Information & Life: James Tour Interviews William Dembski
What is information? How does it run the show in biology? In anticipation of a new updated second edition of his classic book The Design Inference, out this month, today’s ID the Future from the vault features Rice University synthetic organic chemist James Tour and intelligent design pioneer William Dembski discussing information theory, information as a meaningful reduction of possibilities, Shannon information versus specified information, and how natural selection has come to function as a God substitute for many scientists, despite the lack of evidence.
“In the biological context…there are a lot more ways to be dead than to be alive,” says Dembski. “What are the ways of being alive? They’re much fewer, and those end up being specified.” Specified information – when improbability meets a recognizable pattern – demands explanation. And while some evolutionary biologists are content to put it down to evolutionary processes, that won’t cut it for those willing to go where the evidence leads. “Information is basically a form of accounting,” Dembski explains. “When you do the accounting, the problem always gets worse as you go back. So you haven’t really explained anything, you’ve just moved the problem around, like a shell game.”
This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation that originally aired on Dr. Tour’s Science & Faith podcast. It is re-posted here with permission.
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Watch this short documentary film Information Enigma to learn more about where information comes from: