title: The organic codes. The basic mechanism of macroevolution.
abstract: The origin of the genetic code coincided with the origin of life, while the human codes of cultural evolution emerged almost four billion years later. Modern biology does not recognize any other organic code in nature, and is bound therefore to conclude that the whole of cellular evolution consisted of informational changes. Semantic transformations, natural conventions and biological meaning are things that officially do not exist in the organic world, and play no part in our reconstruction of development and evolution. And yet the properties of organic codes are beginning to emerge in various biological processes. Here it is shown that splicing, signal transduction and pattern formation can be accounted for precisely by the existence of organic codes. It is also shown that those processes were instrumental in bringing about major changes in the history of life, and it is concluded that every main step of macroevolution corresponded to the origin of a new organic code.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Morfologia ed Embriologia, Ferrara.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barbieri
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000235:genetics; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005796:Genes / Q000235:genetics; D005815:Genetic Code / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D012313:RNA / Q000235:genetics; D012326:RNA Splicing / Q000235:genetics; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D012313:RNA; D004247:DNA