Think about this:
If DNA was not involved in the origin of life because it has no enzymatic properties, then how could DNA now actively control the development of organisms?
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| https://evolution.berkeley.edu/reviewing-dna/ [1] |
A short explanation of the above question:
- Origin of Life: It is generally considered extremely unlikely or even impossible that DNA was involved at the origin of life [2]. Reasons are: DNA has no catalytic properties. RNA does have catalytic properties [10]. Therefore, the RNA-world hypothesis was proposed. Contrary to RNA, DNA requires enzymes to be replicated, transcribed, translated, repaired, etc. Those enzymes could not have been present at the origin of life, because they have a highly specific structure, which can only be based on encoded information stored in DNA. The problem is that those enzymes needed to be present before they could be produced. Vicious circle! Chicken or egg problem! Therefore, DNA was not involved in the Origin of Life.
- What does DNA do? A quick search tells us that:
- "DNA contains the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive and reproduce" [3]
- "DNA's unique structure enables the molecule to copy itself during cell division." [4], [5].
- DNA is the blueprint of life [6].
But, if the properties of DNA are still the same as billions of years ago [7], why would DNA today have the capacity to actively control the development of organisms? Replicate itself? Transcribe itself? Produce proteins? [8] Repair itself? Do anything at all? One might object that the difference between the Origin of Life 3.5 billion years ago and today, is that the human genome contains 3.5 billion bases and that is apparently enough to produce a human. That is the big difference between now and the Origin of Life! Wrong! My point is: that doesn't make DNA enzymatic! DNA still does not have any catalytic properties! [9]. Not then, and not now. Think about this: How could DNA on its own produce millions of complex beings, and yet couldn't produce the most primitive life forms 3.5 billion years ago?
I deliberately kept this post as short as possible, with just the necessary facts and arguments, in order to focus on the central question! Think about this! Once you see the inconsistency in the reasoning, you can't unsee it!
Notes
- "Your DNA contains a set of instructions for building a human." This is a bit problematic: "Some parts of your DNA are control centers for turning genes on and off." The image is from the website Understanding Evolution, Berkeley University.
- "We are reasonably sure now that DNA and DNA replication mechanisms appeared late in early life history, and that DNA originated from RNA in an RNA/protein world. " Patrick Forterre, Jonathan Filée, and Hannu Myllykallio, (2004) Origin and Evolution of DNA and DNA Replication Machineries. This is a chapter in the book 'The Genetic Code and the Origin of Life' (2004).
- "DNA contains' the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive and reproduce." Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Fact Sheet.
- "DNA's unique structure enables the molecule to copy itself during cell division." Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Fact Sheet.
- ... DNA (wikipedia): "...carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms."
- Quote from Oxford Home Schooling. The page contains statements such as "We can think of DNA as a large book", and "DNA serves as a store for all of our genetic information", but also: "It has the ability to replicate itself.". DNA cannot be 'a store' and have 'the ability to replicate itself' at the same time. Confusing sentences. Perhaps the confusion stems from the fact that they are 'Systematically Misleading Expressions' (Gilbert Ryle). In this case, it amounts to ascribing agency to objects which they don't have. The page is a rich source of SMEs.
- The chemical structure of DNA did not change. The bases A, T, C, G are inside the double-helix; A pairs with T; C with G; the backbone consists of the sugar deoxyribose and a phosphate group; the two sugar-phosphate backbone strands run in opposite directions. This is almost a necessary structure with no good functional alternatives.
- "Your DNA contains a set of instructions for building a human." is wrong. Even the moderate claim that "DNA contains the instructions for making a protein" is misleading. 'Instructions' involve a complete description of all the steps necessary to produce a protein from a DNA sequence. An Open Reading Frame does not contain all the instructions for how to transcribe, splice, edit, transport, bind to a ribosome, how to fold the protein, etc.
