Gregory Bateson;
{{cquote|Information is a difference which makes a difference.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html||title=The Economy of Ideas: A framework for patents and copyrights in the Digital Age. (Everything you know about intellectual property is wrong.)|author=Barlow, John Perry|accessdate=July 31, 2013}}</ref>}}
Valdemar W.Setzer<ref group=notenota>Dr. Valdemar W.Setzer is a well-known Brazilian computer scientist. He is is a signatory to the list named "[[A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism]]". Found in: {{cite web|url=http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660|title=A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism (List)|accessdate=July 31, 2013}}</ref>
{{cquote|Information is an informal abstraction (that is, it cannot be formalized through a logical or mathematical theory) which is in the mind of some person in the form of thoughts, representing something of significance to that person. Note that this is not a definition, it is a characterization, because "mind", "thought", "something", "significance" and "person" cannot be well defined. I assume here an intuitive (naïve) understanding of these terms.<ref name=setzer>{{cite web|url=http://www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer/data-info.html|author=Setzer, Valdemar W.|title=Data, Information, Knowledge and Competence|accessdate=July 31, 2013}}</ref>}}
Wikipedia;
==Spontaneous appearance ==
[[File:Ultimate Sand Castle.jpg|thumb|200px|A very impressive sand castle on the beach near St Helier in Jersey.]]
Manfred Eigen, Bernd Olaf-Küppers and John Maynard Smith and many other biologists have stated that the origin of information is biology's central problem.<ref name=uncensored /> Some, like Manfred Eigen argue that it is possible for the spontaneous, stochastic, emergence of information out of chaos.<ref name=wilder>{{cite book|author=Wilder-Smith, A. E.|authorlink=A. E. Wilder-Smith|title=The Scientific Alternative to Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory|publisher=The Word For Today Publishers|location=Costa Mesa, California|year=1987|page=23-51|isbn=0-936728-1B}}</ref> In his book ''Steps Towards Life'' Eigen states what he regards as the central problem faced in origins of life research: "Our task is to find an algorithm, a natural law that leads to the origin of information".<ref name=dembski1>{{cite book|author=Dembski, William A|authorlink=William Dembski|title=Intelligent Design:The Bridge Between Science & Theology|publisher=IVP Academic|location=Downers Grove, Illinois|year=1999|page=153-183|isbn=0-8308-2314-X}}</ref><ref group=notenota>The Eigen's book quoted by Dembski is {{cite book|author=Eigen, Manfred|title=Steps Towards Life: A Perspective on Evolution|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1992|page=12|isbn=0-19854751-X}}</ref> [[A. E. Wilder-Smith]], in contrast, states that
{{cquote|If information, like entropy were to arise stochastically, then the basis of Shannon and Wiener´s definition of information would be fundamentally and thoroughly destroyed.<ref name=wilder />}}
Wilder-Smith establishes a distinction between actual and potential information. The former can never be synthesized by stochastic processes, while the latter might be. He establishes a comparison between actual information and negentropy<ref group=notenota>Negentropy, also negative entropy or syntropy of a living system is the entropy that it exports to keep its own entropy low.</ref> and, on the other side, a correspondence between potential information and entropy.<ref name=wilder /> Wilder-Smith proposes a simple example that clarifies the distinction between potential and actual information. The potential to make pictures out of a large amount of randomly distributed dots is infinite although a set of randomly distributed dots will not show in reality an image that looks like something (e.g., a bicycle). The points randomly distributed do possess the capacity for endless amounts of information, but do not communicate any by themselves, so, indeed, there's no actual information.<ref name=wilder />
Lester and Bohlin also agree with Wilder-Smith. They point out that several authors in recent years have established a connection between the genetic code present in DNA and information theory. The overall conclusion of their studies is that information cannot arise spontaneously by mechanistic processes.<ref>{{cite book|author=Lester, Lane P; [[Raymond Bohlin|Bohlin, Raymond G]]|title=[[The Natural Limits to Biological Change]]|location=Dallas|publisher=Probe Books|edition=2nd|year=1989|page=157|isbn=0-945241-06-2}}</ref>
In his book ''[[A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization]]'', [[Dean L. Overman]] builds a compelling case that life is no accident. It is not possible to bring the entire argument of the book here. Overman poses that a central distinction between living and non-living matter is the existence of a genome or a composite of genetic messages which carry enough information content to replicate and maintain the organism.<ref name=overman>{{cite book |author=Overman, Dean L|authorlink=Dean L. Overman |editor-last= |title=[[A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization]]|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|location=Lanham|year=1997|page=33-102|isbn=0-8476-8966-2}}</ref> The information contained in the genetic code, like any information or message, is not made of matter. The meaning of the genetic code can not be reduced to a physical or chemical property.<ref name=overman /> Information content is the minimum number of instructions necessary to specify the structure and, in living systems, information content requires an enormous amount of specified instructions.<ref name=overman /> According to Overman, many have proposed calculations for the probability of complex organic compounds such as enzymes, proteins or DNA molecules emerge by chance. Many have concluded that this probability is extremely low, virtually an impossibility.<ref name=overman /><ref group=notenota>Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the probability of appearance of the different enzymes forming in one place at one time to produce a single bacterium in 1 in 10<sup>40,000</sup>. Hubert Yockey calculated the probability for the appearance of the iso-l-cytochrome c at random as being 2 x 10<sup>-44</sup>. Walter L. Bradley and Charles B. Thaxton calculated the probability of a random formation of amino acids into a protein as being 4.9 x 10<sup>-191</sup>. Harold Morrison obtained in his calculations the impressive number of 1 in 10<sup>100,000,000,000</sup> for a single celled bacterium to develop from accidental or chance processes. As quoted by Overman in the book: {{cite book |last=Overman|first=Dean L|editor-first= |editor-last= |title=A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|location=Lanham|year=1997|page=33-102|isbn=0-8476-8966-2}}</ref>
Evolutionist [[Michael Denton]] wrote the controversial book "[[Evolution: A Theory in Crisis]]". In his book, writing about the origin of life, Denton states: