From: Reilly Jones (Reilly@compuserve.com)
Date: Tue Mar 03 1998 - 14:48:18 MST
Geoff Smith wrote 3/3/98: <Selfish DNA, genome structural functions, and
regulatory action(eg. heterochromatin and position-effect variegation) are
all I can think of.>
I can't recall where I saw it, I think it was in "Science Week" a couple
years ago, but someone applied a series of tests to the complete set of DNA
and found that it is virtually identical to human language when the same
tests are applied to it, e.g., they both follow Zipf's Law, etc. These
results *only* were valid when the full complement of junk DNA was
included, and broke down when segments of junk DNA were excluded.
With this in mind, there's a new book out by Jeremy Narby called "The
Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origin of Knowledge" that sounds like it lends
further scientific support to the DNA as language hypothesis.
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Reilly Jones | Philosophy of Technology:
Reilly@compuserve.com | The rational, moral and political relations
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