Some are still trying to jackhammer meaning out of what they claim is a meaningless universe:
In the Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics, Klump, Völker, and Breslauer attempt to argue that the existing DNA code was naturally selected as the most optimal for energy stability. That natural selection is the intended meaning is clear from their title: “Energy mapping of the genetic code and genomic domains: implications for code evolution and molecular Darwinism.” In other words, they propose that natural selection extended down into prebiotic life, despite the common understanding that accurate replication is a prerequisite for natural selection. In this case, the laws of thermodynamics do the selecting. This is made clear in the title of a news piece from Rutgers University, “Genetic Code Evolution and Darwin’s Evolution Theory Should Consider DNA an ‘Energy Code’ — ‘Survival of the fittest’ phenomenon is only part of the evolution equation.” But how does meaning (semantics) emerge in an “energy code” created by “molecular Darwinism”? Their hypothesis ignores this requirement entirely…
Their argument is akin to the multiverse hypothesis: out of “trillions of possibilities” a universe was naturally selected with conditions permitting complex life — and here we are! In the “molecular Darwinism” story, the laws of thermodynamics “selected” arrangements of DNA building blocks that were stable, and presto! Functional information! That’s why all life forms use it! (Notice the non-sequitur.)
The folks at Rutgers don’t mention information, and they only mention function in an after-the-fact way, intimating that “molecular Darwinism” might enable or favor biological functions.
Evolution News, “Missing the Point: Codes Are Not Products of Physics” at Evolution News and Science Today
If they’re talking about codes but not talking about information, they’re not operating in a real space anyway. But tenured/tenure-seeking Darwinism does that to people.