  Griffiths argues that the idea that genes and DNA provide all the information fares no better under intentional theories of information. Intentional theories are aimed at capturing the sense of “semantic information” that human thoughts and utterances allegedly contain (Godfrey-Smith 1999). The version of intentional theory favored by philosophers of biology is teleosemantic. According to teleosemantic theories, a signal represents whatever it was selected to represent (in the process of evolution).  Under this idea, one might say that DNA contains information about development because DNA's effects on development were selected for in the process of evolution. But as Griffiths and Gray (1997) point out, this idea applies to a wide range of entities involved in development, not just DNA. 