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Full ack. With 'authority' comes responsibility. In this case, to show where somebody is wrong. If the person in question does not react on that, then OK, leave him/her with his/hers ideas. So this is pretty useless: This neither advances discussion, nor teaches anybody anything. 'Citation please' can be useful when somebody claims that 'science has shown that...' followed by a crackpot idea. But I do not think the OP did that. He pretty clearly shows his ideas, and the experts between us can look if these ideas match present science, and when not, can show this (with citations, if necessary). Citations are necessary when we do not agree on the facts; on theories, i.e. interpretations of facts, we must discuss. Above has nothing to do with any advancement in insight from anybody, but only about 'winning a discussion'.

I think you are just seeing the same issue from different perspectives. The DNA encodes required proteins (though again, it does not encode the required metabolites, such as nucleotides, amino acids etc, though it does encode the machinery involved in acquiring and synthesizing it), but it requires the presence of a fully functional cell background (with the machinery in place) to produce them. This is the chicken or egg problem as as without everything already provided by the cell (or having an incompatible cellular set up) the program will stall. Likewise, not providing required nutrient will inhibit the production of said machinery. I.e. if you nitrogen (or phosphate) limitation, translation/transcription will not proceed and it does not matter that the genome has all the information to produce all the proteins required for nitrogen/phosphate uptake. Plus there is increasing awareness that the cellular content plays an important role in the trajectory of cells, which might play an important role in asymmetric cellular aging. I.e. depending on what cellular component each daughter cell inherits (as the content is not necessarily divided perfectly equally), they may have different growth trajectories. So despite the fact that both cells inherit the same DNA, one may remain highly active, whereas the other one gets all the crap and heads to apoptosis. So yes, the basic genetic material is without doubt present and inherited within the DNA. However, its expression and the translation into a given phenotype is highly dependent on the intracellular (and extracellular) content.

Actually, we imprison people for being poor, whereas the wealthy can engage in the same exact behavior and only pay a fine / have the item completely expunged from their record... but it's too far off topic to be discussed further here. Racism... Is jail the solution? No. Next topic...

Because that's why people don't respect those that do...

I look forward to something other than baseless assertions. You must provide something other than your own assertions. I can assert anything in that manner and disproof? You are mistaken, you must provide some support for your assertions other than your assertions. Teapot in orbit around Uranus anyone? I am responding to what is little more than a gish gallop of baseless assertions, he does not really provide anything that can be called evidence and his logic is at best cartoonish, Sherlock Holmes? Really?

Already answered by CharonY: Yep, that is what I meant. A change in the mechanism that activates reading of a gene, or the mechanism that synthesises proteins, will change the organism, just as mutations in DNA do. Say we have a extremely reduced juke box. It reads tones from a medium, and plays them. Take the very short melody C, A, G, E. Now imagine we want to hear the melody B,A,C,H (in German b-moll is called 'H'). We can do 2 things: change the medium with the tones we want; or change the reader of the juke box so that it interprets the same medium as B,A,C,H. The message, or if you want the code, only gets its meaning in the relationship between the medium and its interpreter. With DNA it is similar. And as just an argument from authority: Dawkins also says that DNA is more like a recipe, than a design of an organism.

Eise, you said you only taught for a short time. Wrong. You still do.

