A review of In the Beginning was Information by Werner Gitt, Chistliche Literatur-Verbreitung, 2000.
This work, by the prolific German scientist Werner Gitt, should be better known. It takes the form of a carefully structured argument for the non-materialistic origin of information, and for biological information (as encoded in DNA) to be considered in the legitimate domain of this claim. He completes the book with a wide-ranging discussion of the implications of his claims.
Gitt organises his arguments well, progressing carefully and marking his claims as theorems, laws, or whatever is appropriate. He builds his theory of information quickly and succinctly, perhaps too quickly for sceptics would will struggle at each of his theorems. Nonetheless, he provides reasonable evidence as he goes, and his thesis is structured carefully so that it is very open to falsification. Indeed, he claims that he has presented it many times and requested evidence for falsification, but has never received any such.
The key to Gitt's thinking is to realise that information is a metaphysical entity that is used for communication between a sender and receiver, and should not be confused with its physical representation. Shannon's theorem, which is really the only tool modern science has for information, really only deals with the lowest level of information (according to Gitt), the statistical level. Gitt adds four more levels: syntax (the rules that define how information is structured so that a sender can construct a message that a receiver can properly decode), semantics (the definitions of what the information actually means so that the sender can encode meaning that the receiver then understands), pragmatics (the actions the sender is attempting to get the sender to perform by sending the message), and apobetics (the end result the sender is attempting to achieve in the sender). By understanding information at all these levels we can better understand the processes used at each level.
Gitt carefully develops a number of rules of information that shows that information, so understood, must always have a non-materialistic, indeed sentient, source. (In other words, the sender of such information must be personal, like a human being or the Christian god.) He then goes on to show how the genetic code is a form of biological information, and how, if these laws of information apply (and there is no reason to think otherwise), then DNA must have a sentient source, and the only ration candidate is God. Gitt spends some time exploring how beautifully the biological world shows brilliant optimisation based on information. The first part of the book thus forms both a foundation for a new domain of science, and an argument for God from scientific principals. Like all scientific arguments it is, of course, wide open to refutation, and Gitt welcomes this, and has, as mentioned, carefully constructed his argument to make such refutation easy and clear. I note that the criticism of his work online has not attempted any such refutation.
But Gitt doesn't stop there, he also applies his information theories to the Bible, and sheds light on the beauty of the Word of God as analysed using these scientific tools. This is perhaps the best example I've seen of how a truly Biblical, God-centred science could work. Poythress, in Redeeming Science spends a lot of time talking about that concept, but seems completely bereft of any real examples, probably because his idea of God-centred science is actually not so God-centred as Gitt's. In any case, Gitt provides a number of insights into scripture with his analysis. And that ends the main content of the book.
However, Gitt has provided extensive information in three interesting appendicies. The first appendix provides a technical explanation of Shannon's theory of information and its uses, and applies it to natural languages as an interesting exercise. The second appendix provides a very brief overview of the wonder of natural (human) languages -- they really are marvellous things. The final appendix discusses energy in the context of the two main laws of energy (the laws of conservation and entropy), and investigates the difference between the energy inefficiency of human designed systems and the amazing efficiency (and other properties) of biological (ie. God-designed) systems. This provides more evidence for Gitt's claim that biological information can have no other source than a divine creator.
This work would simply annoy materialists, since it flies in the face of their entire belief system at almost every step. However, Gitt has made a valiant, and largely successful I think, attempt to present his arguments in a clear, easily disproved form. It would be good if authors such as Richard Dawkins could write with such clarity and honesty, but I guess their house of cards would be self-evidently unstable to even the most thoughtless reader in that case.
For Christians, however, this is a thought-provoking and challenging work. It provides an innovative mix of science and theology, without diminishing either. For non-technical readers the scientific method and approach used throughout the book (and particularly the very technical Appendix 1) might be a bit difficult, but (with the exception of Appendix 1) Gitt's writing is lucid enough to be approachable by almost anyone.
Recommended reading. The book is freely available direct from Werner Gitt in PDF form here, and you can find all of Gitt's publications (in English) on his page here.