You may want to save this post at Uncommon Descent, in case it
disappears down the memory hole. If you’ve been following
Intelligent Design, you’ve probably run across William Dembski’s
notion of Complex Specified Information, or CSI. Basically, the
argument is that if a system has CSI above a certain level, then
it was intentionally designed (just as “Wherefore art thou
Romeo” exhibits design, while “Mp YuMsAAVVa UU MbMZlPVJryn Viw
MfHyNA FHh” doesn’t). Living beings (or their genomes) have
sufficiently-high CSI, and were therefore designed. QED. So the
question from day one has been, “so how exactly does one
calculate CSI and get an actual number?” From what I’ve seen,
the standard answer is “go read Dembski’s book”. None of my
local libraries have Dembski’s book, but from the reviews I’ve
read, I gather that for all his talk about CSI, he never gets
around to sitting down and describing how to calculate it. And
now for some reason, the people at Chez Dembski have invited
someone going by the name of MathGr