Skip Navigation


The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access first published online on January 31, 2007
This version published online on February 6, 2007
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, doi:10.1093/bjps/axl018
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
58/1/13    most recent
axl018v3
axl018v2
axl018v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sustar, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.

Crick's notion of genetic information and the ‘central dogma’ of molecular biology

Predrag Sustar

Department of Philosophy, University of Rijeka, Omladinska 14, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia

ira.rechner{at}gradri.hr


  Abstract

An assessment is offered of the recent debate on information in the philosophy of biology, and an analysis is provided of the notion of information as applied in scientific practice in molecular genetics. In particular, this paper deals with the dependence of basic generalizations of molecular biology, above all the ‘central dogma’, on the so-called ‘informational talk’ (Maynard Smith [2000a]). It is argued that talk of information in the ‘central dogma’ can be reduced to causal claims. In that respect, the primary aim of the paper is to consider a solution to the major difficulty of the causal interpretation of genetic information: how to distinguish the privileged causal role assigned to nucleic acids, DNA in particular, in the processes of replication and protein production. A close reading is proposed of Francis H. C. Crick's On Protein Synthesis (1958) and related works, to which we owe the first explicit definition of information within the scientific practice of molecular biology.

  1. Introduction
    1.1 The basic questions of the information debate
    1.2 The causal interpretation (CI) of biological information and Crick's ‘central dogma’

  2. Crick's definitions of genetic information
  3. The main requirement for (CI)
  4. Types of causation in molecular biology
    4.1 Structural causation in molecular biology
    4.2 Nucleic acids as correlative causal factors

  5. The ‘central dogma’ without the notion of information
  6. Concluding remarks

This is a new version of this article as there were errors in the abstract and full text in the previous version.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.