Genetic Feedback Repression Loops, Computer Programming, and Dawkins

Feedback repression is a concept in genetics which applies to sending some feedback that causes something to deactivate.  Maybe there's a gene that makes stomach acid.  That's good for as long as it is necessary but there has to be a mechanism to turn it back off.  Your stomach sends back feedback about having enough acid and the gene that makes it deactivates.

The same concept applies identically in programming and there's nothing particularly novel about it except insofar as it relates directly to a biological model.  Another application of this is that some scientists believe Beethoven's music was in part driven by a heart condition that resulted in an arrhythmia that was consequently reflected in his music.  Even if it's true this one seems a bit of a stretch but it has been reported and now you know.

Richard Dawkins is one I love to hammer as I find Bible bashing to be base sophistry and wholly degrading for a scientist of his calibre.  He made his bones in genetics through the idea of one genotype having an effect on another.  It's not my purpose to go deep into that but rather to suggest one organism can easily affect the behavior of another by creating the same proteins used in feedback repression by the target creature.  Many genes are duplicated across organisms so it's not a huge surprise that two organisms could make the same proteins.  How the organisms would find each other and exploit that is where Dawkins comes into it.  How do such mechanisms evolve.

The above is simplistic as I haven't read much of his stuff but that general view is true and a lot of researchers have found it interesting enough to pursue at greater depth.  Another example of it is the large population of bacteria in the human digestive system and it's suggested there is 'communication' with those as well.  This is not aluminum hat science as those pursuing want to know if it's true.  If so, what does it do and how does it work.

(Ed:  you want me to believe there is Christmas in digestive bacteria?)

There's always Christmas in science as everywhere you look, every time you look, there will be something new.  It may not be a pony but it will be something you never had before.