While the regulation of the genes, alternative splicing and possibly even the folding and post-translational functions of some proteins may be affected, eventually the dinosaurs DNA will produce a cell which is like that of the original dinosaur. DNA on its own doesn't really do much as you said, and of course if you take a human egg cell with dinosaur DNA you will most likely not get a dinosaur (or a human for that matter). However if you manage to keep said cell alive, then eventually the DNA that is transcribed will most likely replace all the proteins of a human with those of a dinosaur, the issue here being that I am not sure if such a cell could be kept alive at all, seeing as many transcription factors may not have much conservation in there binding motifs. But as new cells are produced continuously, wouldn't you say that the apparatus to make new cells is build into the DNA, thereby containing all the information to build or even identify an organism? I feel like my point isn't very... clear right now so I hope its at least clear enough; DNA on its own doesn't do much and requires a functional cell to be interpreted, but within the DNA code is the information to build such a functional cell with which to interpret the DNA, therefor the DNA does contain all the information of an organism. Now to be fair though, saying "all the information" may be a bit of a fallacy, we should speak of the chromatin including epigenetic marks and even then there will be some exceptions (there was a paper released a few weeks back showing that microRNA led to transgenerational responses in worms I think, but even then those microRNA's are encoded by the genome). -Dagl

I am wondering a bit why DanielBoyd got so many negatives on his OP. I think some people read it as another Intelligent Design posting, but it isn't. But as OP in a new thread, it is a bit long. Flying over it can lead to some wrong conclusions. But of course DanielBoyd is also to blame for this, given the title of the thread, and the, in my opinion, superfluous mentioning of entropy and its provocative title. For me it is clear that the DNA does not, and cannot, contain all information to build or even identify an organism (except of course by just comparing DNA of known organisms). It needs the complete apparatus of the living cell that the DNA can fulfill its function. A viewpoint one can use is that of a message and its interpretation. A message can only be interpreted by a correct interpreter. AFAIK the cellular 'interpreter' of DNA is not 'neutral'. Even if we had the complete DNA of some dinosaur, we will not be able to reconstruct how it looked like, because how the information is interpreted depends on what the dinosaur cell did with it. (So the Jurassic Park idea, to exchange frog DNA with dinosaur-DNA and so let grow a dinosaur, will not work, because the frog-egg has not the correct environment for the DNA to produce a dinosaur.) So I agree with DanielBoyd that DNA contains the design of an organism is not correct, even if DNA of course has a strong influence on what the organism will look like. It is more like a list of ingredients of a recipe. And of course there are all kind of feedback loops in the mechanism, where proteins synthesized according to a gen, has impact on what the cell does (directly or indirectly), and so possibly also on what genes will be read later on.

I suppose after this comment I'll leave it at it or we may need a separate thread for this, but; A I would always ask my doctor why, and expect him/her to be able to explain why its good for me, B as someone in the field I would then possibly even be able to disagree with my doctor but C this forum isn't the doctor, someone has a (possibly wrong) idea and wants to discuss it. Saying they are wrong without giving any reason is just not helpful. Yes after many reason have been given and all of them are ignored (as is the case in some other threads where someone has an "theory" and subsequently keeps ignoring everyone or picking only the few things they can counter to respond to), we could say "go learn [insert field] as you clearly have no idea what you are talking about". But if we just do that to everyone we disagree with, there's not going to be many interesting discussions and people won't learn anything. Let's say I have some fringe idea based on my knowledge of RNA dynamics, and you think its not likely or just plain wrong; how far will we get if I present you the reasons for why I believe said fringe idea, and you just say "welp you got no idea what you are talking about". If it is so obvious, why not respond at least with some amount of detail and use said authority to up lift other people at least a little bit to your level of knowledge. On a side note, I do definitely get, with the amount of crackpot theories, ideas and ignorant people on these forums, that some people don't feel like answering in detail as its not worth the time, but I just think that everyone should try to be above that, especially when its a new member (assuming this isn't a secondary account of someone) and his points have not been addressed properly and in detail yet. Anyway if you disagree or if we continue this discussion we should ask the mods if it can be separate thing as otherwise the thread is overtaken (@ mods, no need if this is the end of our discussion or we both agree to (dis)agree). -Dagl

