> What he means by organisms being a "side effect" of DNA replication is that evolutionary processes shape DNA to whatever configuration enhances the replication of that DNA. It's illustrative, and not entirely inaccurate, to say that organisms are vehicles which DNA constructs in order to make more DNA.
Well said. Bravo.
What is the meaning of life? It is to reproduce one's DNA. That's it.
> It's amusing in the chicken aphorism because the relationship is balanced -- eggs produce chickens, and chickens produce eggs. There's no particular reason to choose one view over the other,
I disagree: theropods, and reptiles before them, and amphibians before *them*, were laying eggs not only long before there were chickens, but before there were *birds.* Thus, the egg came before the chicken.
> Thus the observation that organisms are DNA's way of producing more DNA.
Yep. Long *long* ago, back when the oceans were "primordial soup," DNA did not need organisms to reproduce. The raw material in the forms of proteins and amino acids were floating around in some considerable easy abundance. But as this material started getting used up, those bits of DNA that had by chance become more complex such as to form primitive proto-life, had the better chance of snagging resources... including by simple chemical predation. And then the race was on.
Let's just for fun mention that egg evolution was necessary for the conquest of land environments. Amphibian and fish eggs must be laid in water. Reptile eggs developed an extra sheath, the amnion, with an extra fluid layer around the old amphibian egg structure. This freed their adult forms from having to stay close to a body of water for egg-laying purposes. Of course, while they were at it, the reptile eggs also evolved a rather different-looking adult form from what they'd had as amphibians.