To Protect Genetic Information, Cells Go to Extraordinary Lengths

If the real "stuff" of the universe is information, as William Dembski argues in his book Being as Communion, it makes sense that life would make it a high priority to preserve that information. To a Darwinian who deals in chance processes, though, information is just a haphazard by-product of variation and selection. Some recent papers provide an opportunity to compare the explanatory success of both positions.

That DNA bears coded information has been non-controversial since the 1950s, of...