On genetic information and genetic coding

Peter Godfrey-Smith

pp. 387-400

in: Peter Grdenfors, Peter Gärdenfors, Jan Woleński, Katarzyna Kijania-Placek (eds), In the scope of logic, methodology and philosophy of science II, Berlin, Springer, 2002

Abstract

One of the most striking developments in recent biology has been the proliferation of concepts such as coding, information, representation and programming, especially applied to genes. The idea that genes can be described as having semantic properties, as well as ordinary causal properties, has become so uncontroversial in many quarters that it now appears prominently in biology textbooks. Scott Gilbert's widely used developmental biology text, to pick just one example, tell us that "the inherited information needed for development and metabolism is encoded in the DNA sequences of the chromosomes' (Gilbert 1997, p. 5).