Genes and knowledge: Response to Baverstock, K. the gene an appraisal. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2021.04.005

Abstract

This response aims to expand on some of the issues raised by Keith Baverstock's The Gene: An Appraisal, especially on the evolution and nature of knowledge in living things. In contrast to the simple associationism envisaged in "genetic information", it emphasises the dynamic complexity and changeability of most natural environments, and, therefore, predictability based on underlying statistical structures. That seems to be the basis of the "cognitive" functions increasingly being reported about cellular, as well as more evolved, functions, and of the autonomous agency of organisms thriving creatively in complex environments.

Keywords: Evolution; Gene; Information; Knowledge; Learning.