Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T05:49:45.069Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Theoretical Role of “Genetic Coding”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Peter Godfrey-Smith
Peter Godfrey-Smith*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The role played by the concept of genetic coding in biology is discussed. I argue that this concept makes a real contribution to solving a specific problem in cell biology. But attempts to make the idea of genetic coding do theoretical work elsewhere in biology, and in philosophy of biology, are probably mistaken. In particular, the concept of genetic coding should not be used (as it often is) to express a distinction between the traits of whole organisms that are coded for in the genes and the traits that are not.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 26 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford CA, 94305-2155.

‡

A version of this paper was presented at the 1998 Australasian Association of Philosophy meetings in Sydney. I am grateful for those present for helpful criticisms. Thanks to Richard Francis, David Hull, Philip Kitcher, John Maynard Smith, Susan Oyama, Kim Sterelny, Patrick Suppes, Johan van Bentham, and many students in my philosophy of biology seminar at Stanford, for discussions and correspondence. Two anonymous referees also made valuable comments.

References

Alberts, Bruce, Bray, Dennis, Lewis, Julian, Raff, Martin, Roberts, Keith, and Watson, James D. (1994), Molecular Biology of the Cell, 3rd ed. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Block, Ned (1995), “How Heritability Misleads About Race”, Cognition 56: 99–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cowie, Fiona (1999), What's Within? Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crick, Francis (1958), “On Protein Synthesis”, Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology 12: 138–163.Google ScholarPubMed
Crick, Francis. (1968), “The Origin of the Genetic Code”, Journal of Molecular Biology 38: 367–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawkins, Richard (1982), The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Freeman.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel C. (1987), The Intentional Stance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Francis, Richard (forthcoming), Genes, Brains, and Sex in the Information Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Futuyma, Douglas (1986), Evolutionary Biology. Sunderland MA: Sinauer.Google ScholarPubMed
Frydman, Judith and Hartl, F. U. (1996). “Principles of Chaperone-Assisted Protein Folding: Differences Between in Vitro and in Vivo Mechanisms”, Science 272: 1497–1502.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, Scott F. (1997), Developmental Biology, 5th ed. Sunderland MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (1999), “Genes and Codes: Lessons from the Philosophy of Mind?”, in Hardcastle, V. (ed.), Biology Meets Psychology: Constraints, Conjectures, Connections. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 305–331.Google Scholar
Gray, Russell (1992), “Death of the Gene: Developmental Systems Strike Back”, in Griffiths, Paul (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 000–000.Google Scholar
Griesemer, James (forthcoming), “The Informational Gene and the Substantial Body: On the Generalization of Evolutionary Theory by Abstraction”, in Cartwright, Nancy and Jones, Martin (eds.), Varieties of Idealization. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Paul and Gray, Russell (1994), “Developmental Systems and Evolutionary Explanation”, Journal of Philosophy 91: 277–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, David L. (1980), “Individuality and Selection”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 11: 311–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonka, Eva and Lamb, Marion (1995), Epigenetic Inheritance and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Judson, Horace F. (1996), The Eighth Day of Creation (expanded edition). Plainview: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Jon and Pigliucci, Massimo (forthcoming), “Genes ‘for’ Phenotypes: A Modern History View”.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip S. (forthcoming), “Battling the Undead: How (and How Not) to Resist Genetic Determinism”, in Singh, Rama, Krimbas, Costas, Paul, Diane, and Beatty, John (eds.), Thinking About Evolution: Historical, Philosophical and Political Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lewontin, Richard C. (1974), “The Analysis of Variance and the Analysis of Cause”, reprinted in Richard Levins and Richard C. Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985, 000–000.Google Scholar
Lodish, Harvey, Baltimore, David, Berk, Arnold, Zipursky, S. Lawrence, Matsudaira, Paul, and Darnell, James (1995), Molecular Cell Biology, 3rd ed. New York: Freeman.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, John and Szathmáry, Eörs (1995), The Major Transitions in Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. (1984), Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Moss, Lenny (1992), “A Kernel of Truth? On the Reality of the Genetic Program”, PSA 1992, vol. 1: 335–348.Google Scholar
Muller, Hermann J. (1947), “Genes”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 134: 1–37.Google Scholar
Olby, Robert (1994), The Path to the Double Helix (enlarged edition). New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Oyama, Susan (1985), The Ontogeny of Information. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pauling, Linus and Delbrück, Max (1940), “The Nature of the Intermolecular Forces Operative in Biological Systems”, Science 92: 77–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkar, Sahotra (1996), “Decoding “Coding”—Information and DNA”, BioScience 46: 857–864.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schrödinger, Erwin (1944/1992), What is Life? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, Kim, Smith, Kelly, and Dickison, Michael (1996), “The Extended Replicator”, Biology and Philosophy 11: 377–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sulloway, Frank (1998), “Darwinian Virtues”, New York Review of Books 45 (6): 34–40 [April 9, 1998].Google Scholar
Watson, James, Hopkins, Nancy, Roberts, Jeffrey W., Steitz, Joan A., and Weiner, Alan (1987), The Molecular Biology of the Gene, 4th ed. Menlo Park: Benjamin/Cummins.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William C. (1986), “Developmental Constraints, Generative Entrenchment, and the Innate-Acquired Distinction”, in Bechtel, P. William (ed.), Integrating Scientific Disciplines. Dordrecht: Martinus-Nijhoff, 185–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar