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Reminds me of a thought I had about babies: How does that little bunch of cells grow into a living, breathing human being? Surely there isn't enough information in there to do that.

Answer: It can't, and it doesn't. Not without the mother.

(I have no idea if this is indeed true, but I like the loopyness of the idea).

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Nature is frankly amazing. Since it's "spider season" over here, I've been amazed at the fact that something as small as a spider can build something as complicated as a spider web. And that's putting aside all the biochemistry of creating the silk.

But I think in the OP, the amazing part is that it was build by human beings. It's something that humanity as a whole made and understands. But still, it's hard to comprehend all the layers involved…

And here I was thinking this thing called DNA carried the information.

Not all of it.

What's about egg donors or surrogate mothers then? Doesn't the baby turn out like their parents?

You can't bootstrap in a vacuum. For one, the baby will inherit the surrogate mother's bacterial line.

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