[raygun]

If what you cited is the best place you can begin to point out errors, I feel pretty comfortable. With respect to your statement that you cited as being in error, and the objections that you make (erroneously attributing them to me), perhaps you should stick your nose into some biology books to find out what you're talking about. As that is what almost all biology textbooks say about DNA. Maybe there's something wrong with how biology is being taught then? Oh, wait, there is! They're teaching evolution in biology.

Secondly, we're not talking about DNA doing any communication whatsoever. That's what messenger RNA is for. Maybe you've not seen reference to messangerRNA and message DNA in biology textbooks?

Secondly, the last issue you object to shows you have no clue with respect to information theory. I suggest that before you argue against that you become familiar about. But more specifically, the point being made is that the alphabetic representation of the DNA sequence is just as informational as is the actual molecules the alphabetic representation itself. Moreover, the DNA sequences themselvers are code for the construction of specific proteins. If you don't understand that code and information are one and the same (regardless of what form its in), then you can't be helped.

You said:

If there is information in DNA, then that "information" ought to be just as useful, or perhaps I should say utilitarian, if carried by some other medium, just like "War and Peace" is "war and Peace" whether printed on paper or stored on a CD ROM. But, it is demonstably false that the amino acid sequences of DNA have any utility expressed in any other form.

I proved that it is useful, and that it is utilitarian. Only a moron would insist that there's no information in DNA (although proteins can be synthesized on the other side of the world after translating the genetic DNA sequence from a molecular code, to alphabetic code, to binary code, into analog electromagnetic waveforms, that are decoded on the other side of the world in reverse order, the resultant alphabetic code being sythesized into a molecular analog and then spliced into bacteria genes), but the bits and bytes contained on a CD-ROM are information. That's not just illogical, but complete lunacy.

[John Valentine]

I fully comprehend each and every one of your arguments, but at the same time I don't feel constrained to follow somebody else's linguistic conventions. I suppose that opens me up to being called an ignoramus or whatever, but I have seen nothing in your arguments or the material on which you rely that has a single thing to do with what I am saying.

Intentionality imputed to the action of chemicals or cells is pure anthropomorphism at work, and fancy language, extensive attribution, footnotes, and titles can't disguise it.