- Maybe, perhaps, it is slightly less wrong to say: Gene Regulatory Networks control the development and maintenance of organisms, because that is on the next higher level with regard to DNA. [Feb 10 2026]
- "He [Gerald Joyce] and others were drawn to RNA because even today, the molecule performs two functions vital for living things. It encodes genetic information in its sequence of chemical building blocks, called nucleotide bases. And the stable 3D structures into which it folds can carry out a second essential job: acting as catalysts to promote vital chemical reactions without being used up in the process. To many researchers, that dual role made RNAs a candidate for the kick-starter of life, able to both encode its own makeup and catalyze its own reproduction." RNA comes close to copying itself, Science, 12 Feb 2026
Previous blogs
- Five objections to the selfish gene theory 26 Jan 2026
Dear Dr Korthof
ReplyDeleteShort post indeed, profound arguments!
Dr. A. Thanks for the nice comment! However, I wonder, do you notice any errors in the argument? I would really like to know that.
ReplyDeleteDear dr korthof
ReplyDeleteSo far I haven’t noticed any errors. I’d even say that the crux of your argument deserves to be fleshed out even more.
Interesting that in note 6 you should refer to G Ryle, but didn’t mention his famous ‘ghost in the machine’ criticism of the categorial mistake (made by cartesians among others, like most darwinians btw, who ascribe agency to ‘natural selection’ - a mistake Darwin himself, in person so to speak, warned against in letters to Gray and Lyell.
Ps to wit: the rest of your post, including the other notes, are facts. Your note 6 is mainly argument (based on these facts, as opposed to most ‘arguments’ made by darwinians ( we’d better call those ‘assertions’ instead...see some posts on your previous blog))
ReplyDeleteDr. Anonymous, yes, I think you are right. If the definition of 'Category mistake' is 'a semantic or conceptual error where a property is attributed to something that cannot logically possess it.", then indeed ascribing 'agency' (the power to do something, to initiate some action) to DNA is a category mistake. The only difference is that in this case, DNA could logically possess agency, but factually it does not.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, DNA could be called The "Ghost in the Machine" because it suggests it is a "ghost" that causes physical actions. However, in this case, DNA itself is a physical substance. I don't know whether Ryle's concept can be extended in this way... but it is certainly a category mistake: "ascribing agency to objects which they don't have."
Also, it could be an example of the 'Fallacy of composition': ascribing a property to a subsystem which belongs only to the system.
1) the cell has the power to do things
2) DNA is a subsystem of a cell
3) so DNA has the power to do things.
I think this is the right fallacy. It it is an unproblemtic, clear example.
In English
ReplyDeleteGert,
I might not understand the problem. DNA is a 'storage' of 'information'. It is exceptionally stable, especially compared to RNA.
Therefore, it is thought that at the origin of life, there was an RNA world, because in this world, RNA could serve both as a storage of 'information' and as a ribozyme, thus replicating itself.
According to Patrick Forterre, the first 'life' consisted of retroviruses, which infected the first cells that used RNA, with DNA, which was so stable that it henceforth served as 'storage'. See also my blog post about this: https://ascendenza.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/lag-de-oorsprong-van-leven-bij-virussen/
DNA does absolutely nothing and is a 'storage' of 'information' when you place it within the context of the Central Dogma. But in reality, all these macromolecules are, of course, subject to chemical laws and 'do' nothing; they don't even store 'information'. They are absolutely passive. Even an enzyme "does" nothing and merely obeys the laws of physics and chemistry.
Speaking of "controlling the development of organisms," or "instructions," or "blueprints" based on the "letter code" of DNA is merely a metaphor useful for communicating the properties of the various components of the cell and is part of describing the world around us. If we don't accept this, we're forced to put apostrophes around everything.
But of course, we already knew that.
Dr Korthof
ReplyDeleteRight! Following the core of Ryle’s argument, metaforically one could say that the cell has the ‘power’ ‘ to do’ things: metaforically, that is, as kind of ‘shorthand ‘, because we can describe , specify in growing (chemical) detail everything a cell actually does: f.e.how neurons communicate in a network, react on information of their environment and consequently control expression/activation of certain genes- pieces of dna. No need for an agency, because these processes ARE the ‘ghost’, physically that is, actually and logically, as Ryle would argue.
Note the parallel here with the discussion of Gray, Lyell and Darwin in their letters.
Btw neurons indeed actually can DO a lot of things, sometimes they even can THINK! All on their own, no need for a ghost (in the machine or in the meat). The ACT gene (of very ancient viral origin (e. g. fruitflies) deserves special attention here). That’ a fact, not just an assertion.
