20190516

M. Polo Camacho
2019 Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology  
Roughly, the Central Dogma of molecular biology states that DNA codes for protein, not the other way around. This principle, which is still heralded in biology as an important element of contemporary biological theory (Raineri 2001; Morris 2013), has received much critical attention since its original formulation by ). Yet, despite the vast criticism, there is much about the Dogma that has not been said. Existing discussions, for example, gloss over the many distinct, logically independent
more » ... ngs of the Central Dogma that have been defended in the philosophical and biological literature. This oversight makes it difficult to see which dogma is being criticized, and, more generally, what the overall upshot of these discussions should be taken to be. My aim is to fix this. To this end, I first examine five logically distinct interpretations of the Central Dogma-some of which have been overlooked in the literature to date-and then make explicit why each of these interpretations fail. I conclude that the Central Dogma is empirically inadequate no matter how we slice it. Keywords The Central Dogma • biological information • causal specificity • Francis Crick • genetic code • inheritance of acquired traits
doi:10.3998/ptpbio.16039257.0011.006 fatcat:nretv3joefaznah5jhvqseycey