The "Digital Code" of DNA

So what?Every molecule can do something that no other molecule can do.The question here isn't whether or not DNA/RNA can carry genetic "information". It's how that information is carried.I'm saying that the information is carried in the structure of the molecule itself. The structure is the "information". All molecules carry structural information - it just isn't used as genetic information by other molecules.You have claimed that that is not a sufficient explantion. Show us the inadequacy.

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Ringo, you wrote: Well, of course. Music is carried by the molecular structure of a CD too, but that doesn’t mean that music is only a condition of structured plastic molecules. The same thing is true for genes. No. It is the order in the structure that is the information. But do they all carry digital information? True enough. The shifting sands of the Sahara Desert have no need for genetic information to shape its dunes. Ah, yes, the imperious “us.” I doubt if I can show you anything that will correct your chronic myopia. If genetic codes are too much for you then what am I suppose to say.”HM

That assertion is getting old. Show us that "the same thing is true for genes". The order is the structure.

1. You haven't shown that DNA carries "digital information".
2. What difference does it make whether or not the information is "digital"?

That's just the point: You haven't shown anything yet, except your personal incredulity.

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Ringo wrote: You mean to say that "Beethoven's 5th Symphony" and "O Canada" are only bunches of structural blips on a plastic disk? And I suppose your personal credulity is sufficient to trump that of Richard Dawkins, who says in River Out Of Eden (1995, p. 19):

quote:

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Genes are pure information”information that can be encoded, recorded and decoded, without any degradation or change of meaning. Pure information can be copied and, since it is digital information, the fidelity of the copying can be immense.

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Why are you so affraid of these biological digits? Aren't they chemical enough for you?”HM

I have asked you to show how DNA is analogous to a CD. Please do that. I'm not disagreeing with Dawkins at all.Dawkins said that genes are "pure information". I'm saying that the information on a DNA molecule is based on its structure. The information is the "gene". The "gene" is the structure. Why would I be afraid of something that doesn't exist?

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Hoot Mon,Please argument the position and not the person.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.

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Ringo, I still don't know why you object to viewing nucleotides as digits. You wrote: Perhaps you have heard of "single nucleotide polymorphisms" (SNPs). Wouldn't you agree that SNPs are clear evidence of digital information located on the DNA moloecule? Obviously, digital SNPs are manifest in the DNA's structure, and in that of a gene, just like digital notes are manifest in a CD's structure. An entire gene can be affected by a SNP (and you wouldn't want to hear someone miss a single note of Mozart's "Piano Sonata in C "). What can be more digital than that, especially when it is encoded as a linear message on the DNA "structure" (nature's "sheet music," ay?)?”HM

How is that information anything other than the structure of the molecule?

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Because it comprises the encoded gene. Are you really denying that genes are encoded on DNA? Are you also saying that Watson and Crick should give back their Nobel Prize in chemistry?”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : No reason given.

We're talking about how the genes are "encoded". I'm saying that the "code" is simply the structure of the DNA molecule.Here's a simple schematic of a molecule:

O - G - D

It can carry different "information" just by the arrangement of the components:

G - O - D        D - O - G

What's the problem?Edited by Ringo, : Added missing quotation mark.

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Ringo, you wrote: Thank you demonstrating my point about SNPs. I guess you agree then that a codon is a genetic "word" that expresses any one of 20 amino acids. Case closed.”HM

No. There are no "words" in DNA other than the structure of the molecule. The information is carried by the structure of the molecule. There is no "code" other than the structure of the molecule.The structure of the molecule is sufficient to explain the reactions of the molecule.

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A lot of things given the high level of polymorphism which can be present without having any structural effect at all on the produced protein. Do you think you could change every third note of a Piano concerto and get away with it?TTFN,WK

Ringo, you wrote: I do see what you are saying here: If there were no structural DNA molecules there would be no genetic code. Of course that's true. And if there were no musical instruments there would be no music either. Yet music and genes have meaning beyond their respective tools of performance. Remember, a gene does not die when its chromosome is destroyed; there are many copies of it in the gene pool”redundantly digital information. Neither does a song die when a player and his paino and sheet music are lost in a fire. I don't mean to say there is anything necessarily ethereal about genes or music, only that their meanings can be intrepreted digitally in a digital context (which is ethereal enough for me, btw).”HM

WK wrote: No. That's the beauty of the genetic alphabet; it has evolved redundancy in its code definitions as a means to defend against third-order SNPs.”HM