In the Beginning was Information

We now discuss some theoretical models which suggest that informationcan originate in matter:Cumulative selection (Latin cumulare = gather): Richard Dawkins,a British neo-Darwinist, revives the historical example of the typewriter-thrummingmonkeys (see Appendix A1.5) and replaces themwith “computer monkeys”. As shown in Figure 21, he begins witha random sequence of 28 letters [D2 p 66 – 67] and seeks todemonstrate how a pre-determined phrase selected from Shakespeare,“Methinks it is like a weasel”, can be derived throughmutation and selection. The random initial sequence with therequired number of letters is copied repeatedly, allowing for randomcopying errors (representing mutations). The computer programchecks all the “daughter” sentences and selects that onewhich most resembles the target sentence. The process is subsequentlyrepeated for the resulting “winning sentences”, until eventually,after 43 “generations”, the goal is reached.There is a spate of new Jesus books which constantly present strangenew and false ideas contrary to the New Testament. Prof. KlausBerger of the Heidelberg School of Theology remarked (1994):“Please buy and read such a book, then you will realise what degreeof gullibility is ascribed to you.” With equal zeal Dawkins publisheshis easily detectable fallacies about the way information originates.It is therefore necessary to discuss his representation fully so thatyou, the reader, can see what feeble-mindedness is ascribed to you.In the initial pages of his book Dawkins [D2, p 13] softens the readerto the purposelessness of living structures: “Biology is the studyof complex matters that appear to have been designed purposefully.”Further along he selects a target sentence and his entire programis designed towards this goal. This game can be played withany random initial sequence and the goal will always be reached,because the programming is fixed. Even the number of letters isgiven in advance. It is obvious that no information is generated, onthe contrary, it has been predetermined. B.-O. Küppers plays a similarevolution game [K3]: The predetermined target word is “evolutionstheorie”appearing twice (see the right hand part of Figure21). It should be clear from Theorem 27 that random processescannot give rise to information.102