In his 2004 paper “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” Meyer introduces the reader to the concept of Shannon information. Despite the fact that the paper is presented as an ‘extensive review paper’ which ‘ argues that no current materialistic theory of evolution can account for the origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms’ Meyer forgets to add the relevant scientific research showing how variation and selection can increase Shannon information in the genome.
What I find surprising is the number of references omitted in this review paper directly relevant to the origin of biological information.
1 Comment
Paul King · 31 October 2004
I think it is resonable to say that in principle evolutionary
mechanisms can and should produce specified complexity in the ordinary sense of
the term. Dembski's argument relies on his idiosyncratic and confusing
definition of complexity as improbability.
Whether Meyer was confused by Dembski's misleading terminology or
deliberately and knowingly conflated the different meanings of complexity is
a question we will likely never know the answer to. But even the
charitable interpetation indicates very poor scholarship on Meyer's part in
failing to understand a basic feature of his colleague Dembski's work.