Customer Reviews

Information and the Origin of Life

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Kuppers argues that information theory is a bit like real estate - the most important thing is location (or CONTEXT). Most biological information depends on WHERE it is located, both in terms of physical location within the cell as well as the location within a piece of DNA or protein. In my opinion, this is an important aspect that is sometimes left out (unfortunately) in discussions of information theory, where often a totally random sequence is said to be capable of containing the most information. But biology is about CONTEXT, and so a periodic pattern, whilst it might be able to encode LESS information than a random sequence, contains a lot of BIOLOGICAL information.

Kuppers asks the question of "where does biological information come from?", and offers three possibilities:

(1.) The chance hypothesis (Life is the result of a random accident. He cites Jacque Monad's "CHANCE AND NECESSITY: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology").

(2.) The teleological approach (which is close to that of William Dembski's "THE DESIGN INFERENCE: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities").

(3.) The molecular-Darwinistic approach (a reductionistic approach, taking into account information theory and far-from-equilibrium chemistry).

In my opinion, the third approach makes a lot of sense, and Kuppers does a good job of outlining his point of view. I think that part of the problem with the creation/evolution debate is that often the argument focuses only on the first two options.

Vitalism is a profoundly science-ejected concept, though many CAM or 'natural health' cabals falsely claim that vitalism survives scientific scrutiny.

I quote:

"the best-known and in the history of science the oldest form of real material teleology is the so-called vitalism. In the formation of vitalistic theories, the phenomenon of 'life' is understood as the consequence of a life-specific force (vis vitalis) that arranges life processes in a purposeful and system -sustaining manner [p.074...] today, the vitalistic position, with its holistic thinking and its resulting notion of a system-preserving life force, is no longer tenable [p.113...] vitalism, even it its pseudoscientific form, has been shaken to the root by the findings of modern biology [p.185]."

-r.c.