Title Author Date

ID and Information Theory Nelson , Dr. G. Alan Dec 24, 2005

Is there a good treatise on the ID camp's attempt to tie design to information theory?
If yes, is there a good rebuttal?

I have attempted to read a couple papers by Dembski but he seems to be looking for evidence that some human-like intelligence designed the world -- example of finding an arrowhead with evidence of design rather than "just natural processes." As usual, the whole approach seems to be lacking any testable hypothesis. Maybe I just missed it...

Title Author Date

ID and Information Theory TalkReason , Dec 24, 2005

Dear Dr. Nelson:

Thanks for your letter. William Dembski is considered by ID advocates as their main expert
both in "mathematical foundation of intelligent design" and in information theory. Indeed, one of his cohorts claimed that Dembski is "Isaac Newton of information theory." In fact, however, neither Dembski nor anybody else
among ID "theorists" has made any noticeable contribution to information theory. Attempts to connect ID to information theory are found in various publications by ID advocates, usually not in a systematic way. Such segments
are found, for example, in Dembski's books The Design Inference, Intelligent Design, and No Free Lunch. A fairly systematic critique of Dembski's
treatment of information is found, for example, in Mark Perakh's book Unintelligent Design (chapter 1, section on information theory). Other relevant crtitical comments are scattered over multiple papers by anti-ID
critics, including many posts on this site, mainly in the section Critique of Intelligent Design, as well as some in the Miscellanepus section.

Best wishes,

Talk Reason