A Response to Dr. Dawkins' "Information Challenge" (Part 1): Specified Complexity Is the Measure of Biological Complexity

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/09/a_response_to_richard_dawkins.html

A Response to Dr. Dawkins' "Information Challenge" (Part 1): Specified
Complexity Is the Measure of Biological Complexity

Last week I posted a link to a YouTube video where Richard Dawkins was
asked to explain the origin of genetic information, according to
Darwinism. I also posted a link to Dawkins' rebuttal to the video,
where he purports to explain the origin of genetic information
according to Darwinian evolution. The question posed to Dawkins was,
"Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or evolutionary process
that can be seen to increase the information in the genome?" Dawkins
famously commented that the question was "the kind of question only a
creationist would ask . . ." Dawkins writes, "In my anger I refused to
discuss the question further, and told them to stop the camera."
Dawkins' highly emotional response calls into question whether he is
capable of addressing this issue objectively. This will be the first
installation of a 3-part response assessing Dawkins' answer to "The
Information Challenge."

What Type of "Information" Is Relevant Here?
Dawkins writes, "First you first have to explain the technical meaning
of 'information'." While that sounds reasonable, Dawkins pulls a bait-
and-switch and defines information as "Shannon information"-a
formulation of "information" that applies to signal transmission and
does not account for the type of specified complexity found in
biology.

It is common for Darwinists to define information as "Shannon
information," which is related to calculating the mere unlikelihood of
a sequence of events. Under their definition, a functionless stretch
of genetic junk might have the same amount "information" as a fully
functional gene of the same sequence-length. ID-proponents don't see
this as a useful way of measuring biological information. ID-
proponents define information as complex and specified information-DNA
which is finely-tuned to do something. Stephen C. Meyer writes that ID-
theorists use "(CSI) as a synonym for 'specified complexity' to help
distinguish functional biological information from mere Shannon
information--that is, specified complexity from mere complexity." As
the ISCID encyclopedia explains, "Unlike specified complexity, Shannon
information is solely concerned with the improbability or complexity
of a string of characters rather than its patterning or
significance."The Inconvenient Truth for Dawkins: The difference
between the Darwinist and ID definitions of information is equivalent
to the difference between getting 10 consecutive losing hands in a
poker game versus getting 10 consecutive royal flushes. One implicates
design, while the other does not.

It is important to note ID proponents did not invent the notion of
"specified complexity," nor were they the first to observe that
"specified complexity" is the best way to describe biological
information. My first knowledge of the term being used comes from
leading origin of life theorist Leslie Orgel, who used it in 1973 in a
fashion that closely resembles the modern usage by ID proponents:

[L]iving organisms are distinguished by their specified
complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple,
well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number
of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of
granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures
which are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as
living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to
qualify because they lack specificity.

(Leslie E. Orgel, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural
Selection," pg.189 (Chapman & Hall: London, 1973).)

Orgel thus captures the fact that specified complexity requires both
order and a specific arrangement of parts or symbols. This matches the
definition given by Dembski, where he defines specified complexity as
an unlikely event that conforms to an independent pattern. This
establishes that specified complexity is the appropriate measure of
biological complexity. This point will be important in the next
installment, Part 2, which rebuts the heart of Dawkins' article.

As a final note, Richard Dawkins' article admits that "DNA carries
information in a very computer-like way, and we can measure the
genome's capacity in bits too, if we wish." That's an interesting
analogy, reminiscent of the design overtones of Dawkins concession
elsewhere that "[t]he machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-
like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular
biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer
engineering journal." (Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian
View of Life, pg. 17 (New York: Basic Books, 1995).) Of course,
Dawkins believes that the processes of random mutation and unguided
selection ultimately built "[t]he machine code of the genes" and made
it "uncannily computer-like." But I do not think a scientist is
unjustified in reasoning that in our experience, machine codes and
computers only derive from intelligence. Regardless, in the next
installment, Part 2, I will assess Dawkins' argument that gene
duplication can increase biological information.

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