A single human’s DNA has 875 megabytes of data . . . which is equivalent to 106 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica. Geneticist Guillaume Riesen explains it here. It’s important to understand that this 875 megabytes of data is “functional” information with specified complexity, as opposed to “Shannon” information (named after Claude Shannon, MIT engineer and mathematician who developed “information theory”) that merely addresses information carrying capacity. The information storage capacity of DNA is many times that of our most advanced computer silicon chips.

Consider two different sequences:

Sequence 1: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Sequence 2: nit os llc emor osy alg dchr ist dc fral ow gla siw uy ehtsn gdchfra.

Both sequences carry the same amount of information capacity (“Shannon” information). Both sequences have the same complexity. But only sequence 1 is functional information that is designed to produce specific effects. The 875 megabytes of information in human DNA is not Shannon information, but functional information designed to produce specific effects.

Can 875 megabytes of functional information with specified complexity occur via random, mindless processes?

Stephen Myers’ (PhD, Cambridge) summarizes his calculations on page 217 of his book on the mathematical odds of a single cell arising by chance alone with the necessary functional information and specified complexity. Meyer’s conclusion?

“If we assume that a minimally complex cell needs at least 250 proteins of, on average, 150 amino acids and that the probability of producing just one such protein is 1 in 10¹⁶⁴ as calculated above, then the probability of producing all the necessary proteins needed to service a minimally complex cell is 1 in 10¹⁶⁴ multiplied by itself 250 times, or 1 in 10^41,000.”

The number 10^41,000 is incomprehensible to a finite mind. When you consider there are only an estimated 10⁸² atoms in the entire observable universe, that puts 10^41,000 into perspective. A single cell arising by a mindless, random process alone is mathematically impossible.

In 1983 distinguished British cosmologist Sir Fred Hoyle (who was not a Christian) calculated the odds of producing the proteins necessary to service a simple one-celled organism by chance at 1 in 10^40,000. Hoyle compared the problem of getting life to arise spontaneously from its constituent parts to the problem of getting a 747 airplane to come together from a tornado swirling through a junk yard. This is why Hoyle rejected the “Big Bang” theory that articulates a beginning to the Universe and clung to the obsolete “Steady-State” theory which argues that the Universe has eternally existed. He understood the mathematical impossibility of life arising via a random, mindless process, and merely bypassed it by asserting that life was never created but has eternally existed.

We still don’t know scientifically what constitutes the mystery of life. We believe it physically consists of matter and energy (which are interchangeable)———and incredibly complex functional information with specified complexity. We don’t know what constitutes the immaterial aspect of man. But where did this biological information come from? Sequence 1 above is not produced by a cat walking back and forth across the keyboard. And sequence 1 is infinitesimaly simple compared to human DNA information such that it’s somewhat akin to comparing the single solitary note of middle “C” to Bach’s Mass In B Minor, considered by many to be the greatest piece of music ever written. It was Bach’s final, most complex work consisting of functional information with very, very high specified complexity. Mass In B Minor was the ultimate expression of Bach’s belief that “the aim or final goal of all music shall be nothing but the honour of God and the recreation of the Soul.” The score is almost a “text book.” So lengthy and complex is the production that it was, in fact, never performed in its entirety in Bach’s lifetime. There is more information here on this very complex piece of music that soars on the scale of functional information with extraordinary specified complexity.

Functional information with specified complexity can not mathematically arise from mindless, random processes. It requires an intelligent designer———an immensely powerful, unthinkably intelligent Creator in other words.

That, in a nutshell, is the Intelligent Design argument using Information Theory.

Per Ps 139:14, humans are created in the imago dei (image of God) and are “wonderfully” and “fearfully” made.

Update: Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg, admits that recent findings reveal that genetic and even epigenetic sources alone cannot account for the rich complex information of life—not even close. Some other informational source is required. Science writer David Klinghoffer takes Sternberg’s profound explorations and argues that we owe our lives to a genome that is more than matter, and to an informational source that is “immaterial, transcomputational, and beyond space and time.” While Klinghoffer argues for Plato’s “forms”, the phrase “immaterial, transcomputational, and beyond space and time” sounds suspiciously like God to me.