Abstract

There are (at least) two opposing concepts of biological information, or bioinformation, discussed in the modern philosophy of biology: genocentric (genebased) and holistic. As a main proponent of the former I consider British evolutionist John Maynard Smith and his teleosemantic theory of bioinformation. The latter was proposed by American philosopher Susan Oyama in the form of so-called Developmental Systems Theory (DST). In Maynard Smith proposal bioinformation is strictly gene-based and any non-genetic element of a living organism cannot be considered as a vehicle of informational content. Such information is transmitted from parents to offspring inside the germ cells and every time serves as a blueprint for building the whole organisms. DST claims the opposite: bioinformation cannot be reduced to genetic elements only and is scattered throughout the whole living system. What is more, biological information is not simply transmitted between generations but every time rebuilt from available developmental resources: bioinformation has not only it is phylogeny, but it is ontogeny as well. The aim of this paper is twofold. First: to present the foundations of both aforementioned theories to the reader and second: to discuss the different objections raised against them.