[JoeAltmaier]

The translation machinery is nowhere represented in the DNA. Its the cell soup, that came from mother and her mother before her, back to the primordial soup. Dna is the paper tape; the egg is the computer (or autofac, or self-replicating machine etc). That paper tape has nowhere the instructions for making the egg; only detail for how it operates.

[phkahler]

>> The translation machinery is nowhere represented in the DNA.

Why yes, yes it is. There are genes that code the proteins that make up the ribosome for example. The ribosomes in turn interpret the DNA string to make proteins. This leads to a bit of a chicken and egg problem which I mentioned as the issue of bootstrapping. But the DNA does code everything in the cell, or at least defines the machinery needed to make everything.

[ridgeguy]

I think the DNA does contain instructions for making the egg.

For example, if executing the DNA instructions produces a human female, she'll be born with a lifetime supply of eggs, the developmental instructions for which were part of her startup DNA. Those instructions were definitely not part of the "cell soup", as is shown by mitochondrial donation assisted reproduction technology (aka 'three-parent babies').

[JoeAltmaier]

The egg made the eggs. The DNA said "make an egg". That's the idea. Like a paper tape that you feed into a factory, with one punch, labeled "Man/Mouse". Punch 'Man' and feed it in, and the factory makes a man. So, a man is encoded in one bit? No.

Cells are factories, incredibly complex ones. DNA is a set of punches in a tape.