1. The genetic information system -- 2. James Watson, Francis Crick, George Gamow, and the genetic code -- 3. The central dogma of molecular biology -- 4. The measure of the information content in the genetic message -- 5. Communication of information from the genome to the proteome -- 6. The information content or complexity of protein families -- 7. Evolution of the genetic code and its modern characteristics -- 8. Haeckel's Urschleim and the role of the central dogma in the origin of life -- 9. Philosophical approaches to the origin of life -- 10. The error catastrophe and the hypercycles of Eigen and Schuster -- 11. Randomness, complexity, the unknowable, and the impossible -- 12. Does evolution need an intelligent designer? -- 13. Epilogue.