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The Art, Music And Computer Science Of DNA
Build6 writes "As part of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure, many news publications are writing about what has been done with the discovery so far; The Economist has a very interesting one about DNA's use in art and music. ... You can read all about it either by picking up a copy of The Economist (it's well worth the money, I've subscribed for over a decade), or online." And Clint Harris writes "As part of its series commemorating the 50th anniversary of 'the first scientific description of DNA' NPR recently aired a story comparing DNA to software (RealAudio or Windows Media). 'For many, the best analogy for the way DNA works is that it's like a computer program at the heart of every cell. Some of its programming tricks bear an uncanny resemblance to ones the human brain has dreamed up...DNA is [like] spaghetti code because nature has been tinkering with the system for billions of years like a bad programmer.'"
Software (and now hardware too...) that is inspired by DNA recombination.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I'm really confused by someone equating obtuse code they can't understand as bad programming. I want more discussion on how the information encoded in genes acts. Not "This is the worst kind of spaghetti code you can imagine..." and posturing like we can't possibly understand it.
Fnord.sig
DNA is [like] spaghetti code because nature has been tinkering with the system for billions of years like a bad programmer.
How ignorant of you to say that. There was an article in the Feb. 2003 issue of Scientific American about genetic programming - the creation of new devices and electronic circuity by computer.
It basically involves starting out the core components (resistors, inductors, capacitors, etc) and a design (for a voltage-current converter, perhaps). A supercomputer is able to rewire the circuit through basic evolutionary processes including crossover, copying, and extinction, and come up with a much more efficient circuit.
The resulting circuitry is so effective and original that there have been designs that earned approval from the patent office. They're so complex, much like nature's genetic code.
Sure, it might look like spaghetti code - but you mean to tell me, nature is a bad programmer? Heh.
Google search on genetic programming
Everything2: Genetic programming
What is Genetic Engineering?
The intertwined snakes on a pole symbol comes from the Bible. While the Isrealites were wandering around in the desert complaining, God got tired of it. So, he sent poisonous snakes to bite them, but also had Moses make a pole with bronze snakes on it. anyone who was bitten could look at the pole and not die. At least it was something similar to that, I might have the details a little wrong.
what sig?
Here's the explanation: http://www.medhelpnet.com/caduceus.html
Also, I happen to personally know James Watson. I first met him when he spoke at my commencement. But, I shouldn't tell that story, because it has some racist (and very amusing) content... which would only get me modded as a troll. I've kind of worked with him a bit since then, and he's really a very nice, down to earth, intelligent guy. He hasn't really let this whole thing go to his head. Well, if your work was based on the (alleged) theft of someone else's work (Rosalind Franklin), wouldn't you be a little modest?
Well I guess the problem with the posting is the analogy. Comparing genetic "code" to software implies that there's a writer - in this case "nature" - who is either "good" or "bad" in the works that it perpetrates. The aesthetic and/or moral values of "good" or "bad" don't exist in the evolutionary process, only what works. If a sequence works, then the sequence survives. If it doesn't it dies. Consider Linus when he talks of DRM and Linux: he wants Linux to survive so he won't object to DRM being inserted into Linux; he doesn't want Linux's chances of surving limited. OTOH, RMS is a moralist and an idealist. He doesn't want DRM in Linux - in fact, he sees Linux as a weapon *against* DRM. If he succeeds in pre-empting DRM from Linux, then he will have closed off a route of survivability for Linux - in evolutionary terms, a major no-no.
Of course, this pulls the analogy apart from the inside: no aesthetic or moral judgments, no writer-figure ghosting in the background. What we have is a an autonomous, self-organising system - a far more interesting prospect if you ask me.
Of course, calling it "spaghetti-code" enables you to insert that programmer-figure into the argument. All spaghetti-code needs re-factoring right? Tweaking to make it "right" make it work "better"? I dunno; the self-autonomous self-organising model has worked quite well up to now...and, lets face it, when has trying to make something "better" produced less bugs than you first started with? Particularly with something you barely understand in the first place and are desperately trying to portray with ill-thought out analogies.
h.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Spaghetti code is only dangerous because it's hard to follow and thus understand, a barrier to maintenance and sharing with others. Perhaps the "programmer" simply has the capacity to know and understand the implications of each piece of the code at once - and perhaps also doesn't wish to share the code with other developers.
If you haven't ever picked it up, give it a try. You can read it on a very superficial level and enjoy the dialogs among the characters, flip through it for the Escher prints...but eventually you'll start digging deeper and see things in the same words that you didn't see before. Highly recommended!
Perhaps DNA is more akin to highly optimised compiler output, as opposed to the source code.
It doesn't matter how elegant your implementation is, once an optimising compiler has done it's business the results aren't going to be very pretty to look at (or easy to understand).
As soon as a talented group of software engineers develops a useful decompiler/dissassembler for them, the geneticists will start to be freed from the low level detail overload and some of the elegance of the design will no doubt become more apparent.