[...]
>
>My comments were addressed to what Dawkins said. I suppose I should have
>said "zoologist" rather than biologist. Satisfied.
>
I think I can find some agreement with both you and
Steve. For example, I would agree with you that the
application of information theory to biology is not
something originated by creationists. The pioneers
were Hubert Yockey and Henry Quastler. There have also
been a host of others (Manfred Eigen, Daniel Brooks,
E.O. Wiley, Koichiro Matsuno, Jefferey Wicken, Gregory
Chaitin ....) who have attempted to apply concepts of
information to biology. There have also been numerous
symposia devoted to the subject. One I just picked out at
random is: <Entropy, Information, and Evolution> edited by
Bruce Weber, David Depew and J.D. Smith. There is also
a newsgroup devoted to the subject, bionet.info-theory.
Nevertheless, the concern expressed by Steve is one that
I also share. Let me illustrate with an anecdote. When I
first became interested in information theory I posted a
question to the bionet.info-theory newsgroup that went
something like this: "How have biologists reacted to the
attempts at applying information theory to their field."
The responses were very interesting. First, I learned real
quickly that this wasn't your typical newsgroup. Some of
the most prominent people in the field participate there
regularly and I was pleased to see some of them answer the
question. A common theme was that the initial reaction was
not very good and several people gave horror stories about how
they were nearly burned at the stake at national meetings.
It seems that many biologists feel that mathematics has very
little to offer in such a complex, messy field as biology.
As a reaction to this, many (especially Yockey) have gone to
great pains justifying the use of information theory in
biology. For example, Yockey spends considerable effort
trying to show that a classical communications system
is "isomorphic" with the genetic information processing
system. Why?, because without such a demonstration
the rest of his book is nonsense. Another thing Yockey
showed, which I thought was fascinating, is that the
Central Dogma follows as a direct consequence of (and
thus could have been predicted by) coding theory. This
is a good indication that information theory may be
useful in biology.
So, the concerns raised by Steve are very real and have
to be addressed before discussion of information as related
to evolution etc. has any meaning. Are these issues being
addressed by Creationists? I don't think so. The most
common source of confusion (and error) in this area involves
a kind of word game. I hate to use the term word game
since this may imply deliberate deceit, which is probably
not the case for many. Anyway, the "word game" goes like
this. One first talks about information in its theoretical
sense. In this case the meaning of the word "information"
is derived from the mathematics, i.e. "information" is
just a name for a parameter in a mathematical theory.
But, when one is explaining what the results "mean", one,
perhaps unconsciously, substitutes a dictionary definition
for "information". Information suddenly takes on a teleological
flavor, some information is more "valuable" than other
information, etc. etc.
It seems to me that Creationists like to talk about information
in the semantic sense and like to believe that these notions
are backed up by the power of an elegant mathematical theory,
but are really uncomfortable in going all the way with the
implications of the mathematical definition of "information",
in particular that random sequences contain the most
information. But my (perhaps too long winded) point here
is that one cannot throw the bath water out and not also throw
the baby out. One cannot pretend to maintain the mathematical
structure of information theory while denying its axioms and
definitions. If creationists want to define information differently,
fine. But they will have to start back at square one, develop a
new theory of information and then show that it has anything
to do with biology.
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University
"It appears to me that this author is asking
much less than what you are refusing to answer"
-- Galileo (as Simplicio in _The Dialogue_)