In
1943
physicist Erwin Schrodinger speculated that the chromosomes of a cell
“contain, in some kind of code-script, the entire pattern of the
individual’s future development and of its functioning in the
mature state.” Within a decade, DNA was discovered. But DNA never
was found to be anything like some blueprint or recipe or code-script
for making a human being.
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a blueprint as "a complete plan that explains how to do or develop something." DNA merely contains very low-level chemical information such as lists of the amino acids that make up the proteins in our bodies. Nowhere in DNA is there any of the following:
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a blueprint as "a complete plan that explains how to do or develop something." DNA merely contains very low-level chemical information such as lists of the amino acids that make up the proteins in our bodies. Nowhere in DNA is there any of the following:
- a specification of the large-scale structure of the human body;
- a specification of the structure of any of the appendages of the human body such as legs or arms or heads;
- a specification of any organ system of the human body;
- a specification of any individual organ of the human body;
- a specification of any of the 200 types of cells in the human body;
- a specification of any of the organelles that are the building blocks of cells.
There
are several different reasons why we know that DNA has no such
things. The first reason is that human DNA has been very thoroughly
analyzed through multi-year scientific projects involving very large
teams of scientists, such as the Human Genome Project and the ENCODE
project, and no such specifications have been found in DNA. For
example, no one has found any place in DNA where it specifies that
humans have two legs or two arms or one neck or two eyes or two ears
or ten fingers. The second reason is that only one type of “language”
has ever been found used by DNA, the very low-level “poor-man's
language” of the genetic code, allowing nothing to be stated other than low-level
chemical information such as the amino acids in proteins. Using this
“poor-man's language” capable of only stating amino acids or
other equally low-level chemical information, it is absolutely
impossible to state things such as a complex three-dimensional
structure or the anatomy of the eye or the anatomy of the human
reproductive system.
DNA only specifies low-level chemical information
The
third reason is that if a human DNA molecule were to contain a
specification of a human, should a thing would be a fantastically
complex instruction that could only be read and interpreted by
something in the human womb capable of reading fantastically complex
instructions. But nothing like that exists in the human womb.
Blueprints are only useful because they are read by human agents
smart enough to execute the complex instructions of the blueprints.
If a blueprint existed in DNA, it would be something far more
complicated than a blueprint for making a home. Such a thing would
require some gigantically sophisticated “DNA blueprint reader”
capable of reading and executing enormously complicated instructions.
But no such thing exists in the human womb. We therefore absolutely
cannot explain how a human progresses from a fertilized ovum to a
newly delivered baby by imagining that a DNA blueprint or recipe has
been read and followed.
Such
facts prove in multiple ways that DNA cannot possibly be a blueprint
or a program or a recipe for making a human. DNA actually contains
less than 10 percent of what is needed to specify a human. A
molecule containing all of the information needed to specify a human
being would be more than 10 times larger than a human DNA molecule.
What we know about the size of the genomes of different organisms is
entirely inconsistent with claims that DNA is some kind of blueprint
or recipe for making a human. In terms of total number of base
pairs, the DNA of humans is more than ten times smaller than the DNA of
many amphibians and flowering plants, as you can see in the visual here. We would expect the opposite
to be true if DNA contained a blueprint for making a human.
But
for decades, mainstream academia has deceived us about DNA, pushing
the phony-baloney idea that DNA is some kind of blueprint or recipe or algorithm for making a human. I call this falsehood the Great DNA Myth. The
false claim that DNA is a blueprint or recipe for making a human was
denounced by Ken Richardson, formerly
Senior Lecturer in Human Development at the Open University.
In an article in the mainstream Nautilus science site, Richardson
stated the following:
"Scientists
now understand that the information in the DNA code can only serve as
a template for a protein. It cannot possibly serve as instructions
for the more complex task of putting the proteins together into a
fully functioning being, no more than the characters on a typewriter
can produce a story."
But
the Great DNA Myth (that DNA is a blueprint or recipe for making a
human) continues to be pushed by many, including the journal
Science, the official publication of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. In September, 2019 the publication had a “special issue”
entitled “Genotype to Phentotype.” The issue was designed to give
us the idea that genotypes specify phenotypes, an idea that is dead
wrong. The phenotype (or visually observable characteristics of an
organism) is not specified by an organism's genotype (its DNA).
DNA merely specifies low-level chemical information, not high-level
structural information.
On
page 1395 we are told a huge untruth by Zahn, Purnell and
Ash, who stated, “The DNA within a human cell, known as the
genotype, provides a blueprint to direct a host of processes for
building an embodied organism.” Here we have the two biggest
fables about DNA, the myth that it is a blueprint, and the myth that
the passive chemical information repository that is DNA “directs” things, as if it were almost some intelligent agent. The
fallacy of using words such as “directs” about DNA is debunked by biologist Richardson in his Nautilus article, and he also debunks the “DNA as
blueprint” myth by stating, “there
is no prior plan or blueprint for development.”