Sorry typo: ARC gene instead of ACT
ReplyDeleteFollowing Marleen, any part of a cell, be it a water molecule or a protein is absolutely passive without interactions with other entities. That's even valid for an elementary particle like an electron (as I noticed earlier). An electron starts functioning in relation to other electrons, to protons (or compositions of neutrons and protons) in particular.
ReplyDeleteSo, Gert you are repeting earlier statements with other words. In a previous blog you said "DNA is dead", now "DNA is passive".
Physical, chemical and biological processes are always about ineractions of elements with certain properties. Without those interactions all the nice properties of these components would have no function.
So what you say about DNA is not specific to DNA.
It is a general rule: nothing in the universe makes sense except in the light of interactions. And in biology: "in the light of interaction networks."
Of course, I realise this doesn't answer the question of this blog, but I am convinced this rule is of basic importance for this discussion.
Marleen, your razor-sharp comments gave me a headache! But I am afraid there is confusion! It is more and different than metaphors. For example, "DNA is the blueprint for creating organisms" is a metaphor for the empirical statement: 'DNA is the cause of the development and maintenance of the organism' or more clearly: "DNA causes life"!. But this is not an innocent metaphor, it is a falsifiable statement about the real world. It can be falsified by placing a purified human genome (=without all cellular components) in a physiological saline solution. Nothing happens! = falsification. If DNA was the real cause of life, the experiment should have proved that an organism would develop, and grow from the DNA. But it does not. Statement falsified.
ReplyDeleteMetaphors are not innocent and can be wrong: 'proteins are encoded information' and 'DNA is a library AND it causes the development of the organism'.
You wrote all molecules are dead and passive, DNA just as enzymes. This misses my point. What I mean is: DNA is not a privileged level of causality in biological systems. That is a category mistake: ascribing causal properties to a part of the cell which doesn't have that property! That is a serious scientific mistake!
Finally, you missed the point of this blog: that DNA has no enzymatic properties and everyone accepts that for the Origin of life, but seems to deny it when talking about organisms.
THAT is the reason life not start with DNA! THAT is not a minor issue! Think about that!
Rolie Barth: thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteInteractions: OK. But that was not my point! I quote:
""Your DNA contains a set of instructions for building a human""
(https://evolution.berkeley.edu/reviewing-dna/).
Right or wrong? Why?
Gert, let me comment on a this statement P1:
ReplyDelete"DNA is the blueprint for creating organisms". Right or wrong?
Wrong, because DNA doesn't give all the instructions needed to build an organism. But there is some truth in P1, because DNA gives the instructions to build proteins. Some, also because there are post-transcriptional processes influencing the final layout of a protein.
But all these kind of proteins are a necessary condition to build an organism. Necessary, but not the only and full condition.
Agree?
Rolie, I agree that P1 is wrong. But I still disagree about the language you use: "because DNA gives the instructions to build proteins": that language is still DNA-centric, and gene-centric: as if all the action starts with DNA. It isn't.
ReplyDeleteI quote from note 8: Even the moderate claim that "DNA contains the instructions for making a protein" is misleading. 'Instructions' involve a complete description of all the steps necessary to produce a protein from a DNA sequence. An Open Reading Frame (ORF) does not contain all the instructions for how to transcribe, splice, edit, transport, bind to a ribosome, how to fold the protein, etc."
You correctly mentioned "post-transcriptional processes" [i.e. (alternative) splicing; that and how it should be transported from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, etc.]
I think it is closer to the truth to say: the cell reads the genome (Denis Noble).
Gert, a gene gives the sequence of codons needed to build a certain protein and of course not the instructions for all the processes to make the protein. Correct?
ReplyDeleteYes, that is correct. To say that "DNA gives the instructions to build proteins" wrongly suggests that the *action* starts with the gene. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that DNA has certain signatures (START, STOP, splicing code and more), but those signatures have to be *acted* upon by the cell machinery.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote about interactions, interaction networks, feedback cycles, etc. in your book, and that is all right. But the standard scientific language wrongly assumes that all the action starts from DNA.
Rolie wrote yesterday "So, Gert you are repeating earlier statements with other words."
