Information- The "I" in CSI, Revisited

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Information. The information age. Information technology. Information theory.

When IDists speak of complex specified information they are using it in the following sense:

information- the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects

It is producing those specific events which make the information specified!

When Shannon developed his information theory he was not concerned about "specific effects":

The word information in this theory is used in a special mathematical sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning.- Warren Weaver, one of Shannon's collaborators

And that is what separates mere complexity (Shannon) from specified complexity.

Biological specification always refers to function. An organism is a functional system comprising many functional subsystems. In virtue of their function, these systems embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the same sense required by the complexity-specification criterion (see sections 1.3 and 2.5). The specification of organisms can be crashed out in any number of ways. Arno Wouters cashes it out globally in terms of the viability of whole organisms. Michael Behe cashes it out in terms of minimal function of biochemical systems.- Wm. Dembski page 148 of NFL

In the preceding and proceeding paragraphs William Dembski makes it clear that biological specification is CSI- complex specified information.

In the paper "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories", Stephen C. Meyer wrote:

Dembski (2002) has used the term “complex specified information” (CSI) as a synonym for “specified complexity” to help distinguish functional biological information from mere Shannon information--that is, specified complexity from mere complexity. This review will use this term as well.

With that said to measure biological information, ie biological specification, all you have to do is count the coding nucleotides of the genes involved for that functioning system and then multiply by 2 (four possible nucleotides = 2^2).

I have even provided an example and by following my process produced a result.

And even a spoon-fed explanation with a worked example isn't going to be good enough. I anticipate a lot of choking on this post...