[Alamo-Girl]

Nice to see you, too, balrog666! And thanks for the reply!

But the continuous and gratuitous use of the word "information", as if it conveys some nebulous qualities beyond the simple physical characteristics or chemical attributes of self-replicating molecules, is, to speak frankly, looney.

Not at all. If you'd really like me to spam the thread with a ton of excerpts, you know I'll be glad to do so. But I can make this a lot easier just by asking you to do this thought experiment:

Put a live cell next to a dead cell and describe for us the difference.

Please remember in your answer that the Shannon definition of information is "successful communication".

In sum, one cannot reasonably discuss the "origin of life" without first being able to describe the physical difference between that which is alive and that which is not.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Please remember in your answer that the Shannon definition of information is "successful communication".

I haven't found this definition used by Shannon anywhere. I did find a reference from Berlinski making the claim. If Berlinski's horrible book on algorithms is an example of his work, his re-definition of information isn't very accurate or useful.

According to Shannon and Weaver information is defined as “a measure of one’s freedom of choice when one selects a message”. In information theory, information and uncertainty are closely related. Information refers to the degree of uncertainty present in a situation.

It's better to go to Shannon (or Shannon and Weaver, an easily accessible booklet) to find out what is actually meant rather than rely on a (seeming unreliable) third party. Shannons papers are available online.