Thursday, August 24, 2023

Where Does the Information Come From?

One of the most perplexing problems, if not the most perplexing problem, for any naturalistic account of the origin and development of living things on our planet is the source of the enormous amount of information that programs the functioning of biological organisms.

In order for even a single cell to function entire libraries of information are required, but since everywhere we find information it's a product of intelligent agents, and since it's astronomically improbable that any significant amount of information could arise by chance, it would seem reasonable to conclude that the information in biological systems is also the product of an intelligent agent.

Of course, an intelligent agent that generates the information in living things would have to be either God or something very much like God and that's a conclusion that is still widely resisted by many in the sciences and elsewhere in academia. Yet it seems inescapable.

The following video features Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe explaining the role of information in life and making the case for an intelligent mind behind it. The video's a bit long (17 minutes) but worth the time. It's episode 8 in a series titled Secrets of the Cell.