Allright I'll bite a little, but from what I have seen it is mostly a misunderstanding of how DNA works that makes you make these "assumptions". While I do think you have SOME understanding of biology, you seem to not know enough and thus say certain things are impossible. Reason 1: the genome does contain enough information. Well do you have any evidence for this; cell type specific transcription factors, cryptic transcription start sites, alternative polyadenylation, alternative splicing, post-transcriptional modifications, RNA secondary structures and post-translational modifications lead to a whole lot of diversity, can you give some actual evidence that there is not enough information within the genome or is this just what you believe? Reason 2: The genome only says how to build parts. If we don't have said fats, or essential vitamins or whatever, then the end products cannot be made, so you can definitely produce blueprints and use things which are not within the blueprints but come from somewhere else. I would like to say that a better analogy is that the genome encodes for tools with specific use-limitations which, when combined with the genome, lead to the production of both the factory and the end products. Reason 3: The genome does not determine which of its genes are used and when. Yes it does... epigenetic regulation is a result of the tools encoded by the genome, so indirectly the genome contains information for when parts of the genome are to be used. I don't get why you don't think this is the case, for instance CpG islands are encoded by the genome and DNA methylation enzymes, when guided by cell type specific adaptors and/or by lack of transcriptional activity, will methylate these CpG islands which leads to reduced transcription. All of these things are encoded by the genome, right? Reason 4: The genome cannot guide its products. There's plenty of signals both within the RNA and amino acids (look up nuclear localization signal) which direct proteins, alternatively see the Golgi (which is encoded by the genome) and there's evidence that parts of the DNA codes and/or binding factors/histones lead to chromatin localization within the nucleus (see CTCF and Lamina associated domains, and see super enhancers and transcription factories). Reason 5: No way of reaching the next level. Take a course in genetic embryology, look up hox genes. I don't want to go and explain all of of biological development but for instance, go look at sonic hedgehog and its influence in the formation of your hands and then tell us why this is not encoded by the genome. Reason 6: The limited role of developmental proteins. DamID now I have to explain developmental biology anyway; so lets say the genome has a developmental program to turn cell A into cells that proliferate outwards. This program is activated by a signalling protein and the cells will proliferate away from the source of the signalling protein, the further away they are, the less they proliferate. This is how your fingers can grow. Now you may think, why is it only in 1 direction, and there are other gradients with signals coming from closer to your body which signal the cells not to proliferate, and in between each source of the first developmental signal source are inhibitory sources, thereby the cells will only proliferate in the shape of a finger. This is a super simplified example, but just shows that this can all be done by the genome. Reason 7: Lack of construction endpoint. Don't get what you mean, the genome encodes for both a functional embryonic cell as well as functioning cells in adults, but we get a functional cell from our mother's egg cells. Just DNA alone would not produce anything, there needs to be a factory present already, which has been evolving for SOME time. Reason 8: Diversity from the same genome. Why don't you just learn about histone modifications, DNA modifications, post-transcriptional processing and cell-type specific transcription factors, or just take a course in epigenetics before saying this are impossible. Reason 9: Designed systems can’t repair themselves. Chaperone proteins can sometimes repair themselves, but regardless, your idea of cutting your finger and it"repairing itself" is just plain wrong. The cells die and new cells proliferate filling the gap. You seem very keen on explaining how things work but then you also fundamentally misunderstand certain things... Reason 10: Development is not construction. Construction of the plans to build things (and when to use them etc), construction of the tools and construction of the required materials is all done by the genome, but these tools then interact further with the genome to change things so that developmental progress is made. See all the other points for a more indepth explanation of this. Just learn some biology or at least give real reason why you believe what you believe. You just say "this isn't possible" but then there's soo much evidence that it is possible... -Dagl

Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Citation please. Sherlock Holmes was wrong, this is nothing but a argument from ignorance, if you don't know then you don't know no matter how many things you think you've eliminated deciding something is the truth with no supporting evidence is not valid. Would you say there are no white swans because you've never seen one? Until Australia was discovered there were no white swans as far as anyone knew but there they were. The only thing absurd is using an argument from ignorance, I see no reason to think the "plan" in not contained in the genome just because you can't see it..