We all know what information is. We know it when we see it.

If we find a new website, for example, we all know that someone created it — no matter how good or bad it is. We know that it didn't just evolve or appear as a result of chance or a random series of viruses and electronic mutations.

Think of how infinitely more complex a single "simple" plant or animal cell is.

Back in the days of Charles Darwin, scientists didn't know much about the cell. So to many people, the idea that animals could evolve as a result of "natural selection" and random mutations seemed to make some sense.

Now, however, with our knowledge of the complexity of all living cells, information science and DNA, the notion of animals changing from one kind to another or, even more preposterously, that even a single-celled animal would spring to life through spontaneous generation is considerably more difficult to imagine.

It's why evolution in the macro sense is sometimes called "a fairy tale for adults." I would add, "It's a fairy tale for adults who don't want to consider the alternative."

What is the alternative?

The only alternative is the one often laughingly mocked by Richard Dawkins and people like him — "intelligent design."

The biggest crisis for the theory of evolution, which is most often taught not as a theory but as scientific fact, is information science.

Every cell — every strand of DNA — contains a virtual library of information that is passed on to offspring. Where did that extraordinarily detailed information come from? Did it create itself? Did it happen through chance — like the single perfectly crafted piece of literature resulting from the thousand chimpanzees banging away on keyboards for their entire lives?

Do you believe that fairy tale? Are you at least skeptical?

With billions of people on the Internet now for 20 years and millions of websites created by them, have any just spontaneously generated as a result of chance or a random series of electronic mutations or viruses?

That would be quite a story, wouldn't it? But it's not going to happen, ever — not with the creation of real information by a nonintelligent source. Agreed?

So why do we persist in peddling this evolutionary fairy tale to every schoolchild and every university science student as fact? Why does government involve itself in this charade through public funding? Why is the theory of intelligent design pooh-poohed by the scientific establishment, the Academy, government and the entire popular culture?

My theory? Because they can't accept or even entertain the one alternative — that it takes intelligence to create information.

We know this when we see a book. It wouldn't occur to us when we see a book to think of any other possibility than it was the result of an act of intelligence — no matter how idiotic the book might be. When we see a house, we know there was a builder. We don't think for a moment that it assembled itself. We don't think a tornado swept through a junkyard and a house was built as a result.

That kind of systematic creation requires information — whether it's in the mechanical world, in the material world or in the world of life. Life, indeed, is far more complex, as we know now, than what we see in the lifeless material world.

Where did we learn all this a long time ago? In the Bible.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

"The same was in the beginning with God.

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

"In him was life; and the life was the light of men." — John 1:1-4

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.