A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization


 * By Dean L. Overman


 * 244 Pages. Paperback


 * ISBN 0847689662

 

This book presents arguments against the evolutionary proposal that the universe and life itself was a matter of chance, an accident. Also, Dean Overman criticizes Stephen Hawking´s point of view.

In this book Dean L. Overman builds a compelling case that life is no accident. 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. 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. 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. 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.

If logical thinking is an accident, is it trustworthy? -Dean L. Overman, A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization, page 4.