Information

(n) “knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction”

Information derives ultimately from the Latin verb informare, “to give form to the mind, to discipline, to instruct, to teach.” The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers the earliest written record of the word used in that sense in a passage from 1387 but adds that the definition is now rare or obsolete. Still, a word generally carries some measure of the force of it etymology. The second definition in the OED illustrates that point: “the action of telling a fact or being told something.” What we are told by a person or by recorded material forms our thinking, opinions, and perspectives.

For those who study the origins of life, information is central to their inquiries, specifically the information carried in DNA. According to Stephen Meyer, “The salient feature of life is the presence of digital information in DNA.” As a leading proponent of the intelligent design theory of life, Dr. Meyer adds, “Information always comes from an intelligent source.” Even evolutionists who deny that idea cannot dismiss the information encoded into DNA.

According to the Center for Science and Culture, it is possible to determine from “the informational properties of natural objects . . . if they bear the type of information that in our experience arises from an intelligent cause. The form of information that is produced by intelligent action, and thus reliably indicates design, is generally called ‘specified complexity’ or ‘complex and specified information.’” Without that information, no species could reproduce. That information forms more than opinions and perspectives. It forms the brain itself – and, perhaps, the mind. Further, the information encoded in DNA implies an author of that information.

All information implies an intelligent source. When that intelligence is merely human, the reliability of the information may become questionable. In recent years, information regarding every event from the pandemic to federal elections has sparked controversy – even rage. The political credo of the provider of information becomes a litmus test for its reliability. If information fails to support a reader’s views, he is likely to label the purveyor unintelligent. Of course, both those on social media and those working for the legacy media use far less pleasant terms than “unintelligent.” In fact, those who disapprove a given bit of information that runs counter to their narrative typically deny any intelligence on the part of its purveyor.

As the information encoded in DNA makes replication of each species possible, the information recorded in books makes possible the replicating of a culture. As the integrity of DNA protects the future of a species, the integrity of cultural information protects each successive generation which builds on that information. Obviously, that integrity is maintained by preservation, not destruction. Traditionally, the transmission of that information has been the charge of schools – from early childhood to post-graduate study. But today schools more and more often participate in the denial or cancelation of information. That is, information borne through the ages of the West’s development into a global civilization.

In A Canticle for Leibowitz, the science fiction classic, men and women (who identify as simpletons) enraged in the aftermath of a global nuclear war rise up in violent protest against the information that facilitated the creation of the weapons of mass destruction. Their protests lead to the burning of books and the murder of those who had mastered the information contained in those books. Like the simpletons in the novel, the Woke in our world seek to erase the past, to pull up the roots of Western civilization and to cancel those who champion it. They recognize the writings and the art of our civilization as the DNA of our culture, a culture they do not want replicated. So, they passionately desire to wipe out that information.