We’re honored to have Piotr as part of the UD discussions. Though I most certainly disagree with his views about biological evolution, I salute his devotion to the important discipline of linguistics. I would like to acknowledge and promote his blog http://langevo.blogspot.com/.
One of my current research interests is in the linguistics of DNA and biological systems in general. There is an ongoing and public dispute over the question of junk DNA in humans. If DNA is shown to be mostly functional in humans, it would suggest most DNA follows some sort of language. In fact, ID proponents are sympathetic to the idea that there are multiple overlapping languages in DNA.
If there are multiple languages in DNA, then it will be a challenge to elucidate these languages. Beyond that, there seems to be many languages in biological organisms beyond DNA. Many are highly transaction oriented that follow communication models familiar to engineers, and some not so familiar.
One of the most advanced ID speculations is that the diversity of creatures and their form is not the product of mindless evolution but the diversity is structured to provide Rosetta stones to understand the linguistics of biology. This is the field Bill Dembski refers to as steganography in biology. I believe biological steganography exists and the search for it is one of the grand quests of ID.
Because biology seems so linked to language while “design” is such a taboo word, the discipline of Biosemiotics has become the latest rage among design-haters who recognize language in biology. I perused a gigantic online volume of biosemiotics and not once did they say something like:
these sets of symbols are designed in order to communicate ….
I foresee an odd alliance between the ID community and the biosemiotic community.
The problem is language, even poorly implemented languages, is the product of a purposeful activity. Biology looks to me like a massive language (information) processor. Some may choose to avoid the word “design” to describe language for philosophical reasons, but the linguistic structures are there, and if there is steganography in biology, to discover it would be one of the greatest adventures in study of languages.
You should take a look at the vdj recombination system. It has these sequences called recombination signal sequences which tell the cell where to splice the genome.
I like the comparison between language and DNA. I think it’s important to note that all languages are organized hierarchically. What I mean is that, at the bottom level, we find elementary sounds and phonemes, followed by syllables, words, sentences, etc. The use of a hierarchy is a superefficient form of data compression because it enforces the reuse of low level entities by high level entities. This eliminates redundancies. It is highly likely that the genome is also organized hierarchically. It is the only way to pack so much information in such a small package.
In conclusion, I believe that genomic research would be greatly accelerated if researchers worked to fit their findings within a hierarchical model.
A like your analogy of ‘multiple languages’ interacting with each other in the cell. It gets the point across much better than merely stating that ‘multiple codes’ are found in biological life.
A few notes that may be helpful:
At the 10:30 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Trifonov states that the concept of the selfish gene ‘inflicted an immense damage to biological sciences’, for over 30 years:
In the preceding video, Trifonov elucidates codes that are, simultaneously, in the same sequence, coding for DNA curvature, Chromatin Code, Amphipathic helices, and NF kappaB. In fact, at the 58:00 minute mark he states, “Reading only one message, one gets three more, practically GRATIS!”. And please note that this was just an introductory lecture in which Trifinov just covered the very basics and left many of the other codes out of the lecture. Codes which code for completely different, yet still biologically important, functions. In fact, at the 7:55 mark of the video, there are 13 codes that are listed on a powerpoint, although the writing was too small for me to read.
Concluding powerpoint of the lecture (at the 1 hour mark):
BA77,
thank you for the comments with the links.
I liked a funny moment at the beginning of professor Trifonov’s presentation in Prague 2010.
Around 6:17 Professor Trifonov said it is obvious there are many codes, and also there’s a pathological amnesia in scientific society, because every time a new code was ‘cracked’ (deciphered) the science media called it ‘second code’ forgetting the previous discoveries. I could hear some laughing in the audience.
I’m glad to see Piotr back in this “echo chamber” (as he called this UD blog not long ago). Hopefully he will enjoy sharing his vast knowledge with the rest of us here.
This paper on biosemiotics is 68-page long. The authors do not seem to be ID proponents, as it can be noticed in the quotes from page 6 below. I may not agree with some of their general statements, but still see their proposition very interesting.
Here are a few quotes from this paper:
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