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aggasalk t1_j3dugka wrote

maybe a too-fine point to make here, but nothing is 'encoded' in DNA. DNA is the base level of the biological process - DNA is fed through molecular machines and the result is construction of various proteins and new molecular machines and etc, and you could see this as a process of "decoding" (stretching the information processing metaphor too far, imho). but nothing was ever "encoded" there.

DNA comes to be the way it not by some kind of encoding process (it would if evolution were more like the Lamarckian idea), but by random mutation and natural selection, and is selected for the fact that, when it runs through that machinery, useful stuff is produced that supports the creation of more of that same DNA.

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CrateDane t1_j3dxp6r wrote

On the other hand, we do talk about genes coding for stuff, so that kind of language is useful (but in a more basic manner - a gene codes for a protein, not a gene (or allele) codes for a big nose).

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aaeme t1_j3e3ju8 wrote

Very good point to make.

I think you can make a valid analogy between

DNA, biochemistry, and the physical forms of all animals and plants etc,

with

An encrypted hash (or lossless compression), the encryption/compression algorithm, and the thing that was encrypted/compressed.

The difference as you rightly point out is that we produce the hash from the desired end result 'encode' videos and images etc,

Whereas DNA evolves by the reverse process: with random hashes and if something useful emerges from that then the DNA gets kept and then adapted with more random changes that get kept or discarded.

Nevertheless, the end result is the same: a compressed/encrypted file that, with the application of the correct algorithm, can produce the entity in question. In that sense, 'encoded' is a valid verb for DNA: our physical forms are encoded within our DNA the algorithm is not reversible and never needed to be.

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