
A computer programmer looks at DNA … and finds it to be “amazing” code.
From 2006 through 2017, Dutch entrepreneur and software developer Bert Hubert contributed from time to time to a web page where he listed many of the ways the workings of DNA can be likened to coding decisions by programmers. Some of his thoughts:
The human genome is about 3 gigabases long, which boils down to 750 megabytes. Depressingly enough, this is only 2.8 Mozilla browsers.
DNA is not like C source but more like byte-compiled code for a virtual machine called ‘the nucleus’. It is very doubtful that there is a source to this byte compilation – what you see is all you get.
It is easier to imagine a potential source with no code than it is to imagine a code with no source but we are offered no further explanation. However, the pace picks up when we get to epigenetics, the changes we acquire during our lifetimes that are passed on through several generations without altering our DNA:
Although the actual relevant changes in the DNA of an organism rarely occur within a generation, substantial tinkering goes on by activating or deactivating parts of our genome, without altering the actual code.
This can be compared to the Linux kernel, which at boot time discovers what CPU it is running on, and actually disables parts of its binary code in case (for example) it is running on a single CPU system.
He also sees a computer analogy to “junk DNA” (non-coding DNA which was, at one time, thought to be accumulated garbage from the meanderings of evolution): … More.
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See also: H. Allen Orr on DNA as information
I read the full article, and and it sounds like they just pulled a few rookie star trek fans off the street, who know very little about biology and the current state of the “theory” – the second guy they quoted was fan of the selfish gene!!! And it shows why programmers will see the CODE of DNA to fit their worldview – he says it is OBVIOUS DNA drives the organism and not the other way around, but fans of this sight and many modern biologists know, this is a complete falsehood. The more evidence we collect, the more we know for certain, that the idea of the selfish gene is dead and gone – the organism uses DNA like a read write system – DNA does not a person make, we know this. And the one guy that focuses on JUNK DNA for helping to fold the DNA is missing the HUGE picture – JUNK DNA performs many of the same operations as an operating system – regulation, repair, all the housekeeping tasks. Calling routines, regulating what gets access to the DNA and when, and so many other analogous operations we are just now beginning to understand- oh man it chaps my ass when a programmer, if anyone, should see the incredible similarities but appreciate why it is only similar not identical to computer code in his Windows 7 machine – his Windows 7 machine does not produce a organic based 100 Billion cell person!! And the coding DNA is like the data on the drive, and JUNK DNA very similar but much more complex than any operating system we have. OF COURSE there is not a 1:1 analogy, the main point is the cell, for some unknown reason, “decided” to encode instructions for parts and enzymes, and control systems, feedback systems, on and on and on.
The one guy comparing the size of DNA and how much data it is when compared with Mozilla browsers is comparing apples and oranges but for some reason misses the fact hat DNA does not need this HUGE amount of code to achieve something a trillion times more complex than a damn firefox browser – DNA can hold much more data in a small space than man could ever dream of, it can also cut and spice in to make a particular protein, be read forward and backward in an overlapping manner, works in 4 dimensions, all he way up to it’s placement on the balled up form of DNA, with more used data located near the outside (how in the hell did it “know” to do this, or how was that selected for – you have to be a pure idiot to understand what it does and think that there is no intelligence behind its design, not to mention other structures in the cell that ALSO contain information. Not to mention ONE gram of DNA can potentially hold up to 455 exabytes of data, according to the New Scientist, and a kilogram could theoretically hold all the data in all the books, on all the hard drives, on all printed material, that man has ever created!!
In other words, DNA can’t help he fact that it can do so much more than code man can come up with so much more efficiently.
My degree is in computer science, and I am a Systems Engineer and I know quite a bit about programing, and as far as object oriented programing is concerned, once again nature invented it first – TOP DOWN DESIGN, this is why reductionists materialists keep failing miserably. The body plans and overall goals come first, and the DNA and other information is definitely front loaded, as we see time and time again, examples where code that was turned off, waiting until it is needed, and then switched on.. These two guys are knuckleheads with very limited understanding of Biology – the one guy shows this by claiming the selfish gene is comfortable to him and is still favored!!! The other tries to do a 1 to one comparison, he does ok with immune system analogies, but we even now know the in the cell, there is a very real type of encryption used – and NO it is not as complex as far as the number of bits used, but it does not have to be!!! It just has to make sure that if this enzyme is only for project A, not B, so has a tag that is only recognized by its receiver – very much like a public key is used in encryption. And as far as not having a processor – the code is already in a form that can go to the 3D printer – the processor has already done his job – the mind that made it.
Thanks Tom Robbins. Very well put. I just shook my head in disbelief while reading the article, and then sighed heavily when Dawkin’s Selfish Gene was mentioned towards the end.
To try to add a few glimpses, to your already excellent overview, as to just how far more advanced DNA is compared to our feeble attempts at programming.
Firstly, “a cell is (at least) 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor.”
In order to achieve such amazing energy efficiency as it does, the integrated coding of the cell appears to be ingeniously designed for ‘reversible computation’ in order to achieve such astonishing energy efficiency as it does.
The amazing energy efficiency possible with ‘reversible computation’ has been known about since Charles Bennett laid out the principles for such reversible programming in 1973, but as far as I know, due to the extreme level of complexity involved in achieving such ingenious ‘reversible coding’, has yet to be accomplished in any meaningful way for our computer programs even to this day:
Besides greatly outclassing anything man has yet accomplished in ‘reversible computation’, DNA also greatly outclasses anything man has yet accomplished in terms of quantum computation.
Due to, among other things, the extremely fragile nature of quantum coherent states, man has yet, despite extreme effort, to build a quantum computer of any significant, practical, size,,,
And yet whereas the slightest environmental noise presents extreme difficulties for man in his quest to build quantum computers of any significant, practical, size, on the other hand, life is apparently designed in such an ingenuous way that “Environmental noise drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement”
In fact, the entire DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information that has classical information information embedded within it:
This quantum information along the entire DNA molecule, besides providing a method by which to perform quantum computation, and since quantum computation greatly outclasses classical computation in terms of solving ‘traveling salesmen problems,,,
,,, since quantum computation greatly outclasses classical computation in terms of solving ‘traveling salesmen’ problems, then quantum computation within DNA provides a very plausible solution to the unanswered questions as to how DNA, and the associated molecules, are possibly able to perform such astonishing searches in DNA as they do.
For example:
Multiple overlapping codes within DNA, extensive biophotonic communication, etc.. etc.., all of which greatly outclasses anything man has ever accomplished, could be touched upon as well, but for brevity I’ll skip those attributes for now.
But of one final note, Quantum Biology undermines the entire reductive materialistic foundation which undergirds Darwinian thought:
Tom Robbins and bornagain77,
Excellent comments. Thanks.
Even more astonishing is the fact that dna existed in the first life forms which appeared soon after life on earth was possible. DNA could not have evolved. This super-complex information system came spontaneously into existence. If this doesn’t defy the laws of nature nothing does. The creation of DNA can only be described as miraculous.
It seems to me that, in order for DNA code to accomplish so much with so little data (compared to computer code), it must be using an extremely efficient compression mechanism similar to a hierarchical structure. In other words, each branch in the tree is given a code and the code is used or reused wherever it is needed, thereby saving a lot of space.
PS. Excellent comments above.