cell around itself. It seems more likely that a proto-cell metabolism emerged first, gradaully gaining increasing self-control culminating in DNA regulation. In that case, DNA is rather the amazing result of early evolution that its starting point. And, again, in that case, there was always a cell accompanying DNA - and the structure of that cell, in itself, constitutes inherited information in addition to that of the genes (the argument of Emmeche and Hoffmeyer went along such lines - Semiotica 84 (1/2), 1991).
It is a bit like saying that human writing emerged in order to scaffold (regulate and further evolve) existing human communication. It was not the case that books emerged first, and only later they created and assembled readers around themselves. Best F Den 29/12/2014 kl. 17.21 skrev Howard Pattee <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Of course the cell is under genetic control - but the structure of the cell - its organels, its external and internal membrane structures, the complicated network of metabolic processes - are not created by the genes even if controlled by them. HP: Maybe not literally "created" by genes, but the components were constructed using genetic information and matter and energy from the environment. Also the constructors themselves are also constructed using genetic information (this semiotic closure is necessary for self-replication). Of course the expression of this heritable information is often modulated by the environment. Howard
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