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Comment by Volscio | Hacker News Reader

Kevin Kelly interviewed Gleick about the book in last month's Wired:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/mf_gleick_qa/all/1

Kelly: The extreme view would be that all these bits that make up atoms are running on a very big computer called the universe, an idea first espoused by Babbage.

Gleick: That makes sense as long as this metaphor does not diminish our sense of what the universe is but expands our sense of what a computer is.

Kelly: But as you note, some scientists say that this is not a metaphor: The universe we know is only information.

Gleick: I’m not a physicist, but that concept resonates with something that we all recognize: Information is the thing that we care most about. The more we understand the role that information plays in our world, the more skillful citizens we will be.

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And it was only after the invention of the telegraph that we understood that our nerves carry messages, just like wires. When we look back through history, we can see that a lot of different stories all turn out to be stories about information.

It's these kind of statements that drive me nuts about Gleick. If you don't pay much attention, it almost sounds profound. But when you examine it, you realize the statement is almost devoid of meaning.

And, to top it off, he gets the facts wrong, and implies a causal relation when there is none to be found. Galvani did experments on the muscles of frogs in 1791, and proved that electrical impulses could animate movement. The telegraph invention came several decades later.

I just get the feeling Gleick doesn't really understand what he's writing about, or dumbs it down so much for a lay audience that the facts get mangled.

Sounds like the problem people sometimes have with Malcolm Gladwell.

> Galvani did experiments on the muscles of frogs in 1791, and proved that electrical impulses could animate movement.

Galvani show us that there is something, but it was only after the invention of telegraph that we understand, that it's information, what's transferred on nerves.

But there is no evidence to show any sort of causal cross over between the two. You can wave your hands, and say that "obviously" people didn't understand X until we had Y - but there is no historical reference being made to support this claim. Gleick just throws it out because it "sounds right" to him (and us) given our current historical context.

A popular science writer is not a trained historian or academic; but I do think readers of this genre deserve a level of journalistic integrity and depth that is missing here (note: I've NOT read The Information - and am basing my opinion on Gleick's past work and a recent interview about the book).

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