So we can sequence DNA, and we can compare the amino acids to match other strands, but how do we know it means anything bordering on similarity of what it actually represents?
I’m a programmer so the best I can give an analogy to is binary, I guess. Just because you have a bunch of 0s and 1s that match from one part of the machine to another doesn’t mean it acts the same among the “thing” it is a part of when compared to the other.
How do we know our DNA does with a level of certainty to say “this organism is similar to that one?”
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> How do we know DNA sequences make life similar to other life?
Because when they have the same DNA, they make the two things look and act similarly. With the key point that mutations in DNA cause deviations from the norm, and when others have those same DNA mutations, they have the same deviations.
>So we can sequence DNA, but how do we know it means anything?
Because can identify traits that come from DNA. If you sequence 10,000 plants and the 5 of them all have giant fruit all have the same bit of DNA (that’s different than the other 9,995 plants), that tells you that strand of DNA means “big fruit”.
>I’m a programmer so the best I can give an analogy to is binary, I guess. Just because you have a bunch of 0s and 1s that match from one part of the machine to another doesn’t mean it acts the same among the “thing” it is a part of when compared to the other.
….Yeah it does. If a file starts with “PK” in ascii it’s more than likely to have some sort of zip compression algorithm because the whole thing was invented by Phillip Walter Katz who got FUCKED on copyright.
If you find a section of opcodes that have a lot of memwrites, you obviously know that has something to do with data. If you find a section that mostly shuffles stuff off to the northbridge, that’s most probably video or number crunching. You can see patterns like “yep, obviously that’s a CRC check” which means that sections is DRM, went over a lossy connection, or it’s a vital section. DNA has that too.
We’ve identified long-jumps, checksums, code scrubbers, and I/O calls (genes). There’s a whole world of software equivalents in genetic engineering. I recommend “Herding Hemingway’s Cats” for a little exploration of the crazier bits of genetics we’ve discovered.
>How do we know our DNA does with a level of certainty to say “this organism is similar to that one?”
Literally just a diff. Any small change, and I mean a single acid (bit) off can kill the thing, but if the codebase is a near-clone, the creature that grows out of it will be very similar.
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