Rob writes:
[...] in DNA, the plans are so sophisticated technologically, that it regulates organisms such as a humans that are self replicating machines organically, that have up to 100 trillion individual cells. And those cells in turn are each comprised of hundreds of smaller units called proteins. And all of those instructions are on the template DNA. All the sequencing of amino acids is found in the instructions. All the absolutely unique characteristics of the indivdual organism. Just plain everything.
No, not "just plain everything". The only thing DNA encodes is which amino acids make up an organism's proteins, and the order in which they appear in those proteins. That's about the all the information DNA has to offer. Admittedly, it's quite a lot, but not nearly everything.
A great many of the "absolutely unique characteristics of the individual organism" are determined by the external environment in which the organism develops. Another bunch of characteristics just comes about as a result of the biochemical interactions in the body. Some of that biochemistry has direct effects on the DNA itself. And what to think of behavioral characteristics? They aren't encoded in the DNA either.
In fact, none of the characteristics I mentioned are encoded in the DNA. They're just the result of the enormous complexity of everything that happens in and around the individual, most of it on a molecular scale, and some of it on a larger scale. It's the sheer amount of molecular interactions taking place each fraction of a second that makes life seem so infinitely complex as to be nearly incomprehensible.
In short, DNA is not a language in which an individual organism is described in every detail. It's merely a template for all of its proteins. Everything else is not specified at all, it just happens as a matter of cause and effect.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.
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