Yes, we do know about DNA, transcribed to RNA, which codes for the sequence of amino acids in proteins. What we do not know about biology, however, vastly exceeds what is actually known. While there is a great faith among reductionists that biology can all be explained in terms of contact mechanics, molecular machines and chemistry, the actual explanations are sadly lacking in just about every case. For example, we do not know:
- Why do proteins fold so quickly into a characteristic shape when there are millions of thermodynamically equivalent conformations that a protein could take?
- What controls the unfolding of complexity in development in each case for millions of different species?
- How exactly do acquired characteristics like knee callouses in camels, migration patterns in birds, and predator fear behaviors (which are learned) turn into "hard-coded" behaviors based solely on genes that exactly duplicate the learned / acquired characteristics?
- How do organisms based on blind/dumb contact mechanics "regulate" during development to overcome problems?
- How do organisms heal (which amounts to many of the same processes as development, only in response to particular injuries)?
- How does a single-celled organism like paramecium display complex behavior, including learning?
- How do organisms perceive, which ones are conscious, and how do they learn?
- And on and on. . .
It is obvious at this point that boasts like Eliezer's claiming that biology has been explained reductionistically are almost entirely empty.
Readers who have grown tired of the endless promises of reductionism coupled with an apparent inability on the part of their adherents to notice the lacunae of materialist theories would do well to read Rupert Sheldrake's book on field phenomena in biology, which points towards a very different understanding of morphogenesis, regulation, healing and behavior.