Introducing
some of the papers in the “special issue,” Zahn, Purnell and Ash
state, “We examine cases in which various cells and traits are
specified by DNA mutations or epigenetic changes.” But humans have
200 different types of cells, and DNA does not contain a
specification of any one of them. The “special issue” has a
paper with the misleading title, “Mapping human-cell phenotypes to
genotypes with single-cell genomics.” But the paper does not at
all describe how any cell phenotypes or structures are specified in DNA genotypes.
It merely mentions some cases in which rare DNA mutations can affect
a cell to produce a disease. The paper has a visual which attempts to illustrate the idea of some mapping between genes and cell types, but it's just a speculative "something like this could exist" type of thing; and instead of listing specific genes, the genes listed in the mapping are listed as "Gene 1", "Gene 2", "Gene 3," "Gene 4," and "Gene 5." Such speculative illustrations do not constitute any case of showing that a cell type is specified by DNA or genes.
At a biology "expert answers" site, we read an expert answer telling us that "DNA does not have instructions for how to build a cell," and also that DNA does not even specify how to make the mere membrane of a cell. DNA does not specify any type of cell, and does not even fully specify the things that are smaller than cells. Cells are built from smaller units called organelles, and even their structures are not specified by DNA. When we look at the lowest level of chemical structure, and look at proteins, we find that even those are not fully specified by DNA. DNA specifies the amino acid sequence of proteins, but not their three dimensional shapes. The mystery of how proteins acquire such three-dimensional shapes is the unsolved problem of protein folding, which scientists have not solved despite decades of laborious efforts. Claims that the three-dimensional shapes of proteins are simply consequences of their amino acids sequences (listed in DNA) are disproved by the failure of ab initio methods to reliably predict the shapes of proteins from their amino acid sequences, and also by the dependency of a large fraction of protein molecules on other molecules (so-called chaperone molecules) in order to achieve their three-dimensional shapes. A scientific paper about such ab initio protein structure prediction (which uses only the amino acid sequence) tells us, "Currently, the accuracy of ab initio modeling is low and the success is generally limited to small proteins."
At a biology "expert answers" site, we read an expert answer telling us that "DNA does not have instructions for how to build a cell," and also that DNA does not even specify how to make the mere membrane of a cell. DNA does not specify any type of cell, and does not even fully specify the things that are smaller than cells. Cells are built from smaller units called organelles, and even their structures are not specified by DNA. When we look at the lowest level of chemical structure, and look at proteins, we find that even those are not fully specified by DNA. DNA specifies the amino acid sequence of proteins, but not their three dimensional shapes. The mystery of how proteins acquire such three-dimensional shapes is the unsolved problem of protein folding, which scientists have not solved despite decades of laborious efforts. Claims that the three-dimensional shapes of proteins are simply consequences of their amino acids sequences (listed in DNA) are disproved by the failure of ab initio methods to reliably predict the shapes of proteins from their amino acid sequences, and also by the dependency of a large fraction of protein molecules on other molecules (so-called chaperone molecules) in order to achieve their three-dimensional shapes. A scientific paper about such ab initio protein structure prediction (which uses only the amino acid sequence) tells us, "Currently, the accuracy of ab initio modeling is low and the success is generally limited to small proteins."
The
Genotype
to Phenotype
“special issue” also very strangely includes a paper entitled
“Microbiomes as source of emergent host phenotypes.” Talk about
grasping at straws. Your microbiome is the set of all microbes living inside you, or the total DNA of all the microbes
living inside you. You will not solve the problem that DNA does not
contain a blueprint or recipe for making a human by trying to look
for instructions for making a human inside the DNA of microbes living
inside a human. The DNA of such microbes suffers from exactly the
same limitations of human DNA, limitations which prevent it from
being anything like a blueprint or a recipe for building large
three-dimensional structures.
None
of the papers in the Genotype
to Phenotype
“special issue” provide anything that should prevent us from thinking
that Zahn, Purnell and Ash were feeding us baloney when they
stated, “The DNA within a human cell, known as the genotype,
provides a blueprint to direct a host of processes for building an
embodied organism.” There is zero evidence that DNA is a blueprint
for making a human, and we know of several reasons why it cannot be
any such thing. Given its physical limitations limiting it to listing low-level chemical ingredients, it is utterly impossible that DNA could do any such thing as directing or specifying even a single process, let alone "a host of processes." The biochemical processes inside organisms are gigantically complex, far too complex to be specified or directed by the kind of minimalist "bare bones" poor-man's language that is the genetic code used by DNA, capable of listing only sequences of low-level chemicals. Below we see a description of one of these gigantically complex processes, from a biochemistry textbook.
