quote:
I'm a bit out of my depth in linguistics
Heh. So is Hoot. And so are John Maynard Smith and Ers Szathmáry. I bet real linguists would have a thing or two to say about DNA being a "language".
I have always preferred, as guides to human action, messy hypothetical imperatives like the Golden Rule, based on negotiation, compromise and general respect, to the Kantian categorical imperatives of absolute righteousness, in whose name we so often murder and maim until we decide that we had followed the wrong instantiation of the right generality. -- Stephen Jay Gould