> If DNA is the ony information that makes it from a parent to offspring
I don't think this assumption is warranted. Human embryos develop in utero, not in eggs like amphibians. They are connected to the mother through an umbilical and immersed in amniotic fluid. Both the umbilical and the amniotic fluid are full of chemical signals in many forms, not just hormones. Human embryos (and all mammals, really) develop in symbiosis with their mother.
What you are saying is another one of these CS-centric views of the world that only focus on where the information for development comes from; that the development of the brain is somehow encoded in DNA, and that the entire development of a human is therefore also encoded in the DNA.
I've come to doubt this view, not only because of mammal development, but the fact that immune systems and digestion (the microbiome of the GI) develops in response to the available biodiversity of food and encountered pathogens.
So the view that we just put the little DNA program in a dish and feed it raw materials and energy and out pops a fully-formed human is just false.
Humans develop in cooperation with, and in response to, the environment.
It's a bit like staring at the code of a machine learning model and expecting to figure out how it works. The system (a human) contains a lot of code (DNA) but also responds to data (training set)--much more so than we ever realized.
> It's a bit like staring at the code of a machine learning model and expecting to figure out how it works. The system (a human) contains a lot of code (DNA) but also responds to data (training set)--much more so than we ever realized.
Or like a Smalltalk programming environment, which consists of an image with live, editable objects, not just a static text program.
One should not overemphasize the environment either, especially for the early development that's discussed in the article (embriogenesis). Cognition, immutinity and the microbiome become relevant much later.
I don't think this assumption is warranted. Human embryos develop in utero, not in eggs like amphibians. They are connected to the mother through an umbilical and immersed in amniotic fluid. Both the umbilical and the amniotic fluid are full of chemical signals in many forms, not just hormones. Human embryos (and all mammals, really) develop in symbiosis with their mother.
What you are saying is another one of these CS-centric views of the world that only focus on where the information for development comes from; that the development of the brain is somehow encoded in DNA, and that the entire development of a human is therefore also encoded in the DNA.
I've come to doubt this view, not only because of mammal development, but the fact that immune systems and digestion (the microbiome of the GI) develops in response to the available biodiversity of food and encountered pathogens.
So the view that we just put the little DNA program in a dish and feed it raw materials and energy and out pops a fully-formed human is just false.
Humans develop in cooperation with, and in response to, the environment.
It's a bit like staring at the code of a machine learning model and expecting to figure out how it works. The system (a human) contains a lot of code (DNA) but also responds to data (training set)--much more so than we ever realized.