The first observation is that DNA, on its own, is useless. It has no causal power. It doesn't generate or explain life or cells. You need an existing cell, an existing organism, to make use of the DNA, as it were. Of course, without DNA, the cell cannot proceed. So this mutual dependence tells you that they're a package deal, and neither can be reduced to the other.<p>The second is that you really cannot get away from telos. The ostensible banishment of telos is not a scientific conclusion, but a metaphysical choice, and one that is incoherent. Telos isn't will or desire or planning or intent per se, though these are examples. Telos is what explains why an effect follows from a cause, and does so with regularity. That striking a match (efficient cause) results in fire (effect) is a question of telos, of the match being ordered toward the effect of fire, effected and actualized by striking. The match obviously is not planning to produce fire, it doesn't will it or want it. But it is causally ordered toward that end or effect. Otherwise, you could not explain why striking it actualizes this potential for fire. You could not make sense of any phenomena, why striking a match results in fire instead of, say, nothing or the appearance of an elephant or whatever.<p>Biology is no different, but here we can speak of higher order telos. And as biology progresses, the more difficult it is to maintain the crude mechanistic view of life reaching back to the 17th century, that is, one modeled on the machine metaphor. Living things, <i>strictly speaking</i>, are not machines. They're integral wholes, not accidental arrangements.