Chapter 32
Information Theory and the Human Genome
Dr. Dembski says that he uses information theory to prove that the human genome must have been designed, and by an intelligent designer, at that. He wrote about it in a book titled The Design Revolution. Unfortunately for Dr. Dembski, he doesn’t use information theory, nor does he use the human genome.
Dr. Dembski claims that the human genetic code is information, sort of like the bits in a computer code. He then claims that this entitles him to use information theory on the human genome. This shows that he doesn’t understand what an analogy is. The other problem is that after he says he’s going to do information theory, he doesn’t do information theory.
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics. Mathematics relies on equations, formulas, theorems, and lemmas. Without equations, formulas, theorems, or lemmas, it’s neither mathematics nor information theory. Dr. Dembski uses no equations, formulas, theorems, or lemmas. He has a whole book that says that it’s about information theory, but there are no equations, formulas, theorems, or lemmas in it. This is like claiming that there’s a forest when there aren’t any trees. Imagine! An entire book claiming to present advances in a field of mathematics, but it contains no equations! Or formulas! Or theorems! Or lemmas! This is the first time in history that someone has pretended to advance a field in mathematics, without writing any actual mathematics. This is ridiculous. So Dr. Dembski doesn’t so much do math as talk about how he would do math if only he bothered to write equations, formulas, theorems, or lemmas. He does talk about God, though, specifically the Christian God. In a book about mathematics, in which he doesn’t write equations, formulas, theorems, or lemmas.
Dr. Dembski also doesn’t use the human genome. The entire human genome was published in 2001, and everybody was allowed to see it. Yet in his 334-page long book, he doesn’t once look at the real, biological human genome. What’s more, he didn’t look at all the research that’s been done on the real human genome since 2001.
So after saying that he’s going to do math, he doesn’t do math. And after he says he’s going to talk about the human genome, he doesn’t talk about the human genome. Not the actual, biological human genome, anyway. In other words, he doesn’t do what he says he’s going to do, and he doesn’t do it to the thing he says he’s going to do it to. I guess he figures you just won’t notice this if he just uses enough words, and fills a book with them. His book actually says very little, but is something of a masterpiece in saying very little but taking a great many pages to do so.
Science is Based on Reality
It has been said that years ago, engineers did a bunch of calculations, and “proved” that bumblebees can’t fly. But bumblebees kept flying, thoroughly ignoring all the engineers who said they couldn’t. That’s the difference between science and everything else. A scientist will tell you that if bumblebees keep flying, then the engineers are wrong, and not the bumblebees.
Information theory, being a branch of applied mathematics, isn’t science. It is an interesting field, but not science. Physics is science. Chemistry is science. Biology is science. The sciences find things out about the real, natural, material world by making observations and doing experiments. Information theory doesn’t do these things, so it isn’t science.
Information theory may be applied to scientific fields, but you can’t prove something in science using only information theory. If information theory, when applied to a field, makes testable predictions, then those predictions can be tested experimentally. In this way, science can make use of information theory, just as science can make use of pocket calculators, but pocket calculators alone can’t prove something in science in the absence of actual data. Likewise, information theory alone can’t prove anything in science, in the absence of actual scientific data.
None of this stops Dr. Dembski. In fact, very little seems to stop Dr. Dembski, least of all reality. Mostly, Dr. Dembski seems to like writing, and producing large volumes of words appears to be more important than making any sense. Dr. Dembski likes using big words like “propaedeutic,” which means introductory, when he could just say “introductory.” He quotes Schopenhauer—but he but doesn’t say what work he’s quoting from.74 He holds degrees in both mathematics and philosophy, neither of which are sciences. He’s hasn’t done a single experiment. What he appears to like doing is taking a field like information theory, which most people don’t understand, and taking a field like evolutionary biology, which most people don’t understand, and then combining them in a book so that nobody will understand it. I think he figures that if he just makes things seem complicated enough, then people will give up and simply agree that he’s right, because they don’t understand what he’s saying.
Information Theory and Evolutionary Algorithms
Here’s another problem: actual information theorists, who do understand what he’s saying, think Dr. Dembski is nuts. Real information theorists often work with what they call “evolutionary algorithms” and “genetic algorithms” that mimic evolutionary processes. They do this as a means of finding excellent solutions to problems. They deliberately don’t try to design a solution ahead of time, but let simulated evolutionary processes involving random mutations arrive at one.
Real information theorists wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing if someone in their own field had published a reliable paper showing that what they are doing is impossible.
So here’s the interesting thing: don’t you think that if Dembski, or anybody else, had proven, using information theory, that what his fellow information theorists were trying to do was impossible, that his fellow information theorists would have heard about it? Or at least noticed that their evolutionary algorithms didn’t work? Unfortunately for Dr. Dembski, the folks who are the real practitioners of information theory haven’t heard that Dr. Dembski has “proven” that what they routinely do is actually impossible. So they keep doing it, and it keeps working. Just like the bumblebees that kept flying.
So Dr. Dembski has managed to be wrong in two fields at once. Biology, in which he has done no experiments, and information theory, in which he has done no equations, formulas, theorems, or lemmas. In each case, he appears to have drawn conclusions based on no actual data at all. Being wrong in two fields at once is inexcusable failure squared!
As to the real human genome, that has its own problems . . . .
74. Dembski, The Design Revolution, 20.