DNA and the Origin of Life: Information, Specification, and Explanation
Journal Title: Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy - Year 2006, Vol 3, Issue 0
Abstract
This essay will evaluate competing explanations for the origin of the information necessary to build the first living cell. To do so will require determining what biologists have meant by the term information as it has been applied to biomacromolecules. As many have noted, „information” can denote several theoretically distinct concepts. This essay will attempt to eliminate this ambiguity and to determine precisely what type of information origin-of-life researchers must explain „the origin of.” What follows will first seek to characterize the information in DNA, RNA, and proteins as an explanandum (a fact in need of explanation) and, second, to evaluate the efficacy of competing classes of explanation for the origin of biological information (that is, the competing explanans). Part I will seek to show that molecular biologists have used the term information consistently to refer to the joint properties of complexity and functional specificity or specification. Part II will evaluate competing types of explanation for the origin of the specified biological information necessary to produce the first living system. Part II will critique the causal adequacy of chemical evolutionary theories based on „chance,” „necessity,” and the combination of the two. A concluding part III will suggest that the phenomenon of information understood as specified complexity requires a radically different explanatory approach. In particular, I will argue that our present knowledge of causal powers suggests intelligent design as a better, more causally adequate explanation for the origin of the specified complexity (the information so defined) present in large biomolecules such as DNA RNA, and proteins.
Authors and Affiliations
Stephen Meyer
Keywords
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