ReplyDeleteThe *new* insight of this blog is: I made a connection between the present view of the origin of life, and the present DNA-centric view. To be precise: the general view of the origin of life is that DNA doesn't show enzymatic, catalytic properties and the general view of the role of DNA in organisms today is precisely the *opposite*: DNA has the power to build organisms! the power to *do* this, the power to *do* that. But DNA has nothing to contribute to the origin of life!
I don't know if anyone else has ever noticed that.
I should have made that clearer in my blog...
dear dr korthof
ReplyDeleteas regards some 'contribution' to "the origin of live", you might be interested in:
Universal paralogs provide a window into evolution before the last universal common ancestor
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2026.101140
Think about this:
Paralogy is widespread in the genomes of organisms across the tree of life. Roughly 70% of protein-coding genes in the human genome are related to another protein-coding gene in the same genome. horizontal gene transfer may lead to a similar relationship between protein families called “xenologs.” Xenologs may be indistinguishable from paralogs in sufficiently old protein families.
btw: see also my remark on ARC above
Dear Dr Anonymoys, thanks for the interesting article 'Universal paralogs provide a window into evolution before the last universal common ancestor'.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting remark: "has led some researchers to argue that the LUCA had an RNA-based genome [18,19] or a DNA/RNA hybrid genome." !
Gert, the fact that DNA doesn't show enzymatic properties indeed restricts its evolutionary possiblities to a "info storage device". At the same time that can be its strength in being a very stable molecule.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the origin of first cells with an RNA-based genome, the question remains how the transition from RNA to DNA was made.
And further, an RNA-world hypothesis is not necessarely in conflict with a gene centered view (which I do not support, as you know). Assuming that an RNA-genome was converted to a DNA-genome some day, even supports a gene centered view.
I wonder if there are also theories for the origin of life that are based on molecular networks.
A network theory might change the discussions about DNA-centrism and RNA-world in a decisive way.
Hi Rolie, thanks for your thoughts. RNA-world hypothesis has been proposed to circumvent the infamous vicious-circle-problem inevitable connected with DNA. The transition from a hypothetical RNA-world to a DNA-protein world is the establishment of a functional separation between a genetic storage task (DNA) and catalytic task (enzymes).
ReplyDeleteMy definition of gene-centrism/DNA-centrism is in short: 'DNA is the cause of life'.
My argument in this blog is based on the reason why scientists felt compelled to propose an RNA-world in the first place: the non-enzymatic properties of DNA.
My conclusion from that is that the DNA-centric view is in conflict with the mainstream Origin of Life view. You can't have both views at the same time. I am not aware that anybody made that claim in the past.
Rolie: "I wonder if there are also theories for the origin of life that are based on molecular networks."
Nick Lane is a proponent of the metabolism-first scenario (Krebs cycle) of the Origin of Life for a long time.
12 Feb 2026: Darwin's birthday...................................
ReplyDeleteI discovered a new book which may have relevance for the discussion of gene-centrism:
Michael Lynch (2024) Evolutionary Cell Biology: The Origins of Cellular Architecture.
"Remarkably, although we have fairly well-established fields of molecular evolution, genome evolution, and phenotypic evolution, there is no comprehensive field of evolutionary cell biology. Yet, the resources that link molecular and phenotypic evolution reside at the level of cellular architecture."
https://www.lynchlab-cme.com/research/evolutionary-cell-biology
https://academic.oup.com/book/56135/chapter-abstract/442806299?redirectedFrom=fulltext
The book looks like a rather complete Evolution textbook (except no fossils, geology).
Dr Korthof
ReplyDeletethis might interest you:
A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adt2760
Dear Dr. Anonymous, thank you. I already noticed the publication RNA comes close to copying itself. It is a piece of the puzzle of the Origin of Life. I added it as Note 10 to this blog post. RNA has a double functionality: information storage and catalysis. DNA has only information storage functionality and *not* catalysis. And since the structure of DNA has not changed during the past billions of years, DNA today still has no catalytic powers. Hence DNA is not in control of everything! That's why it is relevant for my blogs, including the blog of today Monday 16 feb.
Deletesorry I missed that!
DeleteNo problem!
Delete