RNAs can do many things. They can store information, act in the world, and respond to the world. Because of these capabilities biologists have proposed a primordial ‘RNA world’ in which RNA, rather than DNA, performed the central role of replicator and repository of adaptive information. Deacon dismisses this hypothesis because replication is not about anything and because the structure of replicating molecules cannot contain information about the environment. I dispute both claims. An RNA and its opposite-sense complement represent each other and, by two rounds of complementation, represent themselves. Although (with some exceptions) nucleic acid sequences do not change in response to their present environment, these sequences embody information about ancestral environments via the selective filtering of alternative sequences in those environments. Nucleic acid sequences are the textual record of what has worked in the past.

RNA可以做很多事情。他们可以存储信息，在世界中行动，并对世界做出反应。由于这些能力，生物学家提出了一个原始的“RNA 世界”，其中 RNA 而非 DNA 扮演着复制器和适应性信息储存库的核心角色。迪肯驳斥了这个假设，因为复制与任何事物无关，而且复制分子的结构不能包含关于环境。我对这两种说法都有异议。一个 RNA 和它的反义互补物相互代表，通过两轮互补，代表它们自己。尽管（除了一些例外）核酸序列不会响应它们当前的环境而改变，但这些序列通过选择性过滤这些环境中的替代序列来体现有关祖先环境的信息。核酸序列是过去有效的文字记录。