Nuggets from Cosmos, Creator, and Human Destiny

Genes don’t know what kind of body or what part of it they occupy, nor could they care. Carrots, garden slugs, and fungi have the same DNA that we have, but the genes don’t know the difference. Sagan’s reply wasn’t so clever after all. One’s physical brain is no more capable of thinking than is one’s gut—or than a head of lettuce., the DNA alphabet is identical in all living things. The arrangement of the words in the DNA is what matters, but genes no more understand the meaning of the words they contain than do the paper and ink in a dictionary or encyclopedia understand the information they offer.