On page 26 of the recent book The Developing Genome, Professor David S. Moore states, "The common belief that there are things inside of us that constitute a set of instructions for building bodies and minds -- things that are analogous to 'blueprints' or 'recipes' -- is undoubtedly false." Describing conclusions of biologist Brian Goodwin, the New York Times says, "While genes may help produce the proteins that make the skeleton or the glue, they do not determine the shape and form of an embryo or an organism." Massimo Pigliucci (mainstream author of numerous scientific papers on evolution) has stated that "old-fashioned metaphors like genetic blueprint and genetic programme are not only woefully inadequate but positively misleading." Neuroscientist Romain Brette states, "The genome does not encode much except for amino acids."
Immensely complicated biochemistry of vision
On page 26 of the recent book The Developing Genome, Professor David S. Moore states, "The common belief that there are things inside of us that constitute a set of instructions for building bodies and minds -- things that are analogous to 'blueprints' or 'recipes' -- is undoubtedly false." Describing conclusions of biologist Brian Goodwin, the New York Times says, "While genes may help produce the proteins that make the skeleton or the glue, they do not determine the shape and form of an embryo or an organism." Massimo Pigliucci (mainstream author of numerous scientific papers on evolution) has stated that "old-fashioned metaphors like genetic blueprint and genetic programme are not only woefully inadequate but positively misleading." Neuroscientist Romain Brette states, "The genome does not encode much except for amino acids."
In a 2016 scientific paper, three scientists state the following:
"It is now clear that the genome does not directly program the organism; the computer program metaphor has misled us...The genome does not function as a master plan or computer program for controlling the organism; the genome is the organism's servant, not its master."
In the book Mind in Life by Evan Thompson (published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press) we read the following on page 180: "The plain truth is that DNA is not a program for building organisms, as several authors have shown in detail (Keller 2000, Lewontin 1993, Moss 2003)." Scientist Jean Krivine presents here a very elaborate visual presentation with the title, "Epigenetics, Aging and Symmetry or why DNA is not a program." Scientists Walker and Davies state this in a scientific paper:
"DNA is not a blueprint for an organism; no information is actively processed by DNA alone. Rather, DNA is a passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA, some (but by no means all) of which goes on to be translated into proteins."
Geneticist Adam Rutherford states that "DNA is not a blueprint." A press account of the thought of geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys states, "DNA is not a blueprint, he says." B.N. Queenan (the Executive Director
of Research at the NSF-Simons Center for
Mathematical & Statistical Analysis of Biology
at Harvard University) tells us this:
"The genome is not a blueprint," says Kevin Mitchell, a geneticist and neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin, who adds, "It doesn't encode some specific outcome." "DNA cannot be seen as the 'blueprint' for life," says Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, who says. "It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times." Sergio Pistoi (a science writer with a PhD in molecular biology) tells us, "DNA is not a blueprint," and tells us, "We do not inherit specific instructions on how to build a cell or an organ."
Some concede that DNA is not a blueprint, but then say that DNA is a recipe. It is just as false and misleading to claim that DNA is a recipe as it is to say that DNA is a blueprint. Let's start with the definition of "recipe." The Cambridge English Dictionary defines "recipe" as "a set of instructions telling you how to prepare and cook a particular food, including a list of what foods are needed for this," giving no other definition. DNA does not tell us how to prepare and cook a food, so it is absurd to be calling DNA a recipe.
A recipe is not a mere list of ingredients, but a set of assembly instructions on how to make some edible food using those ingredients -- instructions such as "mix for 2 minutes on medium speed of mixer," "chop up almonds and pour them into mixing bowl," "pour mixture into a cake cooking pan," and "bake for 35 minutes at 375 degrees." DNA specifies chemical ingredients, but does not specify any steps or algorithm for using such ingredients to assemble complex things such as cells or organs or reproductive systems or organisms. So it is false to say that DNA is a recipe, unless you merely say that DNA is a recipe for making the low-level chemical units called polypeptide chains. Because it contains no high-level assembly instructions, DNA is neither a recipe nor a program for making a human, any organ system of a human, any organ of a human, any appendage of a human, or any cell type of a human.
The Great DNA Myth that DNA is a blueprint or recipe or program for building organisms is not some careless error comparable to someone clumsily saying that there are only 7 planets in the solar system. The claim that DNA is a blueprint or recipe for building organisms is a falsehood typically told by certain people who need to tell this particular falsehood to defend unbelievable claims they wish to defend. I will leave for another post a discussion of the ideological motivations for this misinformation that has been peddled for decades by esteemed authorities in academia.