Is DNA the "blueprint" of life?

True or False: the Genome (DNA) of an organism contains all the instructions (the "blueprint") for making that organism?

It would be faster if you just made your point.

You would think so, but it didn't work before. The funny thing is I've made this point before, or at least tried to (quite recently, in fact) but it didn't even make a dent and/or was misunderstood and ruffled feathers, so thought I'd try a different tack.

I won't be much of a participant in this. What I know about DNA would fit in a hummingbird's purse.

In the absence of any other 'driver' of the processes involved in creating a living creature, I think it has to be.

But something tells me you're about to surprise us?

Yes 

It is one of the most frequently used, overused, and incorrectly used analogies that I have incorrectly used myself. But no, DNA is not a blueprint of an organism. DNA only contains the instructions for a small amount of an organisms, and specifically, instructions to make various proteins.

Here's an interesting article on the subject:

DNA is Not a blueprint 

It's been a while since I last followed this conversation but does the above suggest any particular conclusion?

Multiple points. Some of which I don't recall at the moment when I began this thread two weeks ago. But I do recall one of the major reasons was to address comments by @TruthMuse like this one, and my response to it that followed, which then seemed to be misunderstood. TruthMuse seems to think that *everything* is determined by "code" (DNA), including things like "thermal control" and blood pressure, which simply isn't true. But the view is understandable, because of the oft repeated "DNA is like a blueprint" in biology classes around the world (including mine, for a long time, until I was corrected). DNA certainly has an important *cybernetic* function in *directing/steering* cellular activities (but not in a rigid, deterministic, controlling way). And sure, we can think of the genome like a program that can 'boot' up a cell.

But what's different is that cellular 'machine' can modify that program and the way in which that program is executed, and it does so second by second; constantly adjusting and tweaking how that program "code"---or more accurately, genomic algorithms---are expressed, and for how long and in what way in response to environmental changes.

But it's also more than that. DNA is not the only informational "code" in living organisms. The total information needed to specify a single cell is not contained in the DNA genome---that's an important part of it, but still a small part. The "algorithm for building an organism is therefore not only stored in [DNA] but also in the current state of the entire system"---delocalized, and 'distributed' throughout the entire cell.

"The algorithm itself is therefore highly delocalized, distributed inextricably throughout the very physical system whose dynamics it encodes."

It is hard to explain this much less wrap our heads around it. But what it means is that the problems @TruthMuse raises about the origin of informational "code" with respect to the origin are actually *far worse* than even he seems to realize. It’s not just a which came first 'software' (DNA) or 'hardware' (cell structure, metabolism) chicken-or-egg problem. The information needed to specify a cell is distributed throughout it and stored in the dynamic, ever changing states of the system itself. 

In the same way that we cannot point to any specific part of a cell and say "that's the "life/living" part, because the "life/living" part is the entire system and not any one part, but all parts---and further, not just all parts structurally, but functionally and dynamically changing states in response to the whole and the environment....it makes it extremely difficult to conceive (even in theory, on paper) how to 'build' such a system by random chance luck, step-by-step when the information to specify it is not localized, but delocalized as part of the dynamic state of the system itself. That's not a chicken-or-egg problem, but an enormous chicken-AND-egg problem that seems to require the entire whole all at once.

You think this disproves when I say it works due to the coding in it as it reacts to a myriad of inputs I am wrong?

Nope, just the opposite. What I said actually provides additional support or 'proof' for your fundamental point when it comes to the OOL. 

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