On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:30:07 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler 
wrote:

>Perplexed in Peoria  wrote or quoted:
>
>> > Since DNA is basically the same in all life forms and has been for
>> > millions of years, can it be expected that it will not be replaced by
>> > something else in the future? In other words, is it perfect for
>> > sustaining life?
>> 
>> Probably not perfect, but I doubt that it will be replaced.  The reason
>> is that so much "infrastructure" has grown up around RNA/DNA
>> that it would take something like a miracle to come up with both
>> a better basic material plus all of the infrastructure that makes that
>> material work so effectively.  For similar reasons, you will probably
>> never see silicon replaced with a better semiconductor (such as
>> gallium arsenide) for electronics.  Even though there may be better
>> materials around, there is not better infrastructure, and there is no
>> incentive to develop that infrastructure since, by the time you develop
>> it, the silicon infrastructure will have gotten even better and the cost
>> of your development effort will have been wasted.
>
>Won't electronics itself be completely replaced - buy computers that
>either use atomic-scale machinery to perform computation - rather than 
>streams of electrons?
>
>ISTM, that streams of electrons are likely to be both too fat and too
>slow to last for very long.
>
>Silicon semiconductors seem unlikely to go the distance to me - since
>the whole "semiconductor" paradigm is destined for the computing 
>scrap-heap.
>
>Speculating that such technology is here to stay strikes me as rather
>like asserting that watches would always have cogs and springs.
>
>Existing infrastructure or no, *most* technology gets replaced
>by better things as time passes.  Perhaps the best hope for persistence is 
>being totally obvious and fundamental - like a lever or a wheel.  However, 
>DNA doesn't seem to qualify there.
>
>> However, Tim Tyler is almost certain to provide a different science
>> fiction answer to this question.   You can ignore that, if you wish,
>> but don't ignore what he says about clay in his "simpler
replication"
>> answer.  That is real science, though not mainstream science.
>
>I think I may have skipped over the "clay" bit - but the
modern heritable 
>materials are not science fiction.  Organisms really are using books, CDs, 
>DVDs - and the like - to transmit information between generations today.  
>
>Of course DNA has not been totally usurped - but it no longer has 
>anything like the near-monopoly on inheritance it once did.
>
>Its role has already been eroded by the new forms of inheritance -
>even if it will not ultimately be displaced.
>
>Personally I don't give DNA even the tiniest, miniscule chance of
>survival in the long term.  The technology that produced it was
>primitive.  It seems practically inevitable that it will eventually
>be obliterated by the work of intelligent designers and engineers.
>
>It will go the way of many past genetic materials - as described on:
>
>  http://originoflife.net/takeover/
>
>I rather doubt whether there will ever be such an information-storage
>monopoly again.  Living systems have a range of information-storage
>needs.  The market is simply not a one-size-fits-all one.
>
>Information to be preserved over time might sometimes need to be 
>portable, accessible, secure, encrypted, compressed, unchangable,
>easily changable, robust, authenticated, anonymous and replicable.
>
>This is a list full of conflicting demands - and will almost
>inevitably be met by a mixture of systems.
>
>DNA dates from the era when software and hardware were intertwined.
>
>Now, life has reasised that software and hardware can be profitably
>divorced from one another - and that they can be engineered separately -
>and so technological development can occur on both fronts independently.
>
>In other words, it's the message that matters - not the storage medium.
>
>The modern divorce between information and the medium used for storing
>it has revolutionised computing - but it has yet to penetrate biology.
>
>However, the revolution will come.  In the future many organisms will have 
>their heritable information stored not in DNA - but in databases in 
>the factories that produced them.
>
>DNA will change roles from storer of heritable information to messenger
>between the database and the phenotype.  The resulting mDNA will thus 
>follow RNA's route out of the mainstream of biology - and into the 
>periphery.

Biological information storage and copying using DNA (or RNA) has been
around for billions of years.  Human information storage using "hard
copy" writing on tablets, papyri, manuscripts, and books has been
around for thousands of years. There is no form of digital information
storage that has lasted more than several decades.  One of the classic
problems facing librarians and other professionals in the information
storage and retrieval business is to find a method of information
storage that is likely to still be available 50 or 100 or 500 years
from now!  I have "archival quality" mylar punched
"paper" tape that
is likely to last in perfect physical condition for millennia.
Unfortunately, the tape is worthless because there are no punched
paper tape readers available any more.  Similarly, my stacks of IBM
cards, although made of heavy-duty paper and therefore are perishable,
are still in excellent shape but are just as unusable as my 8-inch
floppies. Even the recent 5-1/4" floppies are almost impossible to
read and the 3-1/2" floppies are quickly becoming obsolete. How long
do you think CD's or DVD's will last?  As long as 8-track tape?

"Modern" methods may be more "effective" or more
"efficient" or
"better".   But they certainly do have their drawbacks.  Maybe biology
was extremely clever to stay with a system that works for such a long
time!  Why do you think it would be "beneficial" to change